Friday Night Music Byte

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 British musical comedy film that parodies science fiction and horror films. Still in limited release 34 years after its premiere, it has the longest-running theatrical release in film history. It gained notoriety as a midnight movie in 1977 when audiences began participating with the film in theaters across the United States. “Rocky Horror” is the first movie from a major film studio, such as 20th Century Fox, to be in the midnight movie market. Widely known by mainstream audiences, it has a large international following and is one of the most well known and financially successful midnight movies of all time. In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The film, considered a cult classic, is an adaptation of the British musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show. Richard O’Brien, author of the stage show, was assisted by Jim Sharman in writing the screenplay. The movie introduces Tim Curry and features Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick along with cast members from the original Kings Road production of the play first performed in the Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre in 1973.

The story is narrated by a criminologist who, reading from a leather bound report titled, “The Denton Affair”, tells the tale of newly engaged couple, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, who find themselves lost and with a flat tire on a rainy, late November evening. Seeking a phone with which to call for help, the two knock on the door of a nearby castle. They are invited inside by Riff Raff, a hunchback servant, along with his sister Magenta. Inside Brad and Janet discover a group of strange and outlandish people who are holding an Annual Transylvanian Convention. They watch, still wet from the rain, as the Transylvanians, servants and a tap dancing groupie named Columbia, dance the “Time Warp”, the film’s signature song.

It would not be Halloween with out some Rocky Horror Picture Show, so please enjoy this clip of The Time Warp.