....The LIBERACE VIDEO COLLECTION was released on October 20th. The triple video set includes three of Liberace's television specials, "Leaping Lizards It's Liberace", Liberace's Valentine's Day Special" (with a scene aboard the "Queen Mary"), and "Liberace Live With The London Philharmonic." Packaged in a glittery metallic silver box with a recreation of one of Liberace's pop-up Christmas cards on the top. Published by Rhino Home Video.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY / December 4, 1998
Liberace
1998 / RHINO / UNRATED / $59.95 (I know where you can get it for less)
When you watch this three-volume collection, a few questions spring to mind. Could tens of millions of us really have spent decades adoring the first real glam-rock star -- a proto-Elton whose catchphrase was "Do you mind if I slip out of this into something more spectacular?" -- without venturing a thought as to what else was in his closet? If so, what planet were we on? And more important, was there really an era when a concert pianist could be afforded valuable prime time to perform Chopin, Strauss, and Rachmaninoff without network heads rolling the next day?
A tape of Liberace performing the classics with the London Philharmonic two years before his 1987 death is a helpful reminder that he wasn't just famous for being famous. Even with most of his digits weighted down by Plymouth-size rocks, his playing in this unusually dignified twilight performance is light and effortlessly precise. Decorum hardly figures into the other two specials, shot in Las Vegas in the late '70s -- not with Debbie Reynolds hoofing through"(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" with a bevy of boys in wide-collared jumpsuits, or inexplicable guest shots from Sandy Duncan and Lola Falana -- but even here there's slight ivory nutritional value amid all the mega-furs. And as he does his Kitch-virtuoso thing in front of the Hilton's "dancing waters" (entertaining against all odds), you'll maybe forgive him for not wanting to be old or out because mostly he just wanted to be wonderful. And sometimes was.
B -
Chris William
BRAVO!
THE ADVOCATE / November 1998
Liberating Liberace
The archetypal queen that your mama would (and did) love, Wladziu Valentino Liberace brandished the excess of success - minks, diamonds, glitz, showbiz - to both flaunt and distract from the obvious. Staking his fame claim during the sexually repressive but star-obsessed '50s, Liberace ascended with the rise of television and the explosion of Las Vegas, a city he embodied and reflected like a giant mirrored ball. His visual opulence and florid bad taste of his musicianship made his eccentricity (read: homosexuality) safe and thoroughly, garishly American. Although his repertoire mixed classical standbys and sentimental hits of the day, Liberace's pristine celebration of his own prosperity made him the prototype of the effeminate rock star, a role Little Richard, David Bowie, Elton John, and others later personified, taking what was latent and making it blatant.
By the time of the late '70s TV specials that are collected in this boxed set (only two of the three videos were available at press time), the public was used to having gay sensibility thrust in it's face, so Liberace's masquerade became even more macabre. Leapin' Lizards It's Liberace begins with a shot of a nude male fresco painted above the star's elaborate bed and pans to his young valet helping him into the first of many outrageous outfits. Even the little pooches that follow him down the stairs are queenie. The chauffeur who drives him to the Las Vegas Hilton in a mirrored Rolls-Royce to the tune of "Hey Look Me Over" soon appears on stage as his piano protégé in an identical costume for a 176-keyed duet with the maestro. "I must say he's one of the fastest-learning and most brilliant students I've ever had,": says the showman without a trace of irony or shame.
When Liberace boasts about his stuff and shows it off, he's brilliant. Liberace's Valentine's Day Special gets off to a slow start because it gets bogged down in the music, which was always beside the point. But it rallies midway when Liberace takes us on a tour of his museum, explaining, "I collect pianos, cars, dogs, and talented people that I use in my shows." He then parades these acquisitions at a little boat party that just so happens to take place aboard the Queen Mary, where guest stars Sandy Duncan and Lola Falana are little more than jewels on his lapel. Here and elsewhere Liberace is so old-school gay that he's practically preschool.
- Barry
Walters
I think a certain someone is a little bitter!