MOVIE REVIEWS : Meet a Pair of Irrepressible Showoffs

Rene Dakota’s “American Fabulous” and Rosa von Praunheim’s “Affengeil” (at the Nuart through Wednesday) offer captivating, often hilarious yet touching portraits of a pair of larger-than-life individuals, irrepressible showoffs who are smart, courageous, life-embracing survivors, each capable of entertaining us with their colorful recollections and observations for an hour and a half.

In the first film we meet Jeffrey Strouth, a natural storyteller, a blue-collar Truman Capote, whose reminiscences take us on a tour of a wild, low-life gay existence. In the second and more complex film (whose title translates loosely as “Life is like a cucumber”) we become acquainted with both Lotti Huber, a flamboyant, temperamental yet wise and perceptive 75-year-old dancer-actress, and also with Von Praunheim, Germany’s internationally renowned gay filmmaker, who has for some eight years had a loving, if rocky, friendship with Huber.

In “American Fabulous” Dakota photographs Strouth as he talks endlessly in the back seat of a 1957 black Cadillac as it wanders aimlessly through the streets of Columbus, Ohio. A thin chain-smoker with a raspy nasal twang and a classically campy sense of the outrageous, Strouth, an acute observer and terrific describer, has clearly had little formal education yet displays a native wit that might conceivably amuse Oscar Wilde.

Although “American Fabulous” (both films Times-rated Mature for language, adult themes) seems about 15 minutes too long, it is deftly edited to break up Strouth’s monologues, in which he tells us--among many other things--of his gun-waving alcoholic father, a Fort Lauderdale trailer salesman cum Elvis impersonator; of turning tricks at age 14; of being stranded in a Salvation Army Home in Grand Junction, Colo.--this after narrowly escaping death in the Utah wilderness at the hands of a wacko trucker; of warm memories of working at the Golden Kettle Cafe in Columbus, with its tough waitresses with their lacquered hairdos and gaudy makeup; of hitchhiking to L.A. with his boyfriend Wolfgang and running immediately into police hostility on Santa Monica Boulevard, and finally of doing drugs and working as a female impersonator in Manhattan before returning to a presumably quieter life in Columbus. “Nobody could make this up, and even if they could,” says Strouth, “why would they want to?”

Whereas we see Strouth only in the Cadillac, we see Huber in many situations, even in a film clip from “Just a Gigolo,” in which Marlene Dietrich made her final appearance. Huber clearly never was a beauty but in her youth possessed a dancer’s body, and she retains such vitality and passion you can understand how she snagged a couple of husbands. Her reminiscences include a prewar escape from a concentration camp, of belly dancing--she demonstrates for us--for King Farouk, but clearly lives intensely in the here and now.

The more time you spend with her the more you realize the highly theatrical costumes she affects are to hide a body grown plump; clunky costume jewelry, bright lipstick and the like are her defenses against old age. Beyond the bursts of imperiousness, the silent movie queen gestures, the overwhelming theatricality, there’s a reflective sensibility of a woman of wide experience.

Lotti Huber, who once studied dance with Harald Kreuzberg and Mary Wigman, is more than a camp icon, which Rosa von Praunheim reveals with such honesty and affection.

‘American Fabulous’

A Dead Jesse Productions presentation. Produced, directed and edited by Rene Dakota. “Spontaneously written” and performed by Jeffrey Strouth. Cinematographers Travis Ruse, Dakota. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Times-rated Mature (for language, adult themes).

‘Affengeil’

A First Run Features release. Writer-director Rosa von Praunheim. Cinematographers Klaus Janschewskj, Mike Kuchar. Editor Mike Shephard. Music Maran Gosov, Thomas Marquard. Sound Volker Marz. Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes.

Times-rated Mature (for language, adult themes).