GOTHIC ROMANCE:  A DECLARATION OF LOVE TO AN OBSCURE SCREAM QUEEN   

There is a trinity of dark haired and dark eyed women that have influenced my ideals and desires in women - Audrey Hepburn, Bettie Page and Fawn Silver. Now, I've written many times about Audrey Hepburn and Bettie Page and I am sure most of you are familiar with both of them. However I doubt that many of you out there have heard of Fawn Silver. Very few people I've talked to, even the most hardcore film buffs, have ever heard of her. There is a good reason for that. Fawn Silver has completely disappeared into obscurity somewhere in the piles of drive-in film reels that are discarded in some Hollywood warehouse collecting dust. She has become nothing more than a nameless face on the B movie screen, but someone whose potential cult status is still pending.

So who is Fawn Silver? Where did my love affair with her begin? What is her appeal? A lot of these questions have been going through my head over the last week. In order to rediscover why this unknown actress has burned her image eternally in my memory it was necessary for me to pull out my copy of A.C. Stevens and Ed Wood's 1965 film "Orgy of the Dead" - the one and only movie that I, and most people who know her, have ever seen her in.

"Orgy of the Dead" can easily be considered, even when compared to other exploitation and B movies of the time, as one of the worst movies ever made in the history of film. Based on one of the now legendary Ed Wood's novels (yes friends, Eddie actually wrote nearly one hundred trashy erotic novels in the fifties and sixties, many which are only now just being reprinted) it is the story of a horror writer and his girlfriend who are captured by a werewolf and a mummy and forced to watch naked ghouls that dance for the Emperor of the Dead, played by Ed Wood alumni "The Great Criswell" (in his final screen performance) and his beautiful companion the Black Ghoul... or the Queen of the Damned... or Ghoulita... or the Empress of the Dead (depending on what scene you're watching) played by the stunning Fawn Silver. An entire piece could be written on all of the things that are wrong with this film but I don't want to concentrate on that. However, to put things simply, what should have been nothing more than a forgotten film that I watched once and never thought about again, has stuck with me for the ten years since I first saw it. The reason is obvious by now - the beautiful and alluring Fawn Silver reached beyond the screen and seduced my senses to the point that I couldn't forget her.

Watching "Orgy of the Dead" the other night brought me back to the first time I saw it. I was just entering university when I began to watch "Off Beat Cinema" on WNED Buffalo. It was a late night movie show hosted by three people dressed as beatniks that showed old B movies and drive-in films which I had already gained an interest in while in high school. One of the hosts of the show was a huge Ed Wood nut and began featuring Eddie's films on the show. This was what first interested me in the man said to be the worst director of all time. Around the same time Rhino video began issuing Eddie's movies on video for the first time. An alternative video store in my town had them for rental and over a period of weeks I rented them all.

I remember being immediately drawn to the cover of "Orgy of the Dead". First of all, it's a great title for a B movie or an exploitation film any way you break it down. You can't take it seriously but it stays in your head forever. However, what attracted me more was the dark haired, dark eyed woman in the white body makeup holding a skull on the front of the box. Was she in this movie? I brought the movie home and I waited until my parents went to bed before I played it. They wouldn't have cared about the content, but you still didn't want to watch this kind of smut with your parents in the room. What I was inflicted with was the dullest series of terrible dance routines done by the most unattractive women in film. However the  film was not entirely lost. The woman on the cover, Fawn Silver, managed to enchant me. Watching her as she scowled, drew her knife, re-sheathed her knife, pointed and uttered the type of poetic babble that only Ed Wood could write made the film eternally memorable.

However the other night, watching "Orgy of the Dead" again for the first time in a number of years, I was trying to discover something else. Just what is it about Fawn Silver that struck me that night and remains with me to this day? It has to be more than the dark hair and dark eyes that I so obviously have a fetish for. God knows it isn't her performance because lack of good script, story or direction gave the poor woman little to work with. Just what was it about her that made me once state that she was the most beautiful woman in the history of exploitation film?

The answer my friends, is elegance. That's right, dear readers. Fawn Silver oozes elegance. Much of Fawn Silver's actions involve her sitting next to Criswell or moving to the steps below him. Just the way she sits with her head held high and her legs crossed elegantly, with her arms crossed on her lap or in front of her "Morticia Addams" style is sexy enough. I mean, this woman's posture is amazing! Furthermore, the way she glides along the small sound stage is just as seductive. Fawn Silver even has the ability to breathe sexy. In one scene where the writer and his girlfriend are first captured, we see Fawn Silver pull her dagger out for the first time. However, as she returns it to it's holder, her whole torso and chest heaves with one large breath that managed to knock me off my feet ten years ago, and then did it all over again two nights ago. However, the tour de force is Fawn Silver's final dance with the dagger at the end of the film. Now let me state, Fawn Silver is no Ginger Rogers but then Ginger Rogers was not nearly as sexy as Fawn Silver. I highly doubt Ginger Rogers could move like Fawn Silver does. Hell, I doubt even Ann-Margaret, master of the raunchy wiggle, could even do it. Fawn Silver glides slowly and seductively across the stage. She slowly sways her hips back and forth as she pulls out the sacrificial dagger and bends her whole body back. It may not be the best dance sequence in the history of film, but what Fawn Silver manages to do is combine sex, death and elegance in one dance. Furthermore, she is the only woman in the film classy enough not to take her clothes off which, as Roland Barthes points out in "Mythologies", is the real origin of true erotica. It's not knowing what's beneath the clothes as much as the desire to want to know. Fawn Silver's dagger dance is easily my favorite dance ever filmed, although part of a crappy grade Z film.

So now we must pose the question - why is Fawn Silver so obscure? I mean, most of the people in Ed Wood's movies have a certain amount of cult status. Vampira, Conrad Brooks, Delorse Fuller, Criswell and Tor Johnston are all legends in the hearts and minds of the giant legion of B movie lovers. Where Fawn Silver differs is that she has basically disappeared off of the Hollywood map completely. Believe me when I tell you that I have searched for years for information on her. Ed Wood's biography "Nightmare in Ecstasy" declines to mention her at all although a section is reserved for "Orgy of the Dead". Same goes for the documentary "The Haunted World of Ed Wood". Rhino video's documentary on Eddie, "Look Back in Angora" does mention her but only that she was nothing more than a replacement for Vampira when Maila Nurmi wouldn't appear in the film. The Movie Database, which is usually beyond excellent when it comes to information on forgotten actors, is also of little help.

 After "Orgy of the Dead" Fawn Silver made a jungle picture in 1968 called "Terror in the Jungle" and then "Legend of Horror".  "Legend of Horror" was available from "Something Weird" video on VHS but has since been discontinued.  "Terror in the Jungle" on the other hand has been banished to complete obscurity. However, on the Movie Database there is also no date of birth, date of death or any notes whatsoever available on Fawn Silver. There is nothing out there on this woman dear friends. Nothing. She appears to have fallen off the face of the earth as if she never existed in the first place. The disappearance of this B movie beauty makes her all the more mysterious. Is she just another lost soul who died forgotten, with dreams of stardom, on Hollywood's Sunset Strip?  We may never know.

However I feel it's the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Fawn Silver that entitles her to the cult status that has evaded her to date, but that she so very much deserves. More voluptuous than the sickly Vampira and more elegant than the freakishly disproportionate Elvira, Fawn Silver is indeed the Audrey Hepburn of the gothic scream queen set. With increased interest in the tragic Solidad Miranda becoming evident in cult film conversations, hopefully soon the mysterious Fawn Silver will be just as noticed. Perhaps it's just a matter of time before she gets her due.

(Pop Culture Addict Update January 2008:  Guess what Fawn Silver fans!  Another Fawn Silver film has been found and is now available on DVD!  The Unkissed Bride, a 1966 sex/drug comedy featuring former Disney child star Tommy Kirk, features Fawn Silver in the small role of "Goldy!"  The film isn't a memorable, nor brilliant film by any means, but its a heck of a lot better then Orgy of the Dead.  Don't miss this opportunity to own another piece of film by this obscure horror oddity!  The Unkissed Bride is available through Amazon at a low price and can be ordered through this link.)

All content copyright Sam Tweedle 2006.