Tartan have painstakingly worked with director Paul Morrissey to bring this delightful boxed set to your door, and they have unravelled a few gems a long the way. The movies ‘Flesh’ , ‘Trash’ and ‘Heat’ symbolise the 60’s and early 70’s America like no others. This was a generation of peace and love, of sex, drugs and rock and roll. This theme was what Morrissey was poking fun at.
‘Flesh’ is his sex part of the trilogy and in my view the best of the three; this is a more honest movie and the epitome of indie chic. This is a rough and ready movie, made over a succession of weekends, crudely edited and showing what had never been done in that way before. America was not ready for this movie, but Europe flocked to see it in droves.
Joe Dallesandro, plays little Joe, a hustler. We get to see a day in his life in all its simplicity and it some ways in all its excesses. He is asked by his wife, Geri (Geraldine Smith), to go out and find some cash, to pay for her friend’s abortion. We have lots of nudity and frank discussions of sex and drugs and Joe in all his glory. Actually there is probably more time with naked Joe than what there is with a clothed Joe, not bad for Andy Warhol's The Factory’s doorman. It was this family unit, in its don’t care attitude, in its live and let live morality, that probably sums up the time of America in the Vietnam crisis more than anything other movie in its naked truth. We see the people aimless in their ways, not caring about what others think, in short - just priceless.
‘Trash’ on the other hand, his drugs part of the cycle, starts to get more slick from the primitive filming methods of 'Flesh' and plays more like what John Waters was churning out in Baltimore. This has more absurd and eccentric characters than the honest portrayal that came before hand. Yes we still have Joe (Dallesandro), but this time living with his transsexual partner Holly (Holly Woodlawn). He has a habit, drugs are his game and hustling is way to pay for them. Drugs and getting high are not shown from a moralistic viewpoint, but more in all their boredom. After people shoot up, they fall asleep, we do not get a psychedelic trip or acid montages, we do not get to see crime in all its gory glory. Their lives are in fact quite dull, non-sociable and teetering over the poverty line. There is still plenty of nudity and some quite crazy sex scenes, in fact there is one where Holly is masturbating with a beer bottle and at the height of ecstasy she shouts that she wants welfare !
‘Heat’ , the rock ‘n roll side of things, is the oddity of the trilogy. This is a more polished affair, with different titles from the previous two and title music from the Velvet Underground’s John Cale. This is basically a send up of ‘Sunset Blvd.’ with Joe Dallesandro playing Joey Davis, a one time model and child TV star going back to California to try to resurrect his career by any means possible. He checks into a small squalid hotel with its selection of oddball characters. Most of the actors are from the previous movies playing different roles, but again, showing its better budget by having Sylvia Miles too, playing a has-been actress, Sally Todd.<!--page-->
For the hotel guests that surround Joey we have Sally’s daughter, Jessica (Andrea Feldman, who sadly committed suicide shortly after this movie), the black sheep and embarrassment of the family, crazy as a loon and with her child and lesbian lover, much to her mother’s distaste. There are the brothers, who are trying to break in with their cabaret sex show, one of which is constantly wanking himself off at the poolside. But none can prepare you for the mother of all rednecks, the trashiest, slobbering sex machine, Lydia (Pat Ast).
Jessica recognises Joey as once seeing him work with her mothers and wishes to capitalise on the fact to extort more money from her. Joey is happy enough to go along with the plan as Sally might still have contacts in the business and slips into her bed to see what he can find. The character Joey this time is not as naive and actually schemes away without a care or consideration to anybody else’s feelings.
Each movie has been digitally restored and looks great, ok, you do have the sound pops and sections of silence in the first two where they were crudely edited but that is part of their charm.
On ‘Flesh’ there is a great audio commentary from filmmaker Penny Woolcock and psychologist Nicola Abel-Hirsh, offering up interesting snippets including the Lou Reed song ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ that speaks wonderfully of this movie and it’s star. Morrissey himself introduces the movie to a montage of stills and there is a deleted scene, again with Morrissey doing the audio commentary. A little gem here is the silent short, with optional Morrissey commentary, called ‘About Face’ . It’s a small and experimental short and a welcome addition to the director’s early play with a bolex.
‘Trash’ has similar variety on the extras front. A Morrissey introduction, an audio commentary over some deleted scenes, and a silent short, again with a commentary, called 'All Aboard The Dreamland Chou Chou' , titled after the Shirley Temple song. This shows again Morrissey’s take on the drugs and getting high part.
‘Heat’ has an audio commentary from Don Boyd and the rest follows suit. Introduction by Morrissey as well as his audio commentary over the deleted scenes and another silent short, 'Like Sleep' , again looking at the drug taking side of things in painful close up.
Sadly there was no booklet with the review discs, but this includes ‘All Fixed Up – The Story of Trash at the BBFC’ of which the print included in this set has been passed uncut in the UK for the very first time !
'The Warhol Paul Morrissey Boxed Set' is available now via AmazonUK , and as of yet no US release date has been given for this set but all titles are available seperately.database .
Your Talkback on this Story