Heat (1972)

The 1971 Heat was an early entry in filmmaker Paul Morrissey's tenure as the official director of movies coming out of Andy Warhol's so-called Factory. (Morrissey took the reins from Warhol himself, after the artist had made a number of celebrated underground films.) Factory star Joe Dallesandro plays the William Holden part in what is essentially an unofficial remake of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard. As a former child star named Little Joe, Dallesandro's on-the-skids actor is bedding anyone who he thinks can help his career. Going nowhere, he becomes involved with an aging former star (Sylvia Miles), and while their relationship doesn't do much for his aspirations it contributes to Morrissey's unvarnished portrait of Hollywood hustling that certainly falls below the radar of Wilder's classic. Not a great film but a distinctive and memorable one, Heat extends Morrissey's fascination with the tawdry and humiliating fate of most big dreams, and is more poignant than most of the director's later work. --Tom Keogh Amazon.com

Raw, engaging, and entertaining

I'm pleasantly surprised to find all these positive reviews on Amazon, since I don't consider Paul Morrissey's early work to be very accessible. His trio of Trash, Heat, and Flesh seems to explore similar themes with a very cheap aesthetic. "Flesh" was even edited in-camera complete with a wash of white light every time there was a cut. Add in some non-actors and a few amateurs, and you've got a movie that isn't all that easy to watch. However, they are witting, cutting, and engaging, if you can get past their low-fidelity appearance.

"Heat" is a sendup of "Sunset Boulevard." Joe Dallesandro is a former TV child actor who decides to try for a comeback replacing sexual favors for any talent. It's a pretty standard story, but it's Paul Morrisey's strange style that makes it interesting. He uses an almost neo-realist approach with loosely scripted "scenes" where the actors, many presumably playing themselves, have a lot of freedom to take the scene wherever they want. There aren't a lot of cuts and edits, which is typical for this style. The downside is that some scenes go on a little too long - past the point of interest - but that's the risk you take when you make a film with a loose structure like this. The benefit to this style is the incredible realism. It literally feels like Morrisey brought his camera to Hollywood, taped some people living their lives, and released it as a film.

"Heat" is my favorite of the three films, mainly because its narrative feels the tightest to me. Even though I just said that some scenes are a little too long, "Heat" always feels like it's going someplace. "Trash" and "Flesh" are good films as well, but their approach is a little less narrative based. I didn't always get the sense that one scene was leading to another. That's not a bad thing, but with films like these, you sometimes wonder why certain events were filmed. I'm taking the time to explain all this because I would recommend starting with "Heat" over the others. It's the most accessible and will give you a good feel for what to expect from the other two. They're all worth viewing, and I would recommend buying the whole set. July 30, 2008

HOT and the Guys are 70's Sexy!

Heat" is a parody of "Sunset Boulevard." Joey Davis, an unemployed ex-child actor, uses sex to get his landlady Lydia, to reduce his rent, and then tries to exert his influence on Sally Todd, who is now washed-up and wasn't even more than slightly important at the height of her career. Sally tries to help Joey, until he realizes that she just isn't well-connected enough to be of any service to him. The affair is complicated by Sally's psychotic, maybe-lesbian-or-maybe-not daughter Jessica, who tries to muscle in on her mother's relationship with Joey. Very gay 70's! Makes you wonder if Andy wasn't hanging out with John Waters! May 13, 2008

"Cacha Culla Bubeleh, Can I Have A Cup Of Coffee?"

"Heat" is by no means a good film, but it is the best outing from Warhol director Paul Morrissey.

Joe Dallesandro plays basically the same character as in "Flesh" and "Trash" so his performance is mundane as usual. It's the other characters in the film that make it watchable.

Pat Ast as Joe's landlady and Sylvia Miles as the fading star Sally Todd are the film's saving grace. Both have perfect comic timing and unlike Joe, can actually act. The "What do you mean, what do I mean, I mean..." scene is genius!

But the shining star of the this picture is Warhol Factory Superstar ANDREA FELDMAN! A. Because she can't act at all. B. Her voice manages to amuse and annoy all at once. And C. Her improvised one-liners and indicipherable yiddish will crack you up for days!

It is "Sunset Boulevard" for Bohemian Junkies. Rent it! November 27, 2006

Underground Classic

This is the most coherent in the Flesh/Trash/Heat trilogy and certainly more watchable than Andy Warhol's films that he personally "directed" (anyone for 8 hours of the Empire State Building?). John Waters was certainly influenced by Andy Warhol (who returned the favor in Andy Warhol's Bad) but his films were a lot more fun to watch. Though, just as in Andy Warhol, early John Waters had the characters basically play themselves, Pink Flamingoes and Female Trouble are shockingly hilarious, whereas Heat has a creepy sense of exploitation. This update on Sunset Boulevard (a far better movie by far) has the characters repeating what seem like monologues. The storyline revolves around the characters using each other sexually and otherwise and even though the "acting" is certainly lacking, the characters seem like real people who lived in the countercultural version of skid row at the time with the explicit scenes verging on pornographic without being at all arousing. The reason I called Heat a "classic" is that underground films at the time could be tedious, random images, political diatrebes, or experiments with film (the same shot over and over). This was way before underground films morphed into independent films where with the right connections, you could actually make a profit as well as before the vcr, when seeing an underground movie was an experience in itself. That world has now disappeared and "Heat" is a fragment of that time. June 28, 2006

Plastic slice of life

This is probably the most accessible of the Worhol flicks, and comes across as a seedy voyeuristic experience. Sylvia Miles is fantastic as a whacked-out, washed-up actress of yesteryear, and her sexually-confused daughter is just as off-kilter. It's filled with hilariously weird characters and scenes, most noteably the scene where Joe (Dallesandro) and his landlord (Pat Ast) end up caressing each other in bed, in order for him to get "that discount" on his rent. Another stand-out is the discussion between Sylvia and her daughter over the possibility that her grandson will become a lesbian if he is raised by two gay women! The dialogue seems very natural, and perhaps was largely improvised. The label "art-house film" is appropriate here. More refined than Worhol's/Morrissey's "Trash" and "Flesh", this stream-of-consciousness film should satisfy if you enjoy well-done low-budget independent films. August 24, 2002

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