This unauthorised documentary by Andreas Herr casts its net wide to look at where Rocky Horror began and what happened during and after the first stage production.
Sane Inside Insanity has some overlap of interviewees with Strange Journey (Jim Sharman, Richard Hartley, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell, producer Lou Adler) but also includes the late Michael White (who financed the original run in the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs) and spends a bit more time with the stage cast (Paddy O’Hagan, Rayner Bourton – who tells us of an unfortunate incident with a piece of glitter).
We hear of a three-week rehearsal period, when the show was restructured and revised, giving credit to Sharman’s director and visual flair, and Brian Thomson’s scaffolding set that subverted the idea of a tradiitonal stage. We hear of Tim Curry’s first entrance through the audience at the Royal Court.
But this isn’t Tim Curry’s story of being a part of Rocky Horror, and it isn’t Richard O’Brien’s. They are only seen in archive interviews, while Herr instead seeks out actors who played ‘Transylvanians’, crew members, and the ordinary fan.
Sane Inside Insanity tells us how a cinema in Chelsea became the ‘King’s Road Theatre’ for seven years. The last time the show had an intimacy and danger, before it moved into bigger theatres.
In contrast with the authorised version of the story, this film takes the focus away from Richard O’Brien as sole creator of the show and the movie version. It also points to Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon being cast as the screen’s Brad and Janet as a consequence of the studios insisting ‘cast American’.
Sane Inside Insanity is an in-depth look into “the phenomenon of Rocky Horror”. It gives an insight into how this strange musical has flourished. The chorus line of ‘Transylvanians’ who look like no chorus line you have ever seen. The cast who made little from the immense success of the film, while Adler and 20th Century Fox raked it in.
It’s the honest, unvarnished truth behind the celebrations and the sequins. It doesn’t gloss over why the Broadway version of Rocky Horror failed. Tearing out the seats, having waitresses on roller-skates. Miscalculation and fiasco. Even Richard O’Brien took his name off the show.
Sane Inside Insanity has a fan’s heart – albeit a rather American-centric one – and focuses on how the audience (and shadowcast members like Dori Hartley) made the film an experience that no other piece of art or culture has been able to emulate.
Sal Pino puts it succinctly, “We are part of the film. We are part of the phenomenon.” The audience of ‘freaks’ found acceptance, ritual, and belonging in this low-budget musical film.
O’Brien (who declined to be interviewed for this documentary) sold the film rights a long time ago, but retains the stage rights. Both remain a safe place to seek out the mantra “don’t dream it, be it.”
But Sane Inside Insanity does raise the question of whether the movie killed the stage show and lost its soul, or whether the vast commercial (and contrived) success of what the stage show has become is essentially a good thing.
Sane Inside Insanity: The Phonemenon of Rocky Horror is released on 25 September.