Richard O'Brien's brainchild stage musical ran with sustained success for seven years on the London stage with continued performances from significant cast members. And that was the state of the cast and director (also from the original production) when the time to turn it into a movie came around. This was after the show flopped on Broadway and while the original run galloped on. Considering the fragile state of those circumstances, the production went ahead. Maybe, just maybe, a movie would do better in the land of movies than a stage play with roots in London glam rock.
Because of the glam kitsch and camp of the science fiction/horror approach (the opening song namechecks the stars of the '50s B-movie-verse freely) the setting is an ambiguous 50s/70s middle America but one where a character can casually mention a castle they passed while driving on a stormy night. Most of the stage cast were British but Brad and Janet needed to convince as American. Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon fronted up and the casting was done. The production was entirely U.K. based. The manor house was real (but constantly hazardous) and in two months of shooting, they had the makings of one of the most durable cult hits in cinema history.
With Bowie's Ziggy persona still in memory and the arrival of Queen, the Brit rock culture diaspora (which included Australia) was ready to peep around the curtain at something like this. The music fits perfectly into the era with its clear glam derivations flaunted and then dangerous gender notions front and centre. And, strangest thing, it worked. It took its time but, by the next two years, were getting requested on local radio. There was a series of display cards I remember from record shops that played on the eras megahits with slogans like "A Different Kind of Jaws" and "Another Kind of Rocky". This solidly flamboyant taunt of a flim had penetrated the "no p**fters!" epoque of Australian culture (heavily distilled in my native North Queensland) and it was here to stay.
I saw it at the drive-in toward the end of 1976 when my sister and her Uni friend Penny thought I'd like to come along. This was about a year after the initial release (strictly arthouse) muletrained its slow way up north to where we were but we knew of it from Penny's original cast recording from the London Show. A small disparate group also went along to the Norline to witness and we raved about it at school, with the conversational notes of elder siblings strudied to the syllable. We were months away from punk's horizon. This would feel like a do-what-thou-wilt appetiser for the coming times.
Brad and Janet are a '50s couple who seem airdropped into the '70s. They might have seen Disney but not Taxi Driver. They are more than primed for the shock of Frankenfurter, given all the stage force and more by Tim Curry who remains principally known for this one role. But it's a corker of a performance that gleefully draws from the best of rock frontmen from Jagger to Bowie and further. His corsets and fishnets and raven black bouff as well as his Cleopatra clownface ran a direct current to the future Siousxie Sioux. His vocal performance was modelled on QEII, recognisable as a Regan-like disconnection for all of his audiences. Rock Horror, is of course an ensemble show and we cannot omit kudos for the lilkes of Little Nell, Patricia Quinn, a pre-fame Meatloaf and Richard O'Brien himself whose Riff Raff makes for a meaner kind of Alice Cooper.
The film shows clear benefit from years of stage success and the transition to the cinema feels effortless. Whether it's the splendour of Frankenfurter's entree in drag that feels more rockstar than stripshow and his gleefully baritone declaration of being a sweet transvesite from transexual Transylvania is so commanding I would bet that any Northerner like the ones that surrounded our car who would have roared off in his panelvan was so captured by Curry's command that the magnetism alone kept them there at the speaker stand, perhaps feeling without registration, a drop of something other than recognition for the art of acting.
Yes, the farcical scenes inject a bawdy note that the threats of the dinner scene renders vague. The middle act does spread out more than it should to the point where it's hard to tell motivations from identities but by the end credits there are some clear thinking points among the reeds of the comedy and campiness that spoke to their time. Now, we might baulk at terms like transvestite or transexual but they were the ones to use before the dialogue was culture-wide and the syllables to sing for maximum effect.
By the end of the decade the songs and scenes were better known than the ones in Grease and the phenomenon of sing and play along screenings (evenmaking it into a scene in the hit Fame) was a regular event. I didn't go to any of those because by then I was too cool for school and deep into the mire of the post punque demi-monde. But they did happen and might even still happen. There was, I was delighted to observe the other phenomenon of fellow NQ-er boys, who were better known for their turns in the cricket and rugby teams, happily doing the time warp at parties, knowing the identifications in the movie. It might have happened but I don't recall any card carrying bogan storming out of such a sight. A movie won't change any ingrained reaction to difference in culture but the sighs, the preens and sheer force of this one can remind us that it can die trying. If you haven't seen it for awhile, put it on again. Drink something. Nibble something. And yell along.
Viewing notes: I have a DVD of this which features the option of the originally intended first act in black and white (turning to colour for The Time Warp) but I wanted to keep it as original as I could and chose the HD one on Disney (current subscription) but it's available for rent or ownership on a few streamers.There is a 4K available but you'll have to but that one online.
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