Richard O’Brien’s cult camp sci-fi comedy. Started life in 1973 as a modest production in a tiny theatre, embraced the West End, became a film and now really popular with middle class American twats.
1.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) has recently been remastered in a letterbox format and the songs seemingly pasted in from the stereo OST LP masters. Sadly, the mixes in question differed in that they were far too clinical and dry (rather than realistically atmospheric as per the original film mixes). Also, some of the vocal tracks had been re-recorded for the original LP (notably Peter Hinwood’s lead on ‘Rose Tint My World’ and O’Brien’s on ‘Science Fiction Double Feature (Reprise)’. To this day, no official studio recordings (remixed or otherwise) have been released of the songs ‘Sword Of Damocles’ or ‘Planet, Schmanet, Janet’ as performed by the cast of the film. For reasons unknown these were omitted from the original soundtrack LP (though in the case of ‘Damocles’ it’s probably just the fact that Peter Hinwood is such a rotten singer) and, it follows, these songs couldn’t be remixed for the remastered print of the film.
2.
Even before this there were two differing prints of the film. One featured the song ‘Superheroes’ in full, the other cut off the first two verses. The print that’s lacking also didn’t feature ‘Science Fiction Double Feature (Reprise)’ and the instrumental ‘Time Warp’, opting instead to reprise the vocal ‘Time Warp’ from the film. The ‘Superheroes’-endowed print was released on Fox video in 1982 with an appalling cover. The current release also features the song, and the out-takes edition (see point 3) featured it several times in its ‘Deleted Scenes’ section (the full version, the truncated version and an odd misprint which mixed the truncated audio with the full visuals(!).)
3.
Initial copies of the current re-issue of the video featured a bonus at the end in the form of a documentary and ‘out-takes’. The latter turned out to be shots of existing scenes from several different angles and takes. It would also appear that no audio accompanied these finds but the compilers attempted (with varying degrees of success) to paste it in from the film itself, line by line. Slightly more successful were the alternate ‘Time Warp’ shots which the compilers synced with some acapella clips of the song.
A more worthwhile (and genuine) out-take was the discovery of the missing song ‘Once In A While’ sung forlornly by Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) after having been rogered by Frank N Furter (Tim Curry). The song itself had been included on a Rocky Horror boxed set a while back and was well-known anyway to fans of the stage-production LPs. The footage didn’t seem to be complete however (perhaps it was never finished?) and a montage of footage from elsewhere in the film pads out the sequence.
4.
The entire soundtrack of the film (sans ‘Superheroes’ because it wasn’t that print) was released on an LP called Audience Participation Album for aficionados of throwing shit at cinema staff. Purporting to be a live recording of an actual showing of the film, with audience response, it was in fact no such thing. Attempts were originally made to tape such an event but the result was too noisy and undisciplined to make listening pleasurable, so, a special showing was arranged in a smaller theatre with better acoustics and a well-rehearsed crowd of fans. After which the recording was heavily remixed and edited (though nothing of the film is actually lost, the sleevenotes admit that certain audience responses have been edited out as they allude to visual scenes and that this might prove confusing to the listener). Some of the participation has also obviously been dropped in afterwards, notably solo lines by New York Rocky Horror MC Sal Piro (who also introduces the LP).
[NOTE: Another recreation of the audience participation experience appears in Alan Parker's film 'Fame' (1980). This features a scene in which two of the main characters attend one of New York's late-night showings and, once again, Sal Piro hams up for the fakery. Amusingly, when the film was first shown on BBC 1 it was around the time of the mania for the TV series spin-off and, to avoid offending the parents of the children that made up its fans, a heavily-edited version was broadcast. Thus, in the 'Rocky Horror' scene, the collective audience shouts of 'Asshole' at Brad Majors were overdubbed with half a dozen people saying 'Idiot!'.
5.
Fans of the film are still waiting for Return Of The Old Queen the oft-promised sequel which Richard O’Brien is said to be working on. A sequel of sorts was delivered in 1981 with Shock Treatment, a hit and miss (but rather jolly) satire on TV which featured Cliff DeYoung and Jessica Harper as Brad & Janet. Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn and Nell Campbell appear in new roles (O’Brien and Quinn still playing an incestuous couple) with only Tim Curry missing from the original ensemble. The film also features early starring roles for Rik Mayall and Ruby Wax, while Barry Humphries acts his arse off as blind Austrian game show host ‘Bert Schnick’. The soundtrack LP to Shock Treatment, in contrast to the Rocky Horror LP, allows us to hear the songs with pretty much the same mixes as per the film.
