PLAGUE DIARY 25: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

The Silver Chalice (1954)
The ending is quite thrilling. Jack Palance — who plays Simon the Magician —  is about to pretend to fly from a huge tower to entertain the Emperor Nero. But unfortunately he decides he IS a god and that he actually CAN FLY. (Miscalculation.) As he’s striding towards the ladder to his death, Virginia Mayo runs after him yelling, “Simon, no! Simon, listen to me, listen!” And once he’s dead, Nero decides to execute Virginia Mayo by throwing her off the same tower. Instead of struggling — which would be sexy, but would give her less chance to ‘act,’ Mayo shakes off the Roman soldiers and marches proudly to her own destruction. But the audience of proles just laughs. And then they loot Rome (well, it’s what we expect of them). They may be laughing at Mayo’s makeup — which is certainly outlandish — her artificial eyebrows slanted frighteningly upward, with an orgasmic splash of shadow pasted over each eye — either green or gold depending, I guess, on whether the makeup artist is having a bad day. It’s hard not to laugh at the costumes and makeup. Especially when Paul Newman makes an entrance in a little white number that makes him look just like a gay angel, and the line that screenwriter Lesser Samuels grants him is: “Why have I been arrested, and why am I dressed like this?” When the movie was released on television in 1966 Paul Newman was so embarrassed that he took out an ad telling people not to watch it. I can’t help thinking that he was embarrassed not only by the quality of the film, but by having to play a sensitive sculptor (Newman was secretly bisexual) who — before converting to Christianity, has to listen to a lecture from the Very European Pier Angeli about how Christ has been ‘misrepresented’ as too much of a wimp. Newman manages to sculpt the perfect image of Christ, but only after he is visited by God.  But before that, Angeli looks deeply into his baby blues, and says “Christ did not wear his hair long as people think. His mouth was sensitive and kind — but there was no trace of weakness in it, it was firm.” Ahh, I see. What else was firm, Pier? And how praytell, do you know? Angeli is countering the common misconception about Christ (then, now, forever? ) that he was effeminate. On this subject, Jack Palance minces no words, ranting“Jesus sacked men of their virility and courage!” I can understand the problem; I had a standard issue portrait of Christ over my bed as a child and I must say I always found Christ sexually attractive. Being somewhat of a masochist, his contortions on the cross were for me, more than just aesthetic displays of male anatomy in motion, they were, well — hot. To top if off, Christ is often depicted with blonde hair (when, as Pious Pier Angeli says, he was — ‘very dark.’ This makes one wonder about the racist cliche — was Christ hung? The answer of course is ‘No, dummy, he was nailed to a cross!’). I wish I could say I’m (just trying to be) entertaining here, but I’m not. This movie proves Christianity is damned sexy. And maybe that’s the reason so many people are Lutherans. This ‘Biblical Epic’ not only features a significant lack of contractions (Don’t say: ’I don’t want to,” but “I do not want to’), and the languid Virginia Mayo — draping herself all over Paul Newman (What arms! What a trace of hair at the cleft of his chest!) lamenting “Only when you leave me with your kisses stinging my mouth do I find life sweet” (VIrginia, honey, I’ve been there), but  even Angelic Pier Angeli finds Paul Newman sexually irresistible — even though she’s a Christian: “I should be thinking of the joys of the next world, but my mind, I’m afraid, is too much on this one.” Well how are you supposed to think about the joys of the next world with Newman’s hard young body quivering right next to you, and the image of Christ in your mind — getting all ‘firm’ but still being ‘sensitive’? What I’m saying here is nothing makes sex sexier than Christianity. Except …..I mean did you really think Mike Pence isn’t horny all the time?  Come on, man, can you imagine how hard he gets when he accidentally ends up in an elevator with some hot chick? Most other guys might be just a little horny, but Mike Pence will be ready to give somebody a jailhouse c-section just because he’s not supposed to be turned on. Nothing horns you up like being told to pipe it down. So what do you think it’s going to be like after COVID-19? It’s going to be party central, man. I don’t mean people are going to party more, just that it’s going to be more fun partying, period. With that COVID-19 sensibility  — i.e. ‘don’t get too close / don’t touch’ / think of your half-dead grandmother dying in the old folks home” hanging over you, how sexy is it going to be to just to have a drink with a few friends and not be kind to anyone? Going against any sort of rule is going to make us incredibly horny — because we’re just being so bad. Can I tell you the number of people who have come to visit me saying: “I can’t tell my sister I’m here?” Well, you have my permission not to tell her, we’ll have a drink and trash talk everybody who disapproves of us, and our hearts will (sincerely) go out to all those people living in bachelor condos with tiny windows they can’t open and no balcony who are going KEERAZY, and parents who are being driven nuts by each other and their insane children. And how much more fun is it going to be, simply to kiss somebody who does not share your last name — since you will so vividly remember almost getting a $5000 ticket for holding hands with someone you weren’t married to, or didn’t live with, during COVID-19. Jesus. I’ll tell you something, this COVID-19 is even better than religion for sexing things up. (Christian guilt was kinda  getting old, you know what I mean?) But COVID-19 makes bad really rad, man.