Salomé (1923)

Yikes, but I wonder what the good old Code would have made of this hugely sexually fluid and charged interpretation of Oscar Wilde's story of the bible's ultimate temptress. It's Alla Nazimova who takes the top billing as she sets her sights on the prophet "Jokaanan" (a shockingly wooden Nigel De Brulier) who sees her as little better than the spawn of Satan. Determined that she isn't going to be spurned, she shifts her inclination from seduction to revenge, and to that end she goes to work on her sleazy step-father Herod (Mitchell Lewis) who was the Tetrarch of the Roman province of Judea. He's your typical lecherous coward and though she tantalises him relentlessly, he is afraid to challenge the religious establishment or the people whom he knows will not approve of any attempt to separate "Jokaanan" from his head. Finally, she manages to exhort a promise from him and that's where the legend takes over and the seven veils do their stuff! It is very theatrically staged with precision and skill, if not a great deal of humanity. Indeed, it doesn't look natural at all as the characters deliver such stylised performances, but that also helps to capture it's very seaminess. The court of this king is debauchery central, and there is a clear sense from the photography that director Charles Bryant is showing us as much as he dare whilst simultaneously teasing our imagination provocatively. Some of the supporting cast look like they came straight from a "Tarzan" film and the others straight from Cleopatra's court of eunuchs and hairless men clad only in short kilts and curly wigs. It could do with an injection of pace at times, but if you sit back and let the whole tawdry thing wash over you, it's quite enjoyable.