The man who started it all... well a lot anyway

Shot in 1959 by Bob Flieschner as a comedy/horror film to be assembled some four years later by Ken Jacobs, Blonde Cobra is a remarkably freeflowing tale of ..well ... we are seeing (and most often not, as Smith's fullest stories are delivered to black leader) a downtrodden young man allows himself to be washed away in the mire of images that clutter his mind. We've got Jack Smith doing what Smith truly does best. He ranges from childlike to perverse in the same syllable, slipping from male to female between shots. Blonde Cobra does not stay on one genre for any extended amount of time and this is assuredly one of Jacobs' most astute decisions. Starting off more a nod to the Noir, Smith vivaciously "ravishes" a "corpse" who laughs all the while. Smith then divulges the back story of what could be the man on the screen, though the little boy of Smith's tale enviably knows more luxury than Smith's figure, who inhabits a pre-shabby chic New York apartment littered with cinematic paraphenalia. Of course, donning more Arabian wear, Smith lists the reasons for Maria Montez's fabulousness. Smith will become Madame Nescience (funny how Smith is far more recognizable when he becomes the scary pancake-make-up clown/drag queen that he later embodied in his still photography than the almost innocent and effeminate boy who also appears in Cobra) who runs around screaming to mother superior, who in her own right throttles droves of nuns who have been masturbating with a plaster statue of Jesus. This is underground film before the anal-rosary beads of Multiple Maniacs and even the depiction of Horror precedes many Horror films to follow. Smith really was completely ahead of his time, and Blonde Cobra is absolute proof. For an essay on the film Click Here

For clarification purposes, the photo above is not from Blonde Cobra but just a still of Smith.