Salome's Last Dance (1988)

The Original Camp Classic!
This is easily the best version of Oscar Wilde's play out there, if only because it's a comedy. All other versions of Salome act as though the overly loquacious protestations of love and ridiculous tragedy are meant to be taken seriously and not tongue-in-cheek. Wilde wrote the play not as the supposed love poem that some "scholars" suggest, but instead as a parody of the melodrama popular at the time. Salome was the first camp classic and now Ken Russel allows us to experience as it was meant to be seen.

Later Richard Strauss would turn Wilde's work into the odd sort of psychological drama of his opera. And if that's what you want to see buy a version of the opera, don't try to force the play to become it. Allow for the play to be what it is.

Please Re-Release!

A Word for Word Interpretation of Wilde's Salome
I bought this film (VHS) from my local video store years ago & still have it. I'm stunned that the DVD is in such a prohibative price range!!!!!!!!!!
This film is a word for word read of Wilde's play Salome, but what a "wild", filmatic modern interpretation. A very fun movie and campy isn't the only thing this movie is, its very irreverent in the best sense of the word, a most cheesy morsel of goods. I love the words in this play and frankly think the director was a genius with the physical counterpoint to the language of the play. I'm sure Wilde wrote the play
"straight". As a matter of fact he even acted in Salome & he played Salome, so maybe I'm wrong & he didn't write it "straight". The movie is faithful to the "fin de siecle" philosophy pervading Wilde's Salome & as such I believe the director of the movie did a bang up job. KYA

Oh please, someone re-release this film on DVD!
This film is an exquisite study in camp. Susan Sontag's NOTES ON CAMP should be amended to include this movie. I ADORE this movie. Glenda Jackson vamps it up as Herodias, and Stratford Johns is hilarious as Herod. It is fun, it is ribald, it is scandalous and witty, it is Ken Russell at his best (and that's saying quite a bit, because he can be a very uneven director-- you've got the man who on one hand created WOMEN IN LOVE, and then recently crapped out THE FALL OF THE LOUSE OF USHER). Well darlings, enjoy this film, watch it with a glass of champagne and a clove cigarette.