A QUEER KIND OF LOVE

Baxt, who's kept busy in recent years with his Hollywood historicals (The Mae West Murder Case, 1993, etc.), now offers a blast from the past: the first case for gay, black, hip-hop cop Pharoah Love since Topsy and Evil (1968). Somebody's been icing the soldiers of Pharoah's old friend Marco Salino—one of the Three Musketeers from Pharoah's childhood days—and since Pharoah, the second Musketeer, has just shot the third, Herbie Marks, he feels a special responsibility to clear up the case. Pharoah's scenes with a revolving revue of zanies, from Pharoah's favorite madam, Rita Genari, to her prize whore, Gino Vinelli, to pneumatic nightclub singer Natalya Orloff—you can hardly call their conversations detective work—suggests that the executions are somebody's idea of revenge for the rape/beating/murder of the Cicci twins, naãfs who performed at Marco's Capri Hotel up in the Catskills and then gave an encore for the soldiers. But whose idea? Demotic and flamboyant as ever, though Jerome Charyn long ago eclipsed Baxt in the department of sheer, surrealistic weirdness. Compared to the Isaac Sidel saga, Pharoah's latest nostalgic turn seems positively sedate.