Chumlum, a film by Ron Rice

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25 minutes of superimpositions, hammock swinging, fabric waving and costume play with Jack Smith as master of ceremonies. The music by Angus MacLise (under the direction of Tony Conrad, whatever that means) gives the proceedings a suitably dreamy and hallucinatory air, like an attic restaging of Kenneth Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. Yesterday’s Doctor Benway operation featured Warhol Superstar Jackie Curtis as the nurse, and there are two more Superstars among the participants here: Mario Montez and Gerard Malanga; Montez had appeared in Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures a year before. (Tony Conrad was the sound recordist on that occasion.) Ron Rice’s film was made in 1964, and is another of those products of the mid-60s that anticipates the later excesses of the decade. Watch it here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda, a film by Ira Cohen