Classic movie fans -- that rare, determined, untamed breed -- who venture out to their neighborhood cinema palace on any dark, dimlit night this month may discover something for which they, innocent, stumbling and unaware, are wholly unprepared. Not a sinister plot of film noir, nor a weepy romance of old. That sound you hear -- There! In the distance! -- is the oldest sound on the silver screen, baby. The sound Hollywood was born for. That sound is the sound of a STAR being born.

Or, more correctly put, a starlet. But starlets, even those of the overnight fame variety, are usually the result of many thankless years of pavement pounding and hard work. Still, forgive those blameless, virgin moviegoers who may just be on the verge of discovery...to them, it'll seem as fresh as morning dew on a newborn daisy. The name: Angela Arden. The actress: Charles Busch.

Those new to the charms of acclaimed drag performer Charles Busch may dismiss his latest film, DIE MOMMIE DIE!, as little more than a satiric romp through Old Hollywood, a ribald thriller homage where the laughs are broad and the broad isn't a broad. But look deeper into the heart of Busch's Sundance-winning comedy, and you'll find a postmodern marvel. Part tribute, yes, and part genderfuck too, but DIE MOMMIE DIE! is first a surprisingly smart, encyclopedic reimagining of the conventions, themes (and yes, clichés) of cinema's most golden age.

Busch, who wrote the film's screenplay, stars as its heroine, Angela Arden, a faded cabaret star whose career and family life is in ruins. Her husband Saul (Philip Baker Hall) abuses her, her daughter (Natasha Lyonne) despises her, and her son Lance (Stark Sands) is, well, a bit light, to use the lingo. Her only comfort is her lover, the randy Tony Parker (Jason Priestley). As murder most foul rears its ugly head, the (melo)drama cranks into full gear, setting the stage for a classic whodunit with enough twists and turns to give Bette Davis whiplash.

The mastery here comes from Busch's vast knowledge of classic cinema, which filters both into his writing -- the script is a re-working of Lana Turner's 1969 little-seen disaster The Big Cube, by way of Clytemnestra -- and his committed performance, which gives knowing nods to Susan Hayward, Joan Crawford and Rita Hayworth. Busch knows that mere parody would be death to such a picture, and portrays Arden without condescension or fakery. There's an aura of campy fun, certainly, but it's not self-referential or self-aggrandizing in the way that, say, RuPaul is, or Dustin Hoffman's Tootsie was. Busch is a man playing a female part with admirable conviction, and it becomes a sort of movie magic like the other movie Arden -- Eve -- embodied in her career.

What makes DIE MOMMIE DIE! work in a way that Busch's previous stage-to-screen adaptation, Psycho Beach Party, did not is that, this time out, he's matched by a director of similar ability and enormous talent. Mark Rucker, in what has to be one of the most astonishing debuts of the year, works the camera and the ensemble with the elegant grace of George Cukor. From the camera angles to the too-perfect score by Dennis McCarthy, Rucker has brought together elements that invoke moviedom's milestones not from a place of scorn but of unabashed love. It is his respect for conventions that allows him to subvert it; it is his understanding of melodrama that gives the film its gently-tweaked joy.

The ensemble -- who, unlike Busch, have not spent the last two decades giving new life to classic film moments -- are spottily successful. Hall brings a gruff mania to Saul, while Sands imbues the dimwitted Lance with endearing charm. Frances Conroy brings fussy comic brio to her devoutly religious housekeeper. Unfortunately, Jason Priestley gets the idea but not the spirit of Rucker's atmosphere, hitting his lines with an over-the-top earnestness that seems out of place. Most regrettable is the always disappointing Natasha Lyonne, who seems to miss the point entirely.

These small reservations and others (the plot drags occasionally, and Busch can't resist a few inside gay jokes) are not enough to spoil either the fun or the amazement in DIE MOMMIE DIE! To say that a drag film may not be for everybody is an understatement; I doubt it will play that well in Peoria. But perhaps that is selling its charm a bit short. Certainly anyone who's ever been shell-shocked by Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, twist-turned watching Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate -- or even laughed in horror at Joan Crawford's shlocky Trog -- will find something deliciously delectable in Busch's paean to the screen goddess.

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