Paul Morrissey

  • Paul Morrissey – Heat AKA Andy Warhol’s Heat (1972)

    1971-1980Amos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtCultDramaPaul MorrisseyUSA

    From Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art:
    A bizarre, yet mild version of “Sunset Boulevard” a la Warhol, with a bevy of voracious females of varying proportions vying for the casual favors of a passive Joe Dallesandro. The dialogue is fresh, simple, funny, as is the relaxed, improvised acting. Fellatio and demythologized sex make their usual appearance, though – for Morrisey – in a curiously reserved manner. While these desperate people and their always-interrupted sex acts are perhaps too small really to engage one’s concern, Morrisey’s talent for a new, weird kind of naturalism (as in his Trash) now seems fully established. Most notably, sex is both ubiquitous and joyless, an almost inevitable chore that can neither be avoided nor really enjoyed.Read More »

  • Paul Morrissey – Trash AKA Andy Warhol’s Trash (1970)

    1961-1970Andy WarholCultDramaPaul MorrisseyQueer Cinema(s)USA

    From Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art:
    A high-camp “love story” of an outrageously handsome heroin junkie and his trash-scavenging girlfriend (played by a female impersonator), this film skips from fellatio to seduction to foot fetishism in its attacks on soap opera myths and Hollywood. A playful perversity, an acceptance of the soft underbelly of bourgeois society, a strange poignancy informs this fable of impotence, drugs, and sex. In the climactic love scene, the hero — remaining impotent — suggests to the lusting “girl” — reclining on a rumpled bed among objects gathered from garbage cans — that she use a beer bottle instead; she does, while he solicitously inquires whether she is coming, then holds her hand and promises to do better next time. In a second scene, she accuses him, in rage, of not even letting her “suck” him off. What with an antiwar Welfare worker revealed as a malignant foot fetishist, assorted females as sexual aggressors against the forever innocent male, drug-fixes or penises casually displayed, the mounting intrusions upon the viewers’ value system mark this as a truly seditious work.Read More »

  • Paul Morrissey – Blood for Dracula (1974)

    1971-1980CultHorrorItalyPaul MorrisseyQueer Cinema(s)

    Synopsis:
    Udo Kier is without a doubt the sickliest of vampires in any director’s interpretation of the Bram Stoker tale. Count Dracula knows that if he fails to drink a required amount of pure virgin’s [pronounced “wirgin’s”] blood, it’s time to move into a permanent coffin. His assistant (Renfield?) suggests that the Count and he pick up his coffin and take a road trip to Italy, where families are known to be particularly religious, and therefore should be an excellent place to search for a virgin bride. They do, only to encounter a family with not one, but FOUR virgins, ready for marriage. The Count discovers one-by-one that the girls are not as pure as they say they are, meanwhile a handsome servant/Communist begins to observe strange behaviour from the girls who do spend the night with the Count. It’s a race for Dracula to discover who’s the real virgin, before he either dies from malnourishment or from the wooden stake of the Communist!Read More »

  • Andy Warhol & Paul Morrissey – Chelsea Girls (1966)

    1961-1970Andy WarholArthouseCultPaul MorrisseyQueer Cinema(s)USA

    Synopsis:
    Lacking a formal narrative, Warhol’s art house classic follows various residents of the Chelsea Hotel in 1966 New York City, presented in a split screen with a single audio track in conjunction with one side of screen.Read More »

  • Paul Morrissey & Antonio Margheriti – Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)

    1971-1980CultHorrorPaul MorrisseyPaul Morrissey and Antonio MargheritiUSA

    In Serbia, Baron Frankenstein lives with the Baroness and their two children. He dreams of a super-race, returning Serbia to its grand connections to ancient Greece. In his laboratory, assisted by Otto, he builds a desirable female body, but needs a male who will be superbody and superlover. He thinks he has found just the right brain to go with a body he’s built, but he’s made an error, taking the head of a gay aesthete. Meanwhile, the Baroness has her lusts, and she fastens on Nicholas, a friend of the dead lad. Can the Baron pull off his grand plan? He brings the two zombies together to mate. Meanwhile, Nicholas tries to free his dead friend. What about the Baron’s children?Read More »

  • Paul Morrissey – Flesh (1968)

    1961-1970CultDramaPaul MorrisseyQueer Cinema(s)USA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    Flesh was filmmaker Paul Morrissey’s first production for Andy Warhol. The story concerns a bisexual hustler (Joe Dallesandro) who does tricks so that he can pay for his wife’s lover’s abortion. The film made headlines when it was confiscated by the police during one of its earliest showings in 1970. Though this event is unlikely to repeat itself, Flesh is still explicit enough to elicit gasps from even the most jaded of underground-film enthusiasts. — Hal EricksonRead More »

  • Paul Morrissey – Women in Revolt (1971)

    Drama1971-1980ComedyPaul MorrisseyUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Vincent Canby @ The New York Times, Feb 17, 1972 wrote:
    Probably no man, not even Norman Mailer, will ever have the last word on women’s liberation, but until ones does, perhaps the Andy Warhol-Paul Morrissey “Women in Revolt” will do. The movie is called a comedy, but it can be more accurately described as a madcap soap opera whose three manic heroines are played by female impersonators—which may be interpreted as the ultimate put-down of women’s lib, as well as the ultimate endorsement.

    More particularly, “Women in Revolt” ( as did “Trash” ) recalls Hollywood movies of the 1930’s and 1940’s, especially those slushy romances in which Alice Faye, Frances Langford and Patsy Kelly compromised everything except their virtue in their pursuit of husbands.Read More »

  • Paul Morrissey – Dracula cerca sangue di vergine… e morì di sete!!! AKA Blood for Dracula [+Extras] (1974)

    1971-1980CultHorrorItalyPaul Morrissey

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Plot Synopsis by Cavett Binion

    The second of two horror films shot in a single production term and bearing the name of pop-art icon Andy Warhol (whose participation pretty much ended with the use of his name), this film is slightly superior to its higher-profile predecessor, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. Direction is credited to Warhol factory filmmaker Paul Morrissey, though there still exists a very vocal camp who insist that the real credit should go to Italian director Antonio Margheriti. Euro-horror leading man Udo Kier assays the title role, playing the count as a pale, anemic-looking blood junkie with an overwrought accent. Finding the supply of “weer-gin” blood diminishing rapidly in Romania, Dracula is forced to seek a fix in a predominantly Catholic Italian province, where he is certain a few virgins still exist. He travels with his assistant (Arno Juerging) and his coffin-sealed sister to the decrepit, crumbling mansion of the financially-strapped Marquis DiFore (a tour-de-force performance from Bicycle Thief director Vittorio de Sica) who welcomes the affluent Count with open arms, hoping to marry off any one of his four daughters. Dracula clearly has other intentions for the girls… but his plans are rudely thwarted by beefy, socialist handyman Mario (Joe Dallesandro), who has been dutifully divesting the young maidens of their — ahem — virtue, thus tainting their blood and making it unsafe for vampiric consumption. Very unsafe, it turns out — as we are treated to protracted scenes of the death-pale Count vomiting up gallons of blood. Rated “X” at the time of its release (and subsequently re-rated “R” ten years later), this outrageous catalogue of depravity features wildly campy performances, inane dialogue and an outrageous climax.Read More »

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