A time warp to when Tim Curry was still alive

I got a little tired of just using "R.I.P. [name of cinematic luminary who has just died]" as the subject for my in memoriam posts, so I hope this one isn't too cheeky. Then again, I think Tim Curry was a guy who would have appreciated a little cheek in the discussion of his death, if anyone would.

I might have actually written a post yesterday to memorialise Dolly Parton, but I didn't feel like I had the right. Any Dolly Parton movies I've seen, I haven't seen in 40 years -- that would be 9 to 5 -- and I'd be faking it if I said I had a meaningful relationship to her music. I appreciated her generally the way the whole world does/did, but this is not a blog about great people. It's a movie blog.

And I can say I had a significant relationship with Tim Curry, through the role that will forever be identified with him: Dr. Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Pictured above.

I first saw Jim Sharman's 1975 cult classic in my later high school years, when I was old enough to be going to Harvard Square in Boston at midnight on a Saturday night. That was where they showed the film complete with all the fixins: people dressed up as the characters, people chanting the accompanying comments at the screen, and before theater owners got tired of the clean-up, people throwing rice and other projectiles that had been curated as part of the interactive experience. I'd say I did this about three times, enough to feel like I really "got it" and was a small part of a particular scene.

Because of the uniqueness of that experience, it was a while before I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show again. In fact, it was probably decades. The only repeat viewings I can be sure about are when I watched it in June of 2016 and November of 2020. If there was one other viewing between, say, 1991 and when I started keeping track of my rewatches in 2006, I don't know when it would have been or under what circumstances it would have occurred.

But it was amazing how much of that movie became entrenched in my brain from just a handful of times I went in the early 1990s. I think this was a very real part of my maturation as a young progressive, because this subject matter is not the sort of thing with which I would have had much of a relationship before then. Men in lingerie and mascara and lipstick? It would have either been taboo or I just wouldn't have understood it. 

Tim Curry's performance as Frank brought me into a world of better understanding, even as it was the furthest thing from any sort of teaching tool. This movie was a thumb in the eye of good taste, but it was having a ball with itself, and Curry was a central part of that.

He sashayed. He preened. He licked his lips in naked desire. He bugged out his eyes. He huffed and puffed and played the ultimate drama queen. He thrust his hips as part of "Time Warp." 

And this combination of attributes broke through the shell of an 18-year-old kid whose upbringing was fairly sheltered, even though it was always within a family context, and greater community context, of great liberalism. 

And by the end of this movie, this selfish narcissist who kills people and engages in scientific experiments in order to gratify his own sexual desires? He's worked his way into our heart, and his ultimate demise feels tragic.

All within a context of extreme cheekiness, of course.

Curry did other work. I still remembering him running around the Clue mansion with great fondness. He's really good in The Hunt for Red October. IMDB tells me he was also in Congo. I'm not going to do justice to his 245 television and movie credits here.

But even if he had only ever been Frank-N-Furter, his legacy would have been ensured and we would still be mourning him today.

Rest in peace, Frank.