N16 Film Title, Director, Actor
Cobra Woman
9. Camp taste draws on a mostly unacknowledged truth of taste: the most refined form of sexual attractiveness (as well as the most refined form of sexual pleasure) consists in going against the grain of one's sex. What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.18.Pure Camp is always naïve. Camp which knows itself to be Camp ("camping") is usually less satisfying.15.The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful . . .41.41. The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to "the serious." One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.[Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp]
Jack Smith, who deified the Dominican starlet in "The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez," referred to the actress as the "Marvelous One." Siodmak's 1944 film features her as the Marvelous Two, playing both virtuous South Seas lovely Tollea and evil twin Naja. Although not a musical, Cobra Woman functions as one, boasting Naja's orgiastic undulating cobra dance and the mellifluous ring of Montez's thickly accented line delivery.[Village Voice]
Pure 'Class A' Hollywood cinema delerium. I always thought I conjured this film into existence as a child during a particularly wretched bout of flu.