Behind the Candelabre at Thame Cinema
THAME Cinema 4 All will be showing ‘Behind the Candelabra’, on FRIDAY, October 25, at the Players Theatre, Nelson Street, Thame, at 8pm. The doors will open at 7.30pm and there is a licenced bar.
FILM DETAILS: USA, 2013, 118 minutes, 15 Certificate; Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Starring Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Rob Lowe, Debbie Reynolds and Dan Ackroyd.
Sensationally flamboyant, the very definition of camp excess the like of which has never been seen before or since, Liberace was the highest paid entertainer in the world when he met 17 year old Scott Thorson. It is pretty difficult to imagine more innocent times, times when people really believed that Liberace was heterosexual, but such times there were, and the man himself rigorously and successfully defended himself against claims about his sexual preferences (famously ‘crying all the way to the bank’) at the same time as he pursued a prodigious number of young men, an entourage of lovers employed under the guise of chauffeurs and houseboys and paid companions.
After meeting back stage in Las Vegas in 1976, Scott became Liberace’s lover for a tempestuous five years, and Soderbergh’s final movie tells the story of their consuming and volatile relationship, based on Thorson’s memoir of the same name. It is very funny, furiously paced, riotously entertaining. The humour is often on the dark side, in particular the story of Thorson’s extensive plastic surgery, paid for by his lover in an alleged attempt to make Scott into a younger version of Liberace himself. Rob Lowe as the wonderfully macabre plastic surgeon is a real treat, and a universally brilliant cast is led by Michael Douglas’ career-defining turn as Liberace, which is quite awesomely fabulous. And aside from the theatre of his love life, the film also manages to pay tribute to the effortless genius of a performer who never needed to practice, and who could thump out a virtuoso piano performance at formidable pace, technically flawless, often with only one hand.
A winner with audiences and critics alike – one not to miss.
