in-house Desert Dykes

[fflo]

Found myself tonight with no Netflix in the house & the only library DVD used up & the gift VCR spitting out the tape (so no gift Celebrity Poker tape tonight) & a bowl of noodles in a mixed-mushroom bechamel sauce I'd wanted to eat in front of moving pictures. So there was the copy of Desert Hearts I bought a good while ago. I watched the director's commentary, which was pretty dull as those things go (she talks a great deal of it about fundraising for the film, which is okay and all, but enough is enough), and the trailer, and now I want to watch the movie through again one of these nights. Even though I've probably seen it 5 times on video by now.

I remember being excited about going to see it when it came out ('86). Went with a handful of folk to a theater in DC we had to search for --- the West End something? --- and I seem to remember we all liked it. I know this baby dyke did. (Baby bi-? Not as pithy, fer sure.) I think I'd heard ahead of time that it had a sex scene that took place in broad daylight with actual sound, and in which you could maybe even figure out pretty much what the women were up to, wonder of wonders. Stevie called the film Desert Dykes, and that's remained my affectionate nickname for it ever since.

On one hand I chuckle at how bold and "out there" the movie seemed at the time; on the other hand, I mourn that the flood of lezbo flicks since has slowed to a trickle, if that. But it was the beginning of something. Some spell of dyke cinema. And I was more than willing to look past a few moments of awkward screen acting and forced dialogue to buy into the picture. Plus the setting (in time & place) was great to be in, completely apart from the lesbian element. That kitchy cowboy decor stuff I do dig. The casino interiors, too, and the exteriors... Transport ya, they do. Or me, anyway. And the songs worked so well in it. (That's one interesting thing the commentary reveals: in the end the rights to the music cost a full quarter of the movie's budget.) Some of the tunes: "Leavin' On Your Mind" -- Patsy Cline
"Rave On" -- Buddy Holly
"Get Rhythm" -- Johnny Cash
"Blue Moon" -- Elvis P
"Be Bop A Lula" -- Gene Vincent
"Wondering" -- Webb Pierce
"Crazy" -- Patsy Cline
"He'll Have To Go" -- Jim Reeves
"Old Cape Cod" -- The McGuire Sisters
"It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" -- Kitty Wells
"Cry" -- Johnnie Ray
"I Wished On the Moon" -- Ella
It's no deep analysis, nor even a well put-together reminiscence, but that's a little of what I'm thinking about that movie tonight.

     

Comments

[madush69.livejournal.com]

Who are the two actresses in the third picture?

[fflo.livejournal.com]

They're all the same actresses (you horn-dog, you)! Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau. The woman who would later be that security babe in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" has a small part in the film, but doesn't kiss on anybody. (Hey, didn't she sleep with Data, the robot?)

[paperkingdoms]

Yes, she did. [/geek hat off]

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I bet he was good.

[madush69.livejournal.com]

Fully functional...
and from the pic, you can see that he loved the puddy-tat.

[madush69.livejournal.com]

I admit, I am a horn-dog...and yes, like many males, I have that fantasy. Y'all know the one. Hell, my icon even knows the one.
I guess it's from all those great two-for-one sales I've seen advertised over the years at Kroger and such ;-)

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I heard once that the psychology behind this common interest men have in 2 women together is that the man projects himself into the situation (thus sees the pair and thinks of the fantasy of being with them). Which is laughable to many a woman who's been in many a version of that situation, but not particularly surprising to think a fella might feel perfectly natural doing.