Hedy (1965) (AKA The Most Beautiful
Woman in the World, The 14 Year Old Girl, The Shoplifter)
"When I came
back in 1966, (Warhol) was definitely behind the camera
in 'Hedy' and it's what I think makes it one of the
outstanding films that we did together. Because finally
the master took over and we could see his eye behind
the camera. This was the second moving camera film...
and I hated it when I first saw it because it came
very close to destroying my script, the way he moved
the camera, but I loved it for what he did. Because
I'd never seen that sort of thing before: As the action
would move toward its most dramatic... the camera
eye would move away. The camera eye would become bored
with the action, with the story... and would begin
to explore the ceiling of the factory. Well, I was
just wiped out. I said this is just like something
else. Beautiful. Horrible in terms of the script...
and that's why I always tell people when they argue
about why they're not called Tavel's films instead
of Warhol's films, I say, well, go see 'Hedy'" - Ronald
Tavel in "Stargazer" by Stephen Koch
Boring and definitely from Andy
Warhol's self-referential phase, "Hedy" is still a
fascinating film for fans of the artist.
The plot is simple yet opaque. Mario
"Maria" Montez plays Hedy Lamar in a story based on
true incidents of the actress' life. Hedy is an ageing
starlet who has been married five times and now engages
in shoplifting. When she is caught in the act by a
security guard, she is detained, arrested and put
on trial. Finally, she is sentenced to death.
The film begins with an avant-garde
image. It is a static shot and it is only through
time and a certain amount of dialogue that we realize
that we are seeing a women's face as she lays on a
table, the top of her head towards the camera, her
eye made humongous by a large, lighted, surgeon's
magnifying glass. Doctors surround her and attempt
to discuss the procedure she is about to have. They
mock performing a face lift on her.
After the surgery she arises and
is assured that she looks young and beautiful. She
is told that she looks as if she might be 14 years
old. At this point, Montez moves to a different part
of the room (in the factory, where the film is being
shot), and begins to sing a "old" musical number from
a film. She is surrounded by several attractive young
men, including Gerard Malanga, and soon they sings
as well.
After a while, the boys move items
out of the way and Montez goes shopping. She talks
to a clerk who is rude to her and is eventually detained
by detective Mary Woronov (again playing a male character
in a Warhol film). Woronov eventually takes her home
so she can change.
Reel 2 begins at Montez's home and
she takes forever to change clothes. There is much
sexual tension between the she/he and the her/him
that is Montez and Woronov and eventually they kiss.
After much primping, Montez is taken to trial and
her five husbands (Gerard and the young men) testify
against her as does Woronov. She is found guilty and
made to drink Hemlock.
As the film ends, by having the
last frame run out of the camera, the man playing
the judge says something like, "She was noble and
tragic" and the lamp of the projector flickers freely
as the last frame of film runs through the projector's
gate.
"Hedy" is filmed in the traditional
Warhol style of 1965. There are two reels each of
which runs 35 minutes and when played back to back
creates a 70 minute movie. Black and white film is
used. The microphone on the camera is used and the
sound is horrendous, much of the dialogue is indiscernible
much of the time. But the bigger insult to the viewer
is the soundtrack which once again features Velvet
Underground "noise" and feedback stings which are
pumped up at the most inopportune times during the
proceedings. This effect is used much more interestingly
in the "Gerard Malanga Story" segment on "Chelsea
Girls." Here, it is about as annoying as one can possibly
imagine.
What is most interesting about "Hedy"
is the way the camera is used. Warhol pans, tilts,
and zooms almost continuously through the film after
beginning each reel with a long, continuous static
shot. Sadly, here, as is not the case with other Warhol
films where this sophomoric device is used, the effect
is disastrous. The constant movement of the camera
only ceases to make the film even more tedious and
drab. Even quick zooms in and out and bored pans around
the factory cannot engage us as viewers.
Likewise, Montez is simply atrocious
here. The man simply had absolutely no screen presence
and one cannot believe that Warhol did not know other,
better drag queens who could have been cast. (Then
again, perhaps this is a statement about the horrendous
and the ridiculousness of aging movie queens).
And even more surprising, since
Warhol himself shot the film, the cute boys in the
film are never focused upon, not even for a second.
It's as if the film were shot by a celibate heterosexual!
If there is anything to like at
all in "Hedy," and there is very little, then it is
Mary Woronov. She is the only person on screen here
who has any presence. When she is within the frame
(and even Warhol has trouble panning away from her)
she simply radiates with screen presence. She owns
this film. She is the only reason to see it. It is
little surprise that she was one of the only Warhol
Superstars who received true notoriety as an actress
after her days at the Factory.
Woronov is the unflinching element
of this film. In a way, she takes the place of Warhol's
now nearly defunct static camera shots as the only
hardened and fixed component of this Warhol film.
"Hedy" is a film that would act
as a precursor to the works of John Waters and numerous
other filmmakers who used drag queens to play female
characters. Warhol was a huge fan of movie performers,
especially 30's and 40's female stars, and surely
found the story of this one, who is in decline, quite
compelling. (Although his camera belies this notion).
Like Divine in numerous Waters' films and Gloria Swanson
in the last shot of "Sunset Boulevard," Montez here,
as Hedy Lamar, has a casual indifference towards the
seriousness of the events that are going on around
her. She seems only interested in preening for the
mirror and vamping for the camera. As a character,
she seems not only oblivious to but elevated above
what is going on her "real" life. With "Hedy," Warhol
puts a magnifying glass to FAME and his unblinking
camera, which constantly wanders away from the action,
leaves us feeling that it is not as glamourous or
as exciting as we have been fooled into believing.
In fact, it seems, it is downright boring.
Notes:
Also with Jack Smith, Ingrid Superstar,
Harvey Tavel, Rick Lockwood, James Claire, Randy Borscheidt,
David Meyers, and Arnold Rockwood.
Scenario by Ronald Tavel, who plays
the doctor in the first scene on the film.
Montez sings "I Feel Pretty" and
"Young at Heart." She changes the words in the latter
from "...when you're young at heart" to "...when you're
a kleptomaniac" throughout the song. Malanga and the
boys sing "I Get No Kicks from Champagne."
Sources conflict on whether this
was filmed and released in November 1965 or February
1966.
Warhol had met Lamar and Tavel based
his script on her autobiography, "Ecstasy and Me."
Viewed at a retrospective of Warhol
films, provided by the Warhol Museum to the Alamo
Drafthouse, in October of 2003. The other film on
the program that evening was "My Hustler."
