Queens at Heart: a pre-Stonewall treasure

Back in the mid-90's, San Francisco film historian Jenni Olson would peruse collectors magazines like the now-defunct "The Big Reel" looking for hidden cinematic treasure. She came across a 35mm print being sold by an old projectionist in Kansas City for $75. Olson was always on the lookout for queer/trans-related titles and her radar instantly went up when she saw the title "Queens at Heart" and thought it might be related to the subject of drag. She took a chance and when the single reel arrived, a label covering it stated it should be played in front of the feature length film "She-Man."She-Man was a sordid 1967 florida-made exploitation film by Bob Clark (who would later go on to create the "Porkys" series) and starred famed female impersonator Dorian Wayne as a crossdressing dominatrix who would would force men into being feminized or feel the slash of her whip!

SHE-MAN: Dorian Wayne (in the white dress and whip)

and one of her not-so-voluntary she-men

All in the name of...um, scientific exploration

Olson, who was able to find no information about Queens at Heart prior to purchasing it, nor was it mentioned in any books relating to LGBT film, knew it must have some link to drag or crossdressing because of the She-Man connection. Such films usually played in scummy urban movie theaters (usually called art houses) which specialized in exploitation films. (a prime example of such a film which 'broke out' to be highly successful was 1962's Mondo Cane, which was an Italian 'documentary' best known for its theme song "More" which displayed many titillating and voyeuristic subjects in a similarly serious "scientific" documentary format). Queens at Heart is clearly cut from a similar cloth for the same audience.

Cinematic prospector Jenni Olson

Since there was no date on Queens at Heart and Olson was unable to find other historical information about it, she determined the release date based on the release date of She-Man. It has since been been confirmed it was actually produced around 1965. Olson finally convinced a projectionist friend at the nearby independent Roxie Cinema to show the film after hours so she could finally view it. And what she saw blew her away. She remembers, "I pretty much jumped up and down in joyful amazement at this amazing discovery the whole time we were watching it."

Olson explains what she saw:

A very serious newscaster-type named Jay Martin tells the audience we're about to see the results of a six-month psychological project and introduces us to Misty, Vicky, Sonja and Simone who are seated nervously on a small couch in this guy's wood-paneled office. They go by their first names only, he explains because they are breaking the law. He speaks directly to camera through this whole first section and explains that they are all trannsexuals.

The Queens-at-Heart ladies waiting

for their creepy questioner

Kids... don't turn out like this.

The film has the same ominous tone as many sex ed or 'drug education' films from the 60s and 70s... a mixture of imparting information, exploitation and outright prurient fascination.

Then the film takes us to a drag ball where we see the four girls interacting with tons of other drag queens and regular gay guys dancing and partying at a drag ball. Really amazing verite footage, very multi-racial with black, Latino and white guys and drag queens carrying numbered contestant cards. Great music, amazing hair -- bouffant mania! ...Next Jay Martin interviews three of the four girls and asks them a lot of extremely personal and even sexually explicit questions which play half like concerned therapist and half verging on pornographic.

Jay Martin informs one of the women:

"You don't live a normal life, do you."

It eventually follows one of the girls to her hairdressing job (and we're informed she's breaking the law by being cross-dressed in public) ending with a deadly serious Jay Martin facing the camera and admonishing the viewers, "We know that homosexuality is a psychological aberration that should be treated, but what about those who don't want to change? Who are we to judge?" Who indeed, Jay?

Film restoration challenge

The next stop for the film was the Outfest Film Festival in LA, of which Andrea James is board member. She explains The Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation works with the UCLA Film & Television Archive to restore films, particularly films which portray the LGBT community and are out of general circulation or in danger of being lost. Jenni Olson joined the board of the Legacy Project and the first film from her large collection which she donated was "Queens at Heart" (she also subsequently located a second print of the film). From these two very old and deteriorated prints (since there was no existing master for the film) a new digital print would be processed and generated. Seed money for the project came from activist and writer Joanne Herman (who also paid a matching grant to pay for the remaining restoration which was largely funded with donations from the trans community). A showing of the new print was arranged by Andrea James in LA last year. She notes:

I have viewed a lot of film restorations, but this was one of the more remarkable jobs I have seen. They showed about a minute of the old print before they screened the restoration, and the entire audience gasped and applauded. It looked as if it had been shot yesterday.

Jay Martin: "You're a very tall girl aren't you...

...you're one of the taller drag queens around."

Blonde: "Yes but I'm also one of the most

beautiful ones too, darling."

Cheese, sleaze, but also gold.

Yes, Queens at Heart is exploitation. As Andrea James remarks, "The film to me feels like it was put together by someone with an attraction to trans women. It's generally respectful but has a somewhat lurid feel. The women are very ill at ease when being interviewed, but they are very self-possessed and quite thoughtful in their answers." In other words, despite the framework of "freakshow" or "sexual objectification" one still gets a glimpse of the real women behind the show and a bit of their lives from 45 years ago.

Olson explains the film's impact:

Of course it is extremely significant for us to be able to look back and see this rare portrait of 4 pre-op transsexuals being so candid and courageous in the years before Stonewall. The power of film for bringing us face to face with our forebears is absolutely incredible. I think the film is especially remarkable for how candid and brave the women are in expressing themselves so vulnerably when we can tell that the film was produced more as an exploitation film than as a serious documentary.

Rachel Harlow from 1968's The Queen.

No, this is NOT Helen Mirren.

Andrea James observes, "It's notable for being one of the few pieces of pre-Stonewall color

footage of trans life in Manhattan (or anywhere for that matter)." And this does make it truly a re-found lost treasure. There are films of pre-Stonewall New York like "The Queen" from 1968, about a drag beauty pageant staged at town hall. While most of the participants in that film were gay men, several of the contestants, such as the winner and runner up, eventually transitioned (Rachel Harlow, the winner, had SRS several years later and was involved in a relationship with Grace Kelley's older brother, Kell). Yet as fascinating as The Queen is, it doesn't really portray trans women living in the world as such and is more about drag culture.

A window into another era
remarkably like our own

Queens at Heart demonstrably shows trans women as part of the larger 'gay' community, a community which erupted into anger and activism only a few years later (and a trans community which was already making waves in Los Angeles at Cooper's Donuts, in Philly at Dewey's Lunch Counter and in San Francisco at Compton's Cafeteria). It's also interesting to note that, 45 years after Queens at Heart was filmed, the New York State Senate once again rejected adding gender identity and expression to anti-discrimination protections which already apply to GLB citizens. Queens at Heart is both a poignant reminder of how much society has changed yet, sadly how much remains the same.

Queens at Heart will be shown on Sun, Jul 11th 9:45pm at Sat, Jul 17th 5:00pm. In the program "Trans Politics Then and Now" Following the screenings, there will be a panel discussion moderated by Riku Matsuda. Director's Guild of America Theater 2 7920 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles

**For those interested in finding out more about the Outfest Legacy Project's work and some of their future restorations and possibly making a donation (preserving and archiving film doesn't come cheap), please visit their website. This is an incredible way of keeping our history alive.

Note: Queens at Heart should not be confused with a 2006 documentary (also about drag) of the same name.

Bella Maddo at Outfest: All transplaying NOT-trans

Janice Danielle (in the yellow dress)

with the Bella Maddo cast

Bella Maddo is a new short film being shown three times at LA's upcoming Outfest Film Festival. Okay, okay, you say, another day, another short, another LGBT festival, and so it goes. Aha, but this film is directed by a trans woman. Okay, okay, you say, well, Andrea James has directed some films, Kim Reed directed that 'Orson Welles is my grandfather thingie.' Aha, you say again, but this film has young trans children in it. Real trans children, not make believe 'I've had an agent since I was three' years old' cis-playing-trans-children. Okay, you think, that's pretty unique. And, in fact, this film ONLY has trans people in it. No cis peeps. Zero, nada, zip. Hmmm, you have to admit, that is unique. And moreover, these performers don't even play trans people in this film.

The Bella Maddo trailer featuring Isis King
as a faabulous party guest

(if the video looks cropped on your browser you can also view it on the Bella Maddo website.)

It's not a film about trans people, trans issues, transitioning... it's about, you know, the other kind of people and how fucked up they can be. But they're all played by actors who are 24/7 trans peeps. And they're all different ages and ethnic backgrounds, none of them dress hoochy, none of them portray sex workers or campy trannies and there are no pregnant dudes. Yes, Bella Maddo is truly a groundbreaking film. I was fortunate to be able to speak with Janice Danielle, the film's co-writer, director, producer and castmember about how this project came together.

Janice Danielle as the very vain Bella and her daughter played by Jazz

Janice came from a theater background with considerable experience in doing standup. She had previously been in a number of films often playing small roles especially of the trans hooker/campy tranny variety. But it was when she was seriously up for a non-trans role which a producer wanted to hire her for but backed down because he thought her trans history would be too much of 'a distraction' that she'd come to a tipping point. While working on a project for the now defunct Q Network she met her cis co-writer Jen Roe, who had a long background in television especially doing producing on the Montel Williams show.

Janice came up for the idea about Bella Maddo (a slight reworking of "crazy beautiful" in Italian, and Bella is the name of the mother character). She and Jen worked on the script while Janice searched for financing and lining up a production facility. To further complicate matters, Janice, originally a Brooklynite who had lived for long periods of time in LA, was currently with with her husband and son living in Panama. Upon moving back to Florida, she secured financing, and connected with Canvas Films, a Fort Lauderdale production facility. The idea of using all trans actors (playing cis roles) came from her own frustrations with being cast in a narrow niche. But gathering them all together proved a challenge.

Mark Angelo Cummings as the

um, hunky cop

Casting through Skype

Her casting process started on the Internet, partly by looking at trans-related videos on YouTube. The trans man who played her husband in the film, Torrin Shea Aguilar from Arizona, had a witty Q&A series on YouTube and she liked his flair and humor even though he had no prior acting experience. Some other performers like Rajindra Narinesingh and singer/trans activist Mark Angelo Cummings were local Floridians, but most of the performers auditioned initially through Skype. Janice ultimately flew some of the final candidates to Florida for an in-person meeting. One of the most high-profile performers in the film is Isis King, well known from her participation on America's Next Top Model and her many appearances on the Tyra Show. The film has a party scene and needed a singer, so Janice contacted Joe Stevens, a trans man who forms half of the well-known duo, Coyote Grace. They communicated through Skype and she flew him to Florida for the filming.

Joe Stevens, 1/2 of Coyote Grace

Transkid casting call

The most unique challenge was casting the part of her daughter for the film. Janice was adamant in wanting to also use a child who was trans for the film. She contacted Kim Pearson of Trans Youth Family Allies who, after being assured it was on the up and up, put the word out to her member families how Janice was looking for potential young performers for the film. Much to her surprise, the response was overwhelming and Janice had to sort through some parents with proto stage ambitions for their kids. The child she ultimately cast was one who was already very well known through her appearance on the 2007 Barbara Walters special on trans children, and through her several YouTube (where she's performing and dancing). Jazz, now 9, was able to be in Florida for the filming which made the logistics of her participation possible (there is another trans girl in the film, Emma, who was also invited to join the project at the 11th hour).

9-year old Jazz portraying a child with

a very screwy mom.

A post-trans trans film

Filming started at Canvas in February, 2010. Since Bella Maddo concerns serious issues of eating disorders and parental child abuse, Janice told to cast to play it very straight although there are some comic undertones and theatrical elements in the script. Ultimately, the film has a more New York/Jersey Shore/Long Island vibe than anything remotely having to do with trans people. Freed from a plot stuck on trans themes, Bella Maddo is truly the first "post trans" trans-involved film. Janice is ultimately hoping to expand the film into a six-part series which would appear on a broadcast channel like Logo.

It debuted at the 2010 Cannes Short Film Corner (more of a filmmaker showcase and not part of the competition) and got mostly positive response. Janice said that festivals to which she submitted the film almost seemed intimidated to ask her about the aspect of the all-trans cast. Janice had previously appeared in a number of films which played at Outfest, had contacts with their staff, and seemed like the natural venue for the film's US Premiere. Bella Maddo will appear in several collections of screened shorts (including one intended for comedies... which she feels isn't altogether appropriate given the film's subject matter) and an evening program with a trans panel discussion and pairing it with the new digitally remastered print of the 1960s pre-Stonewall documentary "Queens at Heart" (which will be discussed in a future Skip The Makeup post). Janice Danielle's future projects include a film completely cast with trans children using some of the talent she saw during auditions.

Breaking through assumptions

No matter how Bella Maddo is ultimately received , reviewed or distributed (and marketing short films is no easy task) it is already a unique and powerful achievement. It views trans people not as objects of curiosity nor with bodies and histories to exploit or dissect, but as people who can play any role given the chance and create their own art unfiltered through non-trans expectations and assumptions.

Bella Maddo's OutFest US Premiere:

Sun. July 11 at 9:45pm in the program of comedy shorts "From Uranus to Titicaca"; the Director's Guild of America Theater #1 - 7920 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles

Thu, Jul 15th 9:45pm "From Uranus to Titicaca" program of shorts; Laemmle Sunset 5 - 8000 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood

Sun, Jul 11th 9:45pm at Sat, Jul 17th 5:00pm. In the program "Trans Politics Then and Now" Following the screenings, there will be a panel discussion moderated by Riku Matsuda. Director's Guild of America Theater 2 7920 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles