Satire—as if you need to be told
by Alec Clayton
The new film Cavorting Naked in the Dark, neither produced nor directed by legendary filmmaker John Longenbaugh, is perhaps scheduled to premiere at Olympia’s equally legendary Capitol Theater on Feb. 31.
Longenbaugh, who worked on neither Titanic nor Birth of a Nation and is married to Hollywood film goddess Maddie Jean Kahn, a.k.a., Madeline Conn, retired to Olympia in the mid-2020s after a long and storied Hollywood career. When asked why he chose Olympia as a location in which to live out his waning years, Longenbaugh said, “It’s the water doncha know.”
Little is known about Cavorting Naked in the Dark. It was purportedly filmed entirely at night with natural lighting and under carefully guarded secrecy. What little is known is that it tells the story of baseball great Mickey Monrow (played by Leo D. Capra) who allegedly attempted to murder his wife Mary Mantle (played by Kahn or Conn). The film was given a rare “X” rating because of a long and explicit scene in which the entire cast cavorts, as the title implies, naked in the dark. “I mean total dark,” Longenbaugh said.
Since retiring to Olympia, Longenbaugh has become a film and theater writer for Oly Arts magazine. To find out more about Longenbaugh and read stories he has written for Oly Arts, go to https://olyarts.org/2024/01/17/john-longenbaugh/ and visit his website at https://www.johnlongenbaugh.com/