THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW
TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX, 1975 | COLOR (EASTMANCOLOR), 100 MINUTES
DIRECTOR: JIM SHARMAN PRODUCER: MICHAEL WHITE SCREENPLAY: JIM SHARMAN AND RICHARD O’BRIEN, BASED ON THE MUSICAL PLAY BY O’BRIEN SONGS: RICHARD O’BRIEN STARRING: TIM CURRY (DR. FRANK-N-FURTER), SUSAN SARANDON (JANET WEISS), BARRY BOSTWICK (BRAD MAJORS), RICHARD O’BRIEN (RIFF RAFF), PATRICIA QUINN (MAGENTA), LITTLE NELL [NELL CAMPBELL] (COLUMBIA), JONATHAN ADAMS (DR. EVERETT V. SCOTT), PETER HINWOOD (ROCKY HORROR), MEAT LOAF (EDDIE), CHARLES GRAY (THE CRIMINOLOGIST)
A newly engaged couple with car trouble takes refuge in the castle of one Dr. Frank-N-Furter…
Within the cult that is Rocky Horror, the mainstream collides with the underground, the traditional with the insanely unconventional, the classic with the iconoclastic. Suffice it to say that in all musical film—make that all film, period—there’s no phenomenon like this one.
It began, as so often, on the stage, with the amiably warped vision of writer-composer-actor Richard O’Brien, who conceived it as a combination horror spoof/comic book/rock-tinged fantasy. Directed by Jim Sharman, The Rocky Horror Show opened in London in 1973 and quickly created a furor. Within two years it had opened successfully in Los Angeles and unsuccessfully on Broadway, and had been filmed in the UK with a cast that (except for Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick) consisted almost entirely of veterans of the stage production.
“Wild and Untamed Thing”: Peter Hinwood, Little Nell, Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick
Although its costs had been kept low, the film drew next to no business when it opened, and its reviews echoed that same enthusiasm. Then, like most flops, it skulked away and died, at least until midnight on April Fool’s Day 1976, at the Waverly Theater in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Midnight movies were, at that time, an increasingly popular way for offbeat and sometimes off-putting films like Pink Flamingos and El Topo to stimulate more devotion and chemical ingestion than they could in conventional screenings. It quickly became clear that Rocky Horror was a midnight cult movie far beyond others, with audiences, that, in effect, jumped into the movie. They talked and yelled back to the screen, came in costume and performed along with the on-screen actors, threw rice and did everything else short of creating a synthetic man or burning down the theater. The mania spread from one city to another and continues, at a less hysterical level, up to the present day—giving Rocky Horror the longest continual release of any film in history.
“Sweet Transvestite”: Tim Curry
With its spoofing, gender-bending, and homage to Britain’s Hammer horror movies, would Rocky Horror have had quite the same voracious effect had it not been a musical? No way, no less than with Grease or The Wizard of Oz. Music and dance are as essential to this film as they are to, say, The Sound of Music. They define the characters (“Sweet Transvestite”), set the tone (“Science Fiction/Double Feature”), and move the action forward (“I Can Make You a Man”), as in any conventional musical. Ultimately, in a song like “Don’t Dream It,” they celebrate this entire phantasmagoria of strangeness, parody, and weird acceptance. Whatever else Rocky Horror may mean to any viewer, it is inclusive, turning away no one and even welcoming the squares. Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter takes sexual omniscience far beyond anything ever seen before on film, but he doesn’t demand or need acceptance. Like everything and everyone else here, he’s simply being his own unapologetic self, and singing and dancing while doing so.
Some viewers can only accept Rocky Horror within that frenzied context of audience participation that gave it such landmark status. Others prefer it straight, all other things being equal, without the water pistols and whatnot. Either way, and like other important or necessary musicals, it defies its naysayers, scoffs at its imitators (and that listless TV remake), invites in the newbies, blesses its faithful, and keeps on going. If movie musicals have often had the aura of a time warp, this is the one that takes it literally.
Tim Curry, Peter Hinwood, Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick
“The Time Warp”
WHAT’S MORE
As fanatics are well aware, there are differences between the movie versions originally run in the UK and in midnight screenings in the United States. Brad and Janet’s choruses of “Super Heroes” were deleted for the United States, the closing credits were redone with cast photos, and the reprise of “Science Fiction-Double Feature” replaced by “Time Warp.” Essentially, it was felt that the American version needed to end on a slightly more upbeat note—which, given the level of audience enthusiasm, might not be totally necessary.
After the “Rocky Horror at Midnight” phenomenon began in earnest, circa 1977, a number of articles reported on and compared the frenzy in various cities. New Orleans often topped the list of most interactive audiences—justifiably, as this firsthand observer can testify. Besides some adept live performers down front who enacted the movie as it ran on the screen, there was the enterprising gentleman who, at Meat Loaf’s entrance, rode a motorcycle down one aisle of the theater, across the stage, and back up the other aisle. Even with the smoke and exotic odors already in the auditorium, the gasoline smell managed to linger for quite some time.
MUSICALLY SPEAKING
In the original show, “Time Warp” came after “Sweet Transvestite.” For the movie, Richard O’Brien decided that they should switch places, which has since become the accepted order for the now-slightly-reworked stage version. This change is logical, since after Frank makes his entrance and sings the show-stopping “Transvestite,” even something as up-tempo as “Time Warp” might seem anticlimactic. From The Broadway Melody to Rocky Horror to La La Land, the smart ones have determined how crucial song placement is to a film’s success.
“Sweet Transvestite”: Little Nell, Tim Curry, Patricia Quinn, Richard O’Brien