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Salome's Last Dance is one of those films that will fascinate people or repulse them very like director Ken Russell's directorial style. First viewing I disliked it, seeing it again in a better mood just recently it was much better than remembered, though for me one of Russell's weaker films. A few things stop it from being a masterpiece. Russell does go overboard with the excess at times- not unusual for Russell- and some of those excessive images are disgustingly ugly, especially with Salome licking saliva off her face. Russell also writes himself in an acting role as a photographer and is rather embarrassingly bad and in a somewhat creepy way. Imogen Millais-Scott I had mixed feelings on, she is gorgeous, seductive and age-appropriate, though with a tendency to mug. Even with the excess, Salome's Last Dance does maintain the spirit of Oscar Wilde's play Salome with its beauty and ability to shock. The film is expertly filmed and the production values are a mix of the hypnotisingly beautiful and the decadent, which is hardly inappropriate(Strauss' opera Salome, which I personally love, has those qualities too). The music is a hodgepodge of classical music, and a wonderful hodgepodge at that, Rimsky-Korsakov and especially Debussy the prime composers and they further add to the beautiful yet shocking atmosphere. They are performed very well and mostly fit within the film. The script is witty and uproarious, Herodias has some truly hilarious lines, and the story is interestingly structured with a good touch of the theatrical and the cinematic. You cannot take your eyes away from the dance scene either. Most of the acting is better than its given credit, Glenda Jackson and Stratford Johns especially. Jackson is a little bizarre but also very regal and authoritative and Johns is suitably wry and mischievous, making a potentially tiresome character interesting. Nickolas Grace is a witty Oscar Wilde and Douglas Hodge a mostly effectively warning John the Baptist though he does over-compensate a bit. Overall, easy to see why people will dislike it, it's far from perfect but has interest points and entertainment value. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox

There is never ending debate over the value of work by directors like Russell. He is almost universally written off by professional critics as a mostly sensationalist, tasteless crackpot who's real talent is questionable, yet he is passionately defended by other people and this deserves some comment. Russell's work is often described as "tasteless, vulgar, unrestrained, even misanthropic" and "employing the imagery of sexual excess." One might make a case for the idea that these adjectives describe many fans of Russell's work themselves, or at least that they enjoy these themes in film. The latter is admittedly the case of this author, and unlike many people I certainly feel these are often necessary qualities of good art. Many fans of Russell attempt useless claims that his work is really quite tasteful and not offensive or "over the top" at all, but that would be somewhat inaccurate and in this author's opinion completely missing the point of his work. Compared to normal standards, Russell's films ARE as many critics claim they are, and they will offend people who for the most part should not waste their time viewing his work, and no, offending people is NOT the point of his films, and yes- many nice, healthy, well adjusted people feel his work is fantastic, ingenious and rewarding. Rather than digress into some probably useless philosophical (or political?) arguments over whom is correct or whom is better qualified to comment, it's better that the author's perspective be made clear from the outset. In the end, it might be argued that all ideas about the comparative merits of film or art are pointless, pretentious exercises used to promote arbitrary opinion based on personal taste.

     When I saw this film (on DVD), I was under the impression that it was much older than 1988, for some reason. I have since found nothing online to confirm this, but I will always think of this film as something from the 1970's that was way ahead of it's time, and it has that feel to it. It included a copy of the entire film with live commentary by Russell himself that I found as interesting as the film itself. It is a simple, low budget film, almost deliberately retro in style. The work is Russell in a nutshell. What a man can do with a stage, almost no money, a camera, a few extraordinary friends (including a passionate costume designer), a love of irony and a profound sense of visual style. The elements are crude, simplistic devices- annoyingly, even deliberately so, like archetypal metaphors, and the results completely transcend the execution. That crucial departure is where many critics are simply left behind and forced to write off the work as plainly bad, manipulative sensationalism (unlike every Hollywood film? this film is NOT Hollywood in any way). I could not help thinking how easily this film could be adapted into a cultish, kinky and funny stage play.

     Examining the psychology of eroticism is a hallmark of Russell and is put to great use in this film. That is not some simple offensive device used in Russell's films, it is the whole genius of his work! Sex and eroticism is the driving debacle of social, moral and religious history and deserves a great deal of examination. People have a crying need for Russell's talent of recontextualizing erotica in order to create self-understanding and inspire it's positive aspects within themselves. In other words, if one ever happened to fantasize about any of the crude scenarios Russell presents in his films (though no one can admit it), one might then find it incredibly beneficial to see it presented in an intelligent, imaginative way by someone else. If these themes interest you, I recommend the film highly.

     "Salome's Last Dance" is spectacular only in terms of it's personalities, in no way is (and does not have to be) one of the "greatest" films, yet it is wondrously rare. It is uniquely stylish, and because of it's truly low budget and simple execution, I would say (in direct contradiction of many critics) it is amazingly unpretentious and humble, as well as beautiful.

In the latter years of his career is was obvious that Ken Russell had to work under conditions and budgetary constraints that forced him to scale back on the wild style his exalted in with his previous films. But even a scaled down Ken Russell was oftentimes better than other directors are their best. However Salome's Last Dance is among his weakest films and you can literally feel the straitjacket limiting his creativity. Being set in a single setting as the play is performed for Oscar Wilde himself it feels very stilted and never allowed to grow. It was only recently that I discovered that the young actress playing Salome was stricken blind by an illness just before filming was to begin but Ken Russell kept her in the part. The first time I watched the film in '88 I felt that there was something peculiar about her eyes that I could not quite define. It is not a bad film by any means but within his filmography it might rank low among his best works. It has moments of silliness that cannot be mistaken for any other director. Those who are fans and familiar with his style will be more forgiving of these moments. Ken Russell is a fascinating character and, for good or ill, he made films his way and never conformed to any modern trends. He is missed.

This film WAS created in 1988 by a small group of professionals on a shoe-string budget. However, it is as beautiful and uproarious as the Oscar Wilde original. In fact, nearly all of the dialog is Oscar Wilde's 'Salome', and is executed as deftly as possible. While none of the actors are A-list Hollywood types, they add the spice of life to the dark, sardonic wit of Wilde with skill and saleability. For those of us who have loved this movie for ten years+, the great news is that this film is now available in DVD format. If you are not shy about subtle humor, social anarchy, and a touch of good-natured sodomy, give this film a view.

Late on Guy Fawkes Day, 1892, Oscar Wilde arrives at a high-class brothel where a surprise awaits: a staging of his play "Salome," with parts played by prostitutes, Wilde's host, his lover Bosey, and Lady Alice.

The film was shot for $800,000 over a four-week period in London. Director Ken Russell had been signed by Vestron to a three picture deal after the success of "Gothic", of which this was the first. Imogen Millais-Scott went blind three weeks before filming after contracting glandular fever, but Russell insisted on still using her. This was the right choice.

This film met with modest critical acclaim. The review in the New York Times called it "a perfumed, comic stunt," but noted that "Russell forces one to attend to (and to discover the odd glory in) the Wilde language, which, on the printed page, works faster than Valium." And seriously, how can you go wrong with Jewish midgets, flatulence and Biblical sexuality?

This is a film that operates on so many levels. The framework of the plot is that a group of friends in late 19th century London help Oscar Wilde put on a private performance of his play "Salome," banned in Britain for its controversial political and sexual themes. We get to watch the interactions of the characters in the play, the interactions of the actors in the play (and offstage), and the interactions of the players with the sole member of the audience (the play's author). If you loved "Lilies," you won't go far wrong with "Salome's Last Dance" -- both feature an immersive blurring between the action in the play and the actors portraying it. Don't let anyone tell you much more than that about the film, because there are some delicious surprises.

I really love this Ken Russell film. Very compact it features all of the qualities that I most love about Russell's work. I am not sure if anyone outside of his fans will really enjoy it. DVD contains entertaining commentary from Russell.

This is surely one of Russell's campier ventures (also considered by some as his very worst!) – in which he appears himself, sporting an all-too-fake beard, as a photographer! The film is an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's controversial play "Salome" (for the record, a viewing of the 1923 Silent adaptation of it with, reportedly, an all-gay cast{!} is to follow) which had originally been banned in Britain (having been deemed both obscene and blasphemous!) so that its first representation took place in France – hence, the text necessitating to be translated back into English for this version!

Anyway, Russell has the notorious bisexual author (rather ineffectually played by Nickolas Grace) attend what he believes to be a typical night at a brothel on his birthday, only to have the owner, courtesans, clients and even his upper-class lover Alfred 'Bosey' Douglas surprise him with a clandestine staging of "Salome" (incidentally, the credits appear while he is ostensibly leafing through the programme)! Rather than be transported to the time of the narrative a' la the classic Laurence Olivier production of Shakespeare's HENRY V (1944), here we stick to this one set – presumably so that we can gauge Wilde's reaction to the interpretation of his text (and, in particular, Douglas' own acting in the pivotal role of John The Baptist). However, by doing so, the thing is never allowed to rise above the level of pantomime – though I am not sure the director (who wrote the script himself) intended it to in the first place and, in any case, the proceedings are never taken very seriously (as witness the flatulent running gag, for one!).

Apart from Glenda Jackson (who, decked-out in rather impressive make-up, bravely took on the part of Herodias as a favor to Russell – even if her role is secondary to both Salome and King Herod despite being allotted top-billing), the cast is supbar, with only Stratford Johns (whom I have just watched in a memorable bit as Hugh Grant's butler in Russell's subsequent effort, THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM {also 1988}) attempting a real performance but, I guess, that was to be expected given the amateurish nature of the whole enterprise! As for Salome, played by Imogen Millais-Scott (a Bjork lookalike{!} while others cite Toyah Wilcox, who is more of her time), she is depicted as far more wicked than history would have it and, indeed, Herodias herself (who comes across as a dog that can bark but not bite)! In fact, the latter is not the one to suggest to Salome to ask for the head of The Baptist as a prize for having danced semi-naked before the "Tetrarch" but rather the girl's own idea, since she had earlier seduced – and been rejected by – the prophet (indeed, Salome becomes so obsessed with the man who spoke but ill of her mother that she has no qualms about kissing the lips of his severed head)! For the record, Russell stated in the accompanying Audio Commentary that the actress was half-blind, which perhaps explains why this was her "introduction" to cinema but also her very last film!

Other notable characters here are: a legionnaire in love with Salome and who commits suicide in fear of being found out over his having allowed Salome to see The Baptist; his own (gold-painted!) servant who, serving {sic} no other function after his master's death, takes his place beside the author and proceeds to distract him from the show (eventually disappearing behind the curtains to give vent to their passions – incidentally, the boy in real-life had been an object of contention between Wilde and 'Bosey', so that the latter eyes their dallying from the stage with indignation!); the two guards (there are also some females, naturally bare-breasted and prone to S&M antics!) in charge of The Baptist's incarceration, who supply comic relief all through the picture and, ultimately, take up with Herodias (or, more precisely, the courtesan playing her) – getting down to some 'action' inside a trunk immediately prior to Salome's famed "Dance Of The Seven Veils" (as it happened, the name of a controversial TV-film Russell made for the BBC in 1970, albeit about composer Richard Strauss, and which I watched earlier in my marathon tribute to the late director)!; and even a trio of bickering dwarfs dressed up as Hasidic Jews (for what it is worth, my twin brother's 'costume' for Brad Pitt's upcoming and Malta-filmed zombie epic WORLD WAR Z!).

The title under review, then, ends with Herod ordering the execution of Salome and the Police bursting in on the scene to arrest everybody (with Jackson protesting her noble lineage) – by the way, the obscenity charge leveled at Wilde here was one he would face in real life (brought up by Douglas' own father, the Marquis of Queensberry, who frowned upon his son's unsavory relationship with the author!) and from which he never quite recovered. Having mentioned Wilde's trial, I still need to check one of two rival 1960 films about the case (with Robert Morley in the lead, it simply bore the author's name as a title).

Currently selling for over $100 on eBay, copies of Salome's Last Dance are not easy of cheap to come by. Truly a cult classic. A few years ago it was available from Netflix, but no more.

For those lucky enough to see the film (which I will not discuss) what awaits is a series of set pieces and costumes that manage to merge the magic of theater with that of Cinema. If you are in the right state of mind, few movies are as enjoyable to watch as this one... truly captivating.

If you do choose to see Salome, please do others the favor of re-selling the DVD when you are done with it - think of it as a security deposit. The sound and picture quality of the DVD version is quite good. If you liked the Giger scenes in Alien, this movie is likely for you.

Guy Fawkes Day, 1892. Oscar Wilde goes to a performance of his controversial, banned play 'Salome'. The 'theatre' is a brothel and the players prostitutes. John The Baptist is played by Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred 'Bosey' Douglas. Wilde's interactions with some of the cast ignite Bosey's jealousy.

Written and directed by Ken Russell, this film is a play within a movie. The play is Salome, of course, and it is performed pretty much in its entirety (as far as I can tell. I haven't seen or read the play but the play in the movie seemed complete). It's done very well, with some great performances, especially Imogen Millais-Scott as Salome (and Rose). Glenda Jackson (perennially cast by Ken Russell) as Herodias (and Lady Alice) is also very good.

However, the top layer, the movie, is quite weak. Doesn't add anything to the play and really just serves as padding. The conclusion is quite random and pointless.

Overall, entertaining. Just don't expect anything from the non-play part of the plot.

Poor Oscar Wilde must sit and watch his play "Salome" performed by the inhabitants of a brothel. Russell occasionally turned out some fine films like "Women in Love," but all too often he made films that reflected his bad taste and cheesy style. This is perhaps the most dreadful movie he ever made. From the look of it, it was probably made for a budget of about $1.98. The acting is uniformly awful. The sets are cardboard cutouts. The costumes look like they came from a rummage sale. These sins could have been overlooked if the film managed to be entertaining in some way, but it's a plodding bore featuring dull dialog and a non-existent plot.

I love this film! But, it seems to evoke strong reactions from people. I've recommended it to friends who absolutely hated it. Oh well. Look for the scene where Salome tries to convince John the Baptist to kiss her. "Kiss me with your lips, John the Baptist." It's a beautiful poem and so perfectly done.

There's too much to say about this film. I'll just highly recommend it and leave it at that.

Sick, twisted, bizarre, blasphemous, shocking, and perverse. In short, everything I look for in a Ken Russell movie. The 'professionial' critics really missed the point on this one.

This tiresome movie is a gutless snuff film wannabe. Its prancing, simpering misogyny would never have succeeded if it weren't gauzed up with fashionable "sexual preferences."

Russell manages neatly to solarize Wilde's Salome, capturing and exaggerating everything in it that is opposite to the elements that make Strauss' Salome one of the great operas. Glib, arch decadence is a steamy, mechanical dead end, and this movie is the deadest. It has all the wit of poop jokes and pornographic caricatures of the Mona Lisa.

D. H. Lawrence was contemptuous of decadence. The "marriage" of Lawrence and Russell was a rape, folks. And Lawrence was dead.

I stumbled across this on youtube while looking for the opera, a scene of Millais-Scott reciting the love poetry. The movie grew on me and I have now watched it a number of times and find it fascinating.

This is an almost comic strip version of the Biblical event. Wilde's play has serious issues with repetition, but the director's wife's version of the play is vastly superior to the archaic language version I have. It sticks to the original very closely. The Salome character is remarkably modern. She is in a bizarre family situation. Her father's brother had her father killed. Her mother then married her father's brother. Her now step-father openly courts her. Her mother spends her time allegedly having sex with soldiers. John the Baptist, the prophet, says appalling things about both of her parents and the rebellious Salome is naturally attracted to him. She gets him out of prison, attempts to seduce him, recites love poetry to him, and does a strip-tease dance for the king to get whatever she desires, which is to have John beheaded so she can finally kiss/seduce/dominate him. I think it is still the only time I have seen a female character attempt to seduce a male with love poetry, yet it was written in the 1880s. I'm surprised this character hasn't become more popular and the peak of it's fame was probably in the early 20th Century including two silent films.

A lot of the play isn't that entertaining, though the actors do a great job of bringing the play to life. The most interesting thing is the performance by Imogen Millais-Scott, who uses all kinds of vocal styles and mime in her performance. There are significant periods where she is on stage where I end up simply watching her rather than the actors who have all the lines. She uses mime to add an entirely new role to whatever else is going on. A comparison performance might be Nicholson's over-the-top Joker in Batman (also written by an Englishman). Her performance is high school princess-child-provocoteur-dominatrix-psycho.

I found myself watching this film quite a few times and it is such an antidote to the overwhelming seriousness of so many recent productions. The only comparable visual media I can think of is probably children's television, maybe Aardman. It is very much in the English over-the-top pantomime/Flying Circus/Aardman style, but more realistic and threaded with underlying English visciousness.

Oscar Wilde's play "Salome" is staged within this movie as Wilde himself looks on from a couch in a male brothel. I cannot determine if Wilde's play is a bomb, or whether it is this amateurish production that is such. I have rarely been as irritated by a performance as that of Imogen Millais-Scott in her portrayal of Salome. I was grossly put off by her constant mugging. And after a dozen or so times of her saying, "I want to kiss your mouth, John the Baptist," I felt that if she were to say it again, I would scream. She did, and I did.

How Glenda Jackson wound up in this mess is a puzzle. What a waste. Nickolas Grace plays Wilde as a walking and talking epigram machine with no depth. Compare his Wilde with Stephen Fry's in "Wilde" and you will see how paltry Grace's performance is. Douglas Hodge, looking eerily like the late-stage Michael Jackson, plays John the Baptist (in the "Salome" play) with an overwrought energy that gets on your nerves. I felt like cheering when Glenda Jackson said, "Shut him up."

If you find flatulence and belching humorous, then parts of this film will entertain you. If not, be warned that that is how desperate things get.

The music is a hodgepodge of overworked classical pieces.

After the play within the movie ends we see tears coming to Wilde's eyes. I could not figure out if he was thinking, "God, did I actually write that horrible thing," or "That was so bad as to make one cry."

I have to give this a star for the sheer spectacle of it - I give it credit for being uniquely imagined. And another star for the dance scene, even though a "body double" was used for the crucial climax.

In summary, I quote Glenda Jackson's exhortation to members of the cast, "Shut them up, they bore me."

Ken Russell's "Salome's Last Dance" is an intriguing cinematic experience that demands a viewer's endurance to navigate through the director's characteristic excesses. The film, however, offers notable rewards, particularly in the form of Glenda Jackson's captivating performance and the enigmatic portrayal of Salome by Imogen Millais-Scott, who may not be widely recognized but delivers a truly compelling and believable performance.

One of the film's standout features is its "play within a movie" aspect, which adds layers of complexity to the narrative. This unique approach creates an engaging and thought-provoking dynamic for the audience.

Russell's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's controversial play touches on themes of sexuality and desire, famously encapsulated in the line, "sex is the theatre of the poor." While the director's penchant for extravagance may test the viewer's patience at times, the film's performances and its exploration of these themes make it a fascinating cinematic journey.

In "Salome's Last Dance," Russell invites us to look past the excesses and dive into the multifaceted world of desire, performance, and the interplay between them. The film's unique qualities, coupled with Jackson's and Millais-Scott's performances, make it a worthwhile watch for those willing to explore its depths.

Salome's Last Dance (the story is of course based on the notorious Salome of the Holy Bible and Oscar Wilde's play) is one of those rare bizarre, grotesque and colorful gems that you will love or you will not like at all. The Rocky Horror Show only got one advantage over Salome's Last Dance - the great songs. But in this play the actors talk in verses (sometimes). Anyway, this is really one of those pieces I like to "revisit" from time to time. Still a fine dish for the connoisseur of the unusual - and a great "break" from all those card-box Hollywood productions that flood these days our screens.

I first saw this production in a repertory theatre in Calgary and found it spellbinding. The sequence where Salome is telling John the Baptist what attracts and repels her about him is pure poetry. Imogen Millais-Scott (Salome) and. Douglas Hodge (the Baptist) were not enough to satisfy the randy twenty-somethings 2 rows ahead of me, but I found them wondrous. I have watched it many times since. Wilde's script, unsurprisingly, takes a tragedy into the realms of whimsy without losing the tragic elements. Mallais-Scott somehow manages to be both naif and frightening as she says "I will kiss your lips John the Baptist". Setting the performance in front of Oscar Wilde in the house of negotiable affection where he was arrested for indecency and casting Wilde's boyfriend Lord Alfred Douglas (Boise) as John the Baptist was genius. This is Wilde at his most fantastic; so sensitive to human frailty and the damage that frailty can do. Far from being Ken Russel's weaker film, it's a multilayered delight.

Oscar Wilde, who wrote the stage play "Salome", was one of the greatest wits of his time, but lived a lifestyle that created continuous controversy in the society in which he lived. Today he is perhaps best known for authorship of "The Ballard of Reading Jail", which was written during one of the times when he was in prison following a direct confrontation with the government of the time. When he wrote "Salome" it was banned for a time by the English stage censorship and, even though it can be a most rewarding performance to watch, stage productions of it are still relatively infrequent. Consequently many people today are more familiar with the bowdlerised opera which was based on the play and was composed by Richard Strauss. The opera has been filmed by at least two major directors, but for the cinematographic enthusiast there is also this very noteworthy film, directed by Ken Russell, which is much more closely based on Wilde's play. In my opinion this film is dramatically far superior to the rather pathetic opera, and is very worth while seeking out by anyone interested. Basically it exploits the psychological tensions which may have existed in King Herod's court, and which could have accounted for the demand by Salome for the head of John the Baptist on a platter; the story that is so baldly reported in the Bible.

The scenario of this film is set in a brothel where Oscar Wilde is treated to an illegal birthday performance of his play, acted by friends who include some of the employees of the host establishment. This choice of venue has upset many critics but it is totally irrelevant to the play - it is helpful for a modern viewer to remember that, at the time in which this film is set, Oscar Wilde and his literary friends would meet regularly to present impromptu performances of works they had written, basically as a quality control procedure for the final product they eventually published; and this film simply exploits the practice. It is essentially a film of a play, with the story associated with the presentation of the play added to maintain cinematographic interest.

Ken Russell is a controversial director but although the film is not without faults, the overall quality is outstanding, the cast is superb, and there are particularly memorable performances by Glenda Jackson as Queen Herodias and by Imogen Millais-Scott (who shows the capability of looking any age between thirteen and thirty) as Princess Salome. Both the play and the film effectively capture the decadence, which was characteristic of the royal courts of petty despots at this point in history, better than any other works I have seen. It should be a must for anyone who has the opportunity to see it.