MIDNIGHT WITH THE LADY

I'm spending the night in watching 'Midnight In The Garden Of Good and Evil' This is one of the best movies I've seen and first saw it a few years ago late night on Xmas day. It's based on a true story set in Savannah, Georgia, which instantly attracted me thanks to the Aaron Spelling soapie of the same name. So this rich art collector Jim Williams kills his rentboy sometime lover and goes on trial. Kevin Spacey doesn't seem too stretched as the charming, gay, genteel Southern mistress Jim Williams. John Cusack plays John Kelso, the jaded New York writer who covers the story and befriends Jim Williams. Clint Eastwood directs and uses the lush surroundings well. There's voodoo curses, men with flies round their head, people walking imaginary dogs and then there's The Lady Chablis.



The Lady Chablis is a transsexual artiste who steals the show. She was friends with the rentboy played again rather too well by Jude Law and is one of that characters who played herself in the movie. The Lady Chablis comes up with the quirkiest one liners especially in her courtroom scenes and when she goes to the black Cotillion ball. She sneaks in to the ball and is questioned by one of the guests.....

WOMAN : Of whom are you a guest?
CHABLIS : I'm here with my cousin... my cousin, Lavella
WOMAN : Lavella, oh she's a lovely girl.
CHABLIS : Oh I think so too, she's always wanted this we've talked about this since we were kids. She just didn't think she'd get it.
WOMAN : She had nothing to worry about.
CHABLIS : You know what Hon, I told her the same thing. I said if Vanessa Williams can pull one off on the Miss America committee, then her little whoring around in Atlanta, Georgia is not going to meet anything to a little steering committee in Savannah!

Later on in the courtroom she addresses the jury,
CHABLIS : I have a man's tool box, but everything else about me is Pure Lady. I love to dress in women's clothes, I love to go shopping, I love to have my nails done and I love men.... Any questions? And by the way ma'am, may I just say - blue is definitely NOT your colour.

The film is rounded off well with a different type of happy ending thanks to voodoo and the Lady Chablis wears a gingham outfit that even Dorothy Gale would be proud of. Savannah comes across as a steamy hotbed of indulgence and sin and is definitely one place I'd like to visit - if only to listen to the Southern drawl that makes me melt every time I hear it.