Episode 30: Ray Harrison's ALL ABOUT ALICE (1972)

What happens when a short story becomes a classic movie, which then becomes a radio play, and then a Broadway musical, and then a campy drag parody featuring the beefy one-time owner of the Gold's Gym empire? You get Ray Harrison and the GGRC's 1972 film ALL ABOUT ALICE. This week, we're celebrating the American Genre Film Archive's upcoming blu-ray collection of films by the GGRC—a Los Angeles gay social club that began making a series of increasingly elaborate drag parodies for fun on weekends in the early 1960s. These are truly hidden gems of queer cinema, especially the very rarely-screened ALL ABOUT ALICE, which was both the group's most ambitious effort and its final film. Over the course of this episode, we talk about the difficulty in camping a camp classic, how quickly audience demand for hardcore solidified, and the joy of making art just to give your friends a few laughs. (Plus: the cross-generational bodybuilder appeal of Dakota.) 'WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? and the Films of the Gay Girls Riding Club' is due out later this month from the American Genre Film Archive and is currently available for pre-order at vinegarsyndrome.com.