Been so long . . .

During his momentary stint as a movie star, Johnny Rotten played a psycho haunting a white socks and black shoes detective played by Harvey Keitel in… well, I know it as Corrupt, the title used for the New York premiere in 1983. Since then it’s had more alternate titles than I can count. (It’s presently known as Corrupt Lieutenant on a wretched, pan/scan DVD.) I recall the ads trumpeting it in both the Village Voice and Soho Weekly News, and, for a week or two, it was ‘the’ thing to see, at least for the downtown crowd. I can’t say that I ever thought much of the picture, but Corrupt did have two or three entrancing scenes of Keitel sitting in his living room, listening to a jaunty tune (co-written by Ennio Morricone) over and over: “Tchaikovsky´s Destruction”. The vocal was credited to ‘Steve’ — just ‘Steve’ — who turned out to be Steve Linford, later the director of Spamhaus. Even though I never heard it again, for decades I could never get the song out of my head. Just recently this decent copy turned up on YouTube, presumably to haunt me into the new millennium… so play it at your own risk!

Downtime

Sophia Loren between takes on Marriage Italian Style; click to enlarge.

Kelsey

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Stiletto pumps in the Black Lagoon

Maria Montez saunters through Universal’s all-purpose jungle backlot, filming Robert Siodmak’s semi-deranged Cobra Woman (1944), via Pour 15 minutes d’amour; click to enlarge.