Smiths’ Fan Clip Brings This Charming Man Sleeve To Life
Watch animated single cover, remember Jean Cocteau fifty years on.
FIVE DECADES AGO TODAY, well connected French novelist/ filmmaker/ surrealist Jean Cocteau expired from a heart attack, supposedly after hearing of the death of his good pal Édith Piaf from liver cancer earlier that morning. As Morrissey and Smiths fans are aware, Cocteau and his works were an influence on the young Steven Patrick, with a still of Cocteau’s muse and paramour Jean Marais appearing on the sleeve of single This Charming Man.
Mozzer was even inspired to replicate the stance in a promo postcard.
So full marks to Smiths fan and YouTube’r StashPuppets for editing this film to go with This Charming Man, using scenes from Cocteau’s 1950 film Orphée plus other portraiture of Marais and Cocteau. It’s also worth noting, as we count down the days before Morrissey’s Autobiography is published on October 17, that This Charming Man is itself heading for the thirtieth anniversary of its release on October 28, 1983. Three days later it's the fiftieth birthday of Mr. Johnny Marr, who that day begins an American tour at the House of Blues in Anaheim, California. Might a live version be forthcoming?
