BLUE MOVIE (1968)

Color/Sound/133 mins
Directed, Photographed, Produced by Andy Warhol
Executive Producer: Paul Morrissey/Sound: Jed Johnson

Viva/Louis Waldon

Andy Warhol:

"I'd always wanted to do a movie that was pure fucking, nothing else, the way Eat had been just eating and Sleep had been just sleeping. So in October '68 I shot a movie of Viva having sex with Louis Waldon. I called it just Fuck." (POP294)

Fuck or Blue Movie was shot in October 1968 at David Bourdon's apartment in Greenwich Village. (FAW36) Although Viva and Louis Waldon do have intercourse in the film, they spend much of the time talking about the war in Vietnam, cooking food and taking a shower. The blue tint of the film was actually an error. Warhol had used tungsten (indoor) film but there was sunlight streaming into Bordon's apartment, resulting in the blue tint.

It was shown only at the Factory until the following year when all four reels that were shot were shown at a benefit for Film Culture magazine at the Elgin Cinema on June 12, 1969. (Ibid) Then on July 21 Warhol put it into the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre where Lonesome Cowboys had been playing but was dying "pretty quickly." (POP294) It was a shortened version (only the last three reels lasting 100 mins) and renamed Blue Movie to avoid the censors.

According to Variety, the film made three times what it cost in the first week of being shown. It was seized by the New York City police on July 31, and the theatre's staff arrested. On September 18, the New York Criminal Court ruled that it was obscene and fined the theatre's manager $250.00. Warhol reacted by publishing the film as a book through Grove Press. The book contained all of the film dialogue accompanied by stills from the film.

According to Bob Colacello, when the film Last Tango in Paris was released, Andy Warhol thought it was based on Blue Movie. (BC199)

Gary Comenas
Warholstars

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