Heat (1972)
“I didn’t complain when you said you wanted to be a lesbian, did I?”
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Synopsis: |
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Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:
Review:
… and Dallesandro once again plays — well, himself, as handsome, casual, and pan-sexually appealing as ever.
Andrea Farnsworth — memorable in Trash (1970) as “the rich girl” with the funny voice (her voice is equally strange here) — plays one of the most obnoxious grown-daughters in cinematic history:
— a whiny ingrate who would come close to winning the worst-mother-in-the-world award (she carries her baby around in a bag and gives him sedatives so she can head out). (Sadly, Farnsworth committed suicide just before this film premiered.) Perhaps having the most fun with their performance is Pat Ast as Lydia the landlady, who isn’t afraid to show her roaring appetite for Dallesandro.
Unfortunately, the semi-improvised screenplay isn’t very engaging or clever, leaving us simply waiting for any reasonably juicy zingers (“Is that a way to bring up a boy? He’ll be a lesbian!”). At least the final shot has a surprise in it. Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:
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One thought on “Heat (1972)”
Rewatch (12/7/21). Not must-see but it has its cult enthusiasts. As posted in ‘Revival House of Camp & Cult'( fb):
“I mean, we can’t say the baby is yours. We can’t say the baby is mine.”
“Can we say it’s a cousin?”
‘Heat’: Unlike some of the more (what?, artistically?) successful, Warhol-produced eye-openers / jaw-droppers that would follow… things like ‘Bad’, ‘Flesh for Frankenstein’, ‘Blood for Dracula’… ‘Heat’ has more of an obvious ‘accident on the side of the road’ (I was going to say ‘appeal’ but let’s say) vibe.
Although purported to be a parody of ‘Sunset Boulevard’, that’s a bit of a stretch; its similarity is tenuous. Yes, there’s a (more or less) washed-up actress who lives in an old Hollywood mansion and, yes, there will ultimately be attempted humor re: what she attempts with a gun. But that’s about it.
The rest of the movie is just plain weird and/or a parade of the outlandish for its own sake. Along the way, there’s the occasional funny line (esp. vis-à-vis lesbianism) but, essentially, what’s more ‘noteworthy’ about the film is its main cast.
Sylvia Miles stars as the ‘Gloria Swanson’. Here, Miles took time between appearances (of literally minutes in each) in both ‘Midnight Cowboy’ and ‘Farewell, My Lovely’. She received Oscar noms for both (!). (She would also go on to play Meryl Streep’s mother in ‘She-Devil’.) The ‘William Holden’ role goes to Joe Dallesandro – seeming to be sleepwalking through his part. Joe would get better with time – not only in ‘FFF’ and ‘BFD’ but by working with Louis Malle, Francis Ford Coppola and (not surprisingly) John Waters.
Speaking of Waters, I see a whole lot of Divine in the co-starring Pat Ast.
But ‘Heat’ was also very much the swan song of 24-year-old Andrea Feldman, a hanger-on of Warhol who came from a very wealthy family (and had a history of mental health problems). As Miles’ sort-of-lesbian daughter Jessica, Feldman is nothing if not whole-hog. It seems that she thought of ‘Heat’ as her ticket to immortality. Before the film opened, she had been making statements like, “I’m on my way up there with James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.”… before she jumped from a 14th story window on 5th Avenue. She left a note – which allegedly had a lot of awful things to say about Warhol.
Strangely, Feldman was given a rave review in ‘New York’ magazine:
“The most striking performance, in large part non-performance, comes from the late Andrea Feldman, as the flat-voiced, freaked-out daughter, a mass of psychotic confusion, infantile and heart-breaking.”