ELECTRIC LIGHT ANGER: RETURN TO THE PLEASURE DOME

Kenneth Anger's Inaguration Of The Pleasure Dome (1954) The '78 Eldorado Version from Mondo Justin on Vimeo.

Kenneth Anger's 1978 reconstruction of his 1954 masterpiece Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome is so rare it had to be sent back to the kitchen. The director's revised "Sacred Mushroom Edition" of the picture substitutes the Electric Light Orchestra's 1974 concept album Eldorado for the film's better-known soundtrack, a recording of Leos Janacek's marvelous Glagolitic Mass. The ELO score, whose over-the-top electropop offers an amusing alternative take on Anger's fantasia, was originally screened at the 1978 Boston Film Festival before vanishing into the Mists of Time. Hats off to Mondo Justin for resurrecting this obscure version, which certainly whets the appetite for his upcoming Projection Booth podcast on Anger's Magick Lantern Cycle.