Joe Dallesandro
Three celluloid letters sent from different parts of the globe to Paul Morrissey, director of Trash, Flesh and Heat, collaborator with Warhol and agent for the Velvet Underground.
Italy, 1970. An increasing legion of harmless warriors begins a peaceful struggle for sexual freedom through pornography, shaking and shocking religious authorities and conservative political institutions. They are ironic, happy, crazy. They are dreamers, defenders of definitive communion between body and soul. But they were censored and humiliated. They were mistreated and arrested for demanding loud a new cultural renaissance.
A documentary concerning the violent Italian 'poliziotteschi' cinematic movement of the 1970s which, at first glance, seem to be rip-offs of American crime films like DIRTY HARRY or THE GODFATHER, but which really address Italian issues like the Sicilian Mafia and red terrorism. Perhaps even more interesting than the films themselves were the rushed methods of production (stars performing their own stunts, stealing shots, no live sound) and the bleed-over between real-life crime and movie crime.
Andy Warhol made him famous. The underground films made him a sexual icon. His body made him a legend.
Interview with the italian composer Claudio Gizzi about his lifetime and work as part or the extras of the Blu-Ray edition from What? (Che?) (1972) from Roman Polanski
A very black mix of comedy about relationships, the media, children's beauty pageants, sex change operations and personal problems.
Joe Dallesandro embodies a certain form of American dream, thanks to his career launched by Andy Warhol, fascinated by his ephebe body. Revealed by Paul Morrissey in the trilogy "Flesh" (1968), "Trash" (1970) and "Heat" (1972), he established himself as an icon of underground cinema thanks to stripped roles, becoming the liberator of the male nudity in Cinema. The one who inspired the song "Walk on the Wild Side" to Lou Reed is now in his sixties, happy manager of a property close to Hollywood Boulevard. In his courtyard, seated on a low wall, he evokes with amusement and nostalgia his youth and his various collaborations with Warhol, Morrissey, Coppola, Waters, Breillat or Rivette.
Andy Warhol described Jackie Curtis as “A pioneer without a frontier.” In this biographical documentary, Curtis’s co-workers and friends speak of her work and her influence, along with clips from Curtis’s Warhol films as well as never-before-seen footage from her stage shows.
A Cannes red carpet tribute for three iconic protagonists of Warhol's Factory glory days.
Andy Warhol, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century (who also coined the immortal catchphrase "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes"), gets the definitive treatment. This film includes a look into his inner circle and examines both his artistic and personal impact on society. From day-glo Marilyns and Elvises to Campbell's Soup cans to the groovy 1960s and '70s, step into the limelight of the Warhol world.
The Limey follows Wilson, a tough English ex-con who travels to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter's death. Upon arrival, Wilson goes to task battling Valentine and an army of L.A.'s toughest criminals, hoping to find clues and piece together what happened. After surviving a near-death beating, getting thrown from a building and being chased down a dangerous mountain road, the Englishman decides to dole out some bodily harm of his own.
An aspiring Hollywood actress, on a visit to a charming North England town, has a brief fling with the town undertaker, who also writes obituaries for the local paper. Returning home, where she works as a waitress at a Japanese restaurant, she tells everyone about the handsome "writer" she met on her trip. Unfortunately, he decides to follow her back to Hollywood, setting up the expected light romantic comedy with asides as the newcomer gains experience about the goings on in Hollywood.
A tribute to the screen work of Joe Dallesandro set to the music of Judy Garland.
This film looks at the 1950's muscle men's magazines and the representative industry that were popular supposedly as health and fitness magazines, but were in reality primarily being purchased by the still underground homosexual community. Chief among the purveyors of this literature was Bob Mizer, who maintained a magazine and developed sexually inexplicit men's films for over 40 years. Aided by his mother, the two maintained a stable of not so innocent studs. At the end, the film moves into a court room drama as Mizer is tried for running a male-prostitute ring in the early 60's. Clips of Mizer's actual films starring individuals, such as Jack LaLanne and Joe Dallesandro, are included.
In an alternate futuristic society, a tough female police detective is paired with a talking dinosaur to find the killer of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals leading them to a mad scientist bent on creating a new Armageddon.
Prostrate probing interviews! Live action murder! Naked people! Tired death-rockers! And more! Much more!!
In the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, the Mafia steps in when a drug dealer quits his partner brother to lead a straight life with his girlfriend.
California teen Anita Minteer struggles in the face of an absentee mother, her mom's abusive boyfriend, Rooney, and a lack of respect from her classmates. This all changes when a pen-pal school project connects her with convict Howard. Anita secures Howard's parole and violently squares off against Rooney after he rapes her. Soon enough, the gun-crazy teen is on the run with Howard, with his parole officer in pursuit.
Blue is a teenage girl who lives with her Jazz playing father Ham. Ham gets very sick and dies, and now Blue must support herself somehow. Elle, the headmistress at a brothel, talks her into living and working at her establishment. She decides to leave the business and lead a normal life. Elle is hellbent to see that she never has one.
Playboy does to softcore sex films what HBO's Tales from the Crypt did for horror. Contains the stories: "Brush Strokes"; "Shrink Rap"; "Doubletalk"; "The Leda"; "My Secret Moments"; "Life Is For The Taking"; "The Diaries"; "Love The One You're With"; and "My Better Half".
An actor at the end of the line who used to play a PI on TV turns to real detective work when a fan of his begs him to help her.
Eddie is a con artist. But this time he's framed and comes before a judge. By claiming insanity, he hopes to get off the hook. He manages to end up in a hospital for a mental examination. That night, a storm breaks out over New York, and the electricity to the hospital is broken. In the ensuing chaos that follows, Eddie is taken for a doctor. Suddenly he is in charge of a whole hospital!
Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.
New Yorker Ben Phillips and mysterious Léo Hoffmann are strangers who are summoned to Paris by a mutual acquaintance. Upon arrival, they meet and soon find themselves tangled in a complex mystery.
A demented nun sliding through morphine addiction into madness, whilst presiding over a regime of lesbianism, torture and death. Sister Gertrude is the head nurse/nun in a general hospital, whose increasingly psychotic behavior endangers the staff and patients around her.
A filmmaker engages in a routine series of sexual encounters to pass the time while editing her latest film. When one man refuses to play by her rules, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to him.
6000 km di paura, internationally released as Safari Rally, is a 1978 action-thriller film directed by Bitto Albertini.
Set in a rural area of France in the 19th century, this simple tale tells the story of a servant girl whose life seems marked by grand tragedy, but whose heart is simple and uncomplicated enough not only to endure, but even to attain serenity in the face of her manifold frustrations. Her only friend, to whom she pours out all her troubles, is an old parrot. When the parrot dies, she reverently has it stuffed and continues telling it her woes. This drama is based on a story by Gustave Flaubert.
A young man whose passions are money, beautiful women and racing motorcycles comes up with a scheme that will allow him to combine all three, all while committing the "perfect" crime.
A businessman leaves his country home, and wife and young son for a business trip to Paris. While there he develops a sexual and spiritual bond with a call girl.
The petite waitress Johnny works and lives in a truck-stop, where she's lonely and longs for love. She develops a crush on the garbage truck driver Krassky, although her sleazy boss Boris warns her that he's gay.
There is a war in the world between the men and the women. A young girl tries to escape this reality and comes to a hidden place where a strange unicorn lives with a family: sister, brother, many children and an old woman that never leaves her bed but stays in contact with the world through her radio.
Joe Dallesandro plays a hungry young buck who aspires to be a career criminal. He starts out working at a warehouse for a gangster where he helps to relocate illegal contraband, and because of his ruthlessness and dependability he begins to ascend the ladder of organized crime. Of course, the more powerful he becomes, the more "Climbers" come out of the shadows to take his place.
The Savage Three are three young men, fresh into the world, who work together at a computer analysis company. All three appear to be calm, level-headed, well-educated young men with the world at their fingertips. They are best friends, working togther by day & playfully carousing at night. Dominated by the Ovidio, played by the handsome Joe Dallesandro, the three young men soon evolve from well-mannered professionals to violent criminals.
As a gang of youths terrorizes a city, the weary chief of police finds himself caught between the citizens who cry for blood and a catholic priest who believes the boys will respond to kindness.
Carl the Gardner grows odd plants for a rich Yankee woman Ellen Bennett living in South America while exercising a mental hold over her. All his previous employers died mysteriously.
Ottavia is left completely alone this summer, but not for long. Walter, who is to change her entire life, now come into it. He is very young, very good looking and cruel.
Deathly ill Count Dracula and his slimy underling, Anton, travel to Italy in search of a virgin's blood. They're welcomed at the crumbling estate of indebted Marchese Di Fiore, who's desperate to marry off his daughters to rich suitors. But there, instead of pure women, the count encounters incestuous lesbians with vile blood and Marxist manservant Mario, who's suspicious of the aristocratic Dracula.
Within the decadent walls of the Frankenstein mansion, the Baron and his depraved assistant Otto have discovered the means of creating new life. As the Baron's laboratory begins to fill up with stitched body parts, the Baroness dallies with the randy new manservant and soon the decadent, permissive household is consumed by an outrageous, bizarre, and hilarious orgy of death and dismemberment.
Former child star Joe Davis, reduced to living in a cheap Hollywood motel while struggling for acting jobs, is lusted after by nearly every woman he meets, including Jessica Todd, a tightly wound feminist who has recently come out as a lesbian. When Jessica's mother, Sally, an emotionally needy has-been actress, meets Joe, she moves him into her enormous, tacky mansion as her new boy toy and attempts to get him acting work.
The movie follows Joe (Dallesandro), a heroin addict, throughout his quest to score more drugs. The episodic plot occurs over a single day and centers around Joe's problematic relationship with his on-off, sexually frustrated girlfriend (Woodlawn). During the course of the day, Joe overdoses in front of an upper-class couple, attempts to fool Welfare into approving his methadone treatment by having Holly fake a pregnancy, and frustrates the women in his life with his drug-induced impotence.
Five lonesome cowboys get all hot and bothered at home on the range after confronting Ramona Alvarez and her nurse.
Viva and Taylor Mead are a married couple renting an extra beach-house to a group of surfers sent to them by a Mr. Morrissey of La Jolla Realty. Their daughter, Ingrid Superstar, is pregnant and on the hunt for a husband. Mr. Mead, who is gay, tries to pawn her off to one of the surfers. Meanwhile, Viva wants a divorce from her boy-crazy hubby, who wants a surfer of his own. Tom, a surfer, is inveigled by Mr. Mead to urinate on him. In a close-up, Mr. Mead receives Tom's offering ecstatically, after which he comments, "I'm a real surfer now."
Ondine is a gay man attempting to re-adjust his sexuality via various encounters with different women. After trying his luck with three women, Ondine becomes a background character in a sequence in which a group of Latin American men, calling themselves The Bananas, engage in a food fight. Ondine then engages in a wrestling match with Joe Dallesandro, who is married to Brigid Berlin.
“The film flickers through a millennium of culture as it would appear to a tourist. It is an intense film, yet there is an incredible wealth of information surprisingly accessible. Aside from the exciting experience itself, the breakneck history lesson is a reminder that the mind can move in lightning steps: The plodding way information is typically presented is an insult to mental capability.” - Bartlett Naylor
Photographed entirely in color, Four Stars was projected in its complete length of nearly 25 hours (allowing for projection overlap of the 35-minute reels) only once, at the Film-Makers' Cinematheque in the basement of the now-demolished Wurlitzer Building at 125 West 41st Street in New York City. The imagery in the film is dense, wearying and beautiful, but ultimately hard to decipher, for, in contrast to his earlier, and more famous film Chelsea Girls, made in 1966, Warhol directed that two reels be screened simultaneously on top of each other on a single screen, rather than side-by-side.
