EMERGING FROM THE UNDERGROUND
Report from the 1998 New York Underground Film Festival
By Brandon Judell
April 17, 1998
The Fifth Annual New York Underground Film Festival is slowly receding into the abscessed memories of celluloid
movie historians. Those poor gents and ladies! So much joy is hard to absorb in just a few sittings.
I know. After spending four days viewing this quirky event’s offerings and mixing with its crowds often past midnight, plus having finally viewed
the rest of its offerings on video due to conflictive schedulings, I feel I am now capable of reporting on the affair with some battered flair.
First, I must note that the Festival, this year held at the Anthology Film Archives, has some of the most cruise-worthy attendees. Striking young
men and women, spanning in age from their innocent early twenties to the slowly jading and crinkling mid-thirties, romped about in soiled denims,
startling chiffon, sparkles, flannels, and cleverly cut polyester. Hair hit all heights and depths thanks to sturdy moussings and sprayings, and
personalities were for the most part intriguing.
Now this year, the Festival which boasts having "cemented its place as a key event on the international film festival calendar . . . and as the
Gotham destination of choice for edgy filmmakers," screened over 900 entries to get what they finally unspooled. It makes you wonder what they
rejected.
Of the 18 features and 90 shorts spotlighted, 26 were reportedly of gay interest, at least according to the press release entitled "Queer
Highlights." I shall now confront my memories of as many of these as I saw against the stern advice of my shrink.
Surrender Dorothy Director: Kevin Di Novis. 16mm. 90Min. * * * *
A startling, brilliantly unsettling tale of Trevor, a busboy who takes home the forks of his favorite female customers and masturbates over them.
Afraid of women when separated from their eating utensils, he finds himself falling in love with Lanh, his long-haired junkie roommate. Hey,
maybe the guy will start dressing up as a gal in exchange for drugs, and then maybe . . . . "I'm not a faggot! I'm not a faggot! I'm not a
faggot!" Lanh/Dorothy insists as Trevor eventually fucks him. Trevor agrees. In his eyes, Dorothy is a little girl in the making. Perfect
performances united by sensational direction. Imagine The Crying Game as written by the Marquis de Sade.
Shucking the Curve Director: Todd Verow. Video. 90 min. * * *
The director of Frisk goes comic with his look at a small town girl, Suzanne (Bonnie Dickenson), who comes to New York to become a star.
Well, as she admits, she first needs some life experiences to mature her talents, and she gets them. After being immediately robbed of her
luggage at the train station, she winds up at an exploitative girlfriend’s house who just wants her money and not her company. Left alone,
Suzanne goes to a disco and winds up in the bed of a cute bisexual gent whose boyfriend is on the way up the stairs. Better escape quickly.
Back home, she realizes she needs her own apartment and starts answering roommate ads in The Village Voice. Suddenly nude men with pierced
cocks and drugged-out drag queens decorated with carrot tops are trying to woo her. Finally she accepts a room in a decaying apartment
where an artiste lives who makes sculptures with live maggots eating through Jell-o. It goes on from there. Lively, rambling, but often funny,
the final result could benefit from a tiny bit more of judicious editing.
Double Agent 73 Director: Doris Wishman. 35mm. 72Min. 1974. * *
Part of the Wishman tribute here. Labeled "the Queen of Sexploitation," the tiny, old, feisty lady has a career that spans over three decades in
which she produced, directed, wrote and edited over 25 features. She is, some say, the most prolific female director of the sound era. In this
tacky classic, Chesty Morgan whose bosom clocks in at 73 inches, plays Zsa Zsa, a sensuous agent with a camera in her left breast. Every time she
raises it, a flash goes off. She also uses her mamaries as weapons (e.g. slamming nasty men in the head with them). This like most of Wishman's
output is dubbed, since she hired actors for their looks more than their vocal or acting abilities. Chesty especially has trouble out-acting
her nipples. Though original, this one-joke movie, as most one-jokes movies do, wear thin. Why was it considered of gay interest? A festival
spokesman says because it was campy, and gays like camp.
Have You Seen Patsy Wayne? Director: Todd Korgan. 16mm. * * *
I have and twice, yet I'm still not sure why this one is of gay interest either. A crazed woman on disability suffers from spontaneous orgasms.
What's worse, she believes she's the love child of Patsy Cline and John Wayne. We watch her eat at a diner and then go into a thrift shop to
find a sweater that once belonged to her ma. A rambling, moving dialogue by the lead holds it all together. A fine performance and astute direction.
Screen Tests Director: Nick Zedd. 16mm. 15Min. * * *
Falling into the experimental category, this a collection of people parading in front of the camera one at a time and exposing their libidos
along with a few penises and some breasts. Some of the folks are well known like the luscious diva Brenda Bergman; others are best kept a
secret. A few drag queens strut their stuff, too. After a while, you find yourself mesmerized.
Bad Girls Go To Heaven Director: Doris Wishman. 35mm. 80 min. 1965 * *
Newlywed Meg Kelton runs off to Manhattan after killing her rapist janitor. She winds up in the apartment of a nice guy who turns into an
alcoholic rapist after she offers him a drink. The rapes continue throughout the film by various thugs. The only nice person in all of the
Big Apple seems to be a trashy lesbian Meg gets it on with. But not wanting to ruin the gal's life, Meg leaves her after having a gay
orgasm because she doesn't want to ruin the sweet lady's life. If you can laugh at sex attacks or view the film as just the Freudian
dreams of a woman with a repressed sexuality, you might enjoy this beautifully shot, black-and-white, very dead-pan epic of poor taste.
When the Fest finally wound up, the message its Gay Filmmakers were projecting were decidely different then the ones the major Studio
and the more-moneyed Independent directors have been offering up lately.
While what is getting into our theaters often seems like episodes of "Love American Style," these renegade helmers seldom if ever
showed homosexuals as victims or love sick. In the controversial T.A.G.: The AIDS Game, HIV-infected homeless teens racked up game
points infecting passers-by either with a needle or through forced anal sex. In the Canadian oddly sublime shocker, Soft Like Me,
pederasts used young boys to gather wheat, for sex, and finally, if I understood correctly, ground them into "chopped meat."
In the hilarious Dirty Baby Does Fire Island, a plastic doll visits the Pines boys having uninhibited sex, and joins in on their coke
and popper sniffing until she freaks out. The even more uproarious Black Oolong had a snob and a delivery boy get orgasmic over tea terminology.
Only in Hub Cap do two lesbian lovers get killed and then raped by cop. The more constant scenario was reflected in Wonder Woman:
Battle with the Basher. A nasty homophobe gets his comeuppance when the superhero spots him attacking a queen. Of course, while she's
chasing him down the streets of New York, she takes some time off to get her nails done and do some shopping. But when you're gay or
gay-friendly, you can still look your best and win the tough battles.
That's the message from the Underground.
For more info check out the New York Underground Film Festival Website.
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