31 Performances Ripe for Rediscovery (17) Holly Woodlawn in TRASH

"Just because people throw it out and don't have any use for it, doesn't mean it's garbage."

Two years before being immortalized in Lou Reed's classic "Walk on the Wild Side", Holly Woodlawn gave one of the defining performances of the seventies in Paul Morrissey's stunning Trash (1970).  Appearing alongside beautiful Joe Dallesandro, Woodlawn is absolutely amazing in the film and gives one of the most endearing, original and moving performances I have ever seen.  

The Puerto Rican born Woodlawn had amazingly never appeared in a feature-length film before Trash, a fact which makes the performance all the more amazing.  The experience Woodlawn had gathered on the stage in the late sixties informed the performance in Trash and the authority and command of the screen Woodlawn shows is quite remarkable.  Legend has it that Woodlawn's role was initially much smaller but Morrissey was so blown away by Holly's talent that he expanded it into a leading part.  

 Holly Woodlawn manages to be funny, tragic and consistently brilliant in Trash. Legendary filmmaker George Cukor was in fact so moved by Woodlawn's performance that he started a campaign to get a Best Actress nomination but, sadly, it wasn't meant to be. It was the Academy's major oversight though as Woodlawn's performance in the film is among the best I have ever seen. Trash garnered a lot of justified critical acclaim upon its release and it remains one of the best and most defining films of the seventies. For me personally  Trash stands as one of the great examples of how truly life altering (and affirming) a film can be. We would be blessed to have more films this honest and raw in our theaters today. 

More information on the life and career of the fabulous Holly Woodlawn can be found here.

-Jeremy Richey, 2012-

Joe Dallesandro on Film: Trash (1970)

******A series, dedicated to my wife Kelley, celebrating the legendary beauty and career of Joe Dallesandro in stills and text.***




One of the most brilliant and poetic films of the seventies, Paul Morrissey's Trash (1970) is a work that has not lost any of its considerable power in the more than forty years since it first premiered. Driven by Morrissey's trailblazing experimental direction and the dazzling performances of Joe Dallesandro and Holly Woodlawn, Trash is a masterpiece and is widely considered by most to be the greatest film of Morrissey's influential trilogy, which also included Flesh and Heat.






Filmed in under two weeks by Morrissey (mostly in the basement of his New York apartment) and a one-man crew, Trash is at once more approachable than the more visually experimental Flesh and yet more demanding. Trash is a heavier film than Flesh with an emphasis on 'heavy', as there is an exhaustion present in the film that wasn't in the earlier Morrissey-Dallesando collaborations. It's that heaviness, that world-weariness, that helps make Trash perhaps the most moving film Morrissey ever made and it has stood the test of time long after so many 'trendsetting' American films of the late sixties and early seventies have badly dated.







While Joe Dallesandro gives one of his great defining performances in Trash, the real story here is the work done by the great Holly Woodlawn, who manages to be funny, tragic and consistently brilliant in a role that was originally designed for just one scene. Legendary filmmaker George Cukor was so moved by Woodlawn's performance that he started a campaign to get a Best Actress nomination but, sadly, it wasn't meant to be. It was the Academy's major oversight though as Woodlawn's performance in the film is among the best I have ever seen.






Dallesandro and Woodlawn control Trash completely but the film does include several notable co-stars including Geri Miller (who appears in the film's incredibly sexy opening scenes), Andrea Feldman, Jane Forth and Michael Sklar. A young Sissy Spacek shot a scene for the film but was cut as Morrissey assembled the released version.



Trash garnered a lot of justified critical acclaim upon its release and it remains one of the best and most defining films of the seventies. For me persoanlly, Trash stands as one of the great examples of how truly life altering (and affirming) a film can be. We would be blessed to have more films this honest and raw in our theaters today.

Joe Dallesandro on Film: Flesh (1968)

******A series, dedicated to my fiancee Kelley, celebrating the legendary beauty and career of Joe Dallesandro in stills and text.***




"There exists a whole subculture of people who are movie star oriented."
-Candy Darling, My Face for the World to See-






"The Flesh story line concerned a guy waking up with his so-called wife and having to go out and hustle because his wife's girlfriend needs an abortion. We called them 'Underground Movies' because they were done without crews, with non-actors, shot very quickly on 16-millimeter film. The film had a big success...Paul (Morrissey) came up with the idea of having some people call the police and complain that Flesh was obscene, so that it would be shut down for some legal bullshit for a day...it was just to get all this publicity and coverage, and it worked. Audience members and critics thought of them in the beginning as documentaries. So I went with that."
-Jackie Curtis quoted in Craig B. Highberger's Superstar in a Housedress-






I had the great honor earlier this year to get a piece I wrote on the remarkable Flesh published in Intellect's Directory of World Cinema: American Independent edition. It's one of my pieces in the book I am most proud of and it was a thrill getting the opportunity to write a bit on such a groundbreaking and important film. I wrote that I thought Joe was, "fascinating and very touching in the film, and comparisons that were made to a young Brando still seem dead on." It is an electrifying and incredibly iconic performance in a truly trailblazing film. Flesh also remains probably my personal favorite of the famed Trilogy (that concluded with Trash and Heat) even though Trash might ultimately remain a better film.

Joe Dallesandro on Film: Lonesome Cowboys (1968)

***A new series, dedicated to my fiancee Kelley, celebrating the legendary beauty and career of Joe Dallesandro in stills and text.***




Taking its name from a haunting Elvis Presley track from the 1957 film Loving You, Lonesome Cowboys (1968) is an Andy Warhol film scripted by Paul Morrissey and shot around the same time as the more well-known Flesh. It would mark one of Joe's earliest appearances on film and it's an unforgettable little production also starring the glorious Viva, Magic Tramp Eric Emerson and Taylor Mead. While Warhol is credited as 'director' of the film, it is pretty much a Morrissey film through and through as he was behind the camera and in the editing room (with Warhol) for it.





Originally titled Ramona and Julian and then The Unwanted Cowboy, Lonesome Cowboys was shot in Arizona in the early part of 1968 and won Best Film at the San Francisco Film Festival that year. Warhol screened the film exclusively at New York's Garrick Theater in the summer of '68 where it smashed all the theater's existing Box-Office records. It would finally make its way through parts of the country in the late part of '68 after the success of Flesh. A few years later The Velvet Underground's fantastic song "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" off Loaded, their final studio album with Lou Reed, took its name from the film.







Joe appears only sporadically through the film (this is really Viva's showcase) but he's unforgettable and it's impossible to take your eyes off him when he appears. Lonesome Cowboys is sadly not currently available in the United States but it is out in Italy from the terrific Raro Video. Enjoy the stills...