Mistah Kurtz… he fucking nuts.

Boris Karloff is a bug-eyed Mr. Kurtz in this hip, bongo-fury, sub-beatnik fifties adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s tale Heart of Darkness. Karloff does his best over-the-top batshit crazy thing and is joined in a face-off by a half-naked, scenery-chewing and equally bug-eyed Roddy McDowall as Marlow, who overacts his way through the proceedings with considerable gusto.

This ain’t no run-of-the-mill take on Conrad’s classic story but one written by Stewart Stern the screenwriter of Rebel Without a Cause. And like that famous paean to teenage acne and angst, Stern has introduced a psychological subtext that gives the matter a topically Freudian twist which, to be frank, doesn’t quite work.

But heck, that don’t matter when there’s so much fever onscreen with Karloff and McDowall ably supported in their psycho-drama by Eartha Kitt as the Queen, Oskar Homolka as the Doctor, Inga Swenson as Maria, and Cathleen Nesbitt as the Crone.
 

Gone Daddio, solid gone…
 
Heart of Darkness was loosely based on Conrad’s own experiences of his time spent in Africa and was intended as a condemnation of the racist imperialism he had witnessed firsthand. This might get a bit lost in Stern’s script where the Africans are mainly presented as little more than enthusiastic child-like bongo players—but it is what it is and you’re all grown-up enough to make up your own mind about this strange and quite daring television drama.

And if you can’t, well, take a taste of what it’s all about from Gonzo-theorist Erich Kuersten’s long essay “Ride the Snake” over at his blog Acidemic, where he explains just how this “primitive TV broadcast of Heart of Darkness spews forth an admission of evil and in the process exorcises it.” Kuersten is one of those rare original and essential writers who really should have a book of his articles published. ‘Nuff said.

Any-old-how, enjoy the madness of King Boris.

Watch it, after the jump…

 
Eartha Kitt purrs through two Donovan songs like a kitten drunk on catnip. Her post-orgasmic take on “Hurdy Gurdy Man” gives new meaning to organ grinding. And with her sultry rendition of “Catch The Wind” she curls her tongue around each syllable and then launches them into the air like opiated butterflies.

Goddess stuff from German TV circa 1970.
 

 
Here’s the remarkable Eartha Kitt absolutely slaying some of Cole Porter’s greatest lyrics in “Let’s Do It” with a minimum of effort, provenance unknown.

I can’t think of a performer today who has anything remotely like Kitt’s assurance and presence.
 

(Thank you Emily Gordon!)

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Eartha Kitt laughs in the face of a documentarian asking if she would compromise for a man
Phil Spector’s 1965 appearance on Merv Griffin’s show gets tense with Eartha Kitt and Richard Pryor

And this is what he turned into? What a complete shock…
 
So although it’s fairly well-known what a crazy motherfucker Phil Spector is, it’s still somewhat surprising to see that he never even went a little bit out of his way to at least try to affect an air of bare minimum congeniality, or to be charming, or attempt to appear SANE, even when he was on television. From the get-go, he’s hostile to Merv (how can you be hostile to Merv?) and becomes increasingly irritated and paranoid throughout the interview.

By the time Spector alludes to hitting Merv and a very unimpressed and composed Eartha Kitt—who hits him hard with her well-delivered Socrates quip—the audience is hissing and booing him.
 

Eartha Kitt giving a dance lesson to her dear friend James Dean
 
It’s fair to say that actress, singer, and dancer Eartha Kitt never stood on ceremony, and fairer still to say she always gave a very blunt accounting of the facts, no matter how gauche the topic.
 
In her brutally honest autobiography, I’m Still Here: Confessions of a Sex Kitten,‘Kitt gave every detail of the torrid love affairs that became such a part of her public persona.

The CIA kept a fat file on her romantic life after she made Ladybird Johnson cry. When invited to the White House to discuss President Johnson’s plans to combat crime, Kitt spoke so vehemently against the Vietnam War as to bring the First Lady to tears, saying, “You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the street. They will take pot…and they will get high. They don’t want to go to school because they’re going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam.”

After that, it’s really no surprise when her CIA file refers to her as a “sadistic nymphomaniac.” But really, knowing Eartha, they could have just asked.
 

 
Jason Weisberger over at Boing Boing directs us to an amazing flickr photostream of high resolution behind-the-scenes photos from the set of the Batman TV series. The quality is outstanding.

Eartha Kitt has never looked more purrfect.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
Angelitos Negros, a ballad protesting racial discrimination, was written in 1948 by legendary Mexican actor and singer Pedro Infante. It is the title song of one of the classics of the golden age of Mexican cinema.

In addition to Eartha Kitt, Angelitos Negros (also known by its English title, “Paint Me Black Angels”) has been covered by Roberta Flack and Cat Powers.

Eartha is mesmerizing, relying upon nothing more than her extraordinary presence. As she weeps, she sings:

Though the Virgin may be white,
paint me some black angels,
for they go to heaven, too
as all good black people do.
Paint me some black angels now

In its unadorned purity, this video is absolutely perfect and the quality is amazing. I wonder when, where and by whom this was filmed.