March 19, 2004
JX Williams' Peep Show
SAT MAY 15 2004
Doors 7:30
Tickets £7 / £5
Peep Show
J. X. Williams (U.S., 1965)
Introduction by Noel Lawrence, director of the J. X. Williams Archive.
Produced in Copenhagen in 1965, Peep Show chronicles a secret history of the Kennedy administration, revealing a Mafia plot to addict Frank Sinatra to heroin.
Tour Dates
Saturday May 8 6pm, La Casa Encendida, Madrid
(http://www.lacasaencendida.com)
Thursday May 13 8pm, Brighton Cinematheque, Brighton
(http://www.cinematheque.org/)
Saturday May 15 7:30pm, Horse Hosptial, London
(http://www.thehorsehospital.com/)
Monday May 16, Cine Side, Newcastle
Wednesday May 19 7:30pm, Cube Cinema, Bristol
(http://www.cubecinema.com/)
Thursday May 26 8pm, La Casa Escandida, Madrid (Films Only)
(http://www.lacasaencendida.com)
For press inquiries and bookings, please contact Noel Lawrence at
415-290-0401.
Peep Show holds a significant place in cinematic history for a number of reasons. Most notoriously, the film's use of pornographic imagery got it banned from several countries and even resulted in the director's brief incarceration in Rome. More importantly, however, the film tackled a multitude of subjects that did not come into vogue until the 70s. Nearly a decade before Coppola and Scorsese, Peep Show offered an unrelentingly grim and realistic portrait of organized crime, undoubtedly influenced by Mr. Williams' personal experiences as a onetime "gofer" to Johnny Rosselli and other mobsters in Los Angeles. Released less than two years after the assassination of JFK, Peep Show was also the first film to explore the dark side of Camelot. Besides tracing the tangled web of theories that may have led to the assassination, Peep Show gives a blistering account of the fixing of the 1960 election and the unholy alliance between Joe Kennedy and La Cosa Nostra.
J. X. Williams was a legendary bottom-of-the-barrel director in the fifties and sixties, pushed even lower by his Commie leanings. On the skids, he drifted around the Continent making cheapo features and the occasional nudie reeler, like the infamous Norwegian Wood. In the late fifties, he fell in with the Chicago mob, helming a number of shakedown films used to extort dough from debauched politicos and celebs. One of the few surviving artifacts of Williams's tawdry career, Peep Show is a strange amalgam of dank noir drama and cheesy journalism, recounting Sam “Momo” Giancana's reign with the Outfit. Styled as a confessional by one of Momo's gunsels, the tabloid tell-all traces the Cosa Nostra's connections first to the fall of Cuba and Kennedy's mob-supported presidency, then to a spreading blight of drug trafficking that swept through Vegas on the way to the White House. The lineup of seedy suspects includes Frank Sinatra, crown crooner to the mob; Babs Deluxe, a voluptuous vixen who could shake it for a shakedown; J. Edgar Hoover, never prettier in a dress; and the anonymous mob enforcer who sings like a true Soprano. Noel Lawrence, the reigning J. X. Williams expert, will talk about this misfit director's overlooked and illicit career.
In addition to screening the London Premiere of PEEP SHOW, film scholar, curator, and archivist Noel Lawrence will give a detailed introduction on the making of the film and the colorful life of its director, including excerpts from Mr. Williams forthcoming memoir The Big Footnote. We will also present three of his short films from the late 60’s, Psych-Burn, Satan Claus, and The Virgin Sacrifice.
Notes by Steve Seid
48 mins, B&W, 16mm, From J. X. Williams Archive
Total running time: c. 90 mins
THE HORSE HOSpITAL
COLONNADE
BLOOMSBURY
LONDON
WC1N 1HX
020 7833 3644
popculture@thehorsehospital.com
www.thehorsehospital.com
posted by James on March 19, 2004 11:20 AM