Underground U.S.A. 1980

The Sunset Blvd. of underground cinema, and a suitably ambivalent retrospect on the star-game casualties of New York's upper depths, with Patti Astor statuesquely hysterical as a 20-year-old Norma Desmond, made up to recall Edie Sedgwick and surrounded by Warhol's lost children. We've been here before, but without the hindsight: a camera cruise along a hustler's meat-rack, kitchen-talk over cold canned spaghetti, Taylor Mead grimacing in a spastic dance, the silent stud a sullenly passive observer. Mitchell's ear for campy native wit and eye for figures in a loft-scape happily keep at bay the otherwise contagious NY ennui.

The Sunset Blvd. of underground cinema, and a suitably ambivalent retrospect on the star-game casualties of New York's upper depths, with Patti Astor statuesquely hysterical as a 20-year-old Norma Desmond, made up to recall Edie Sedgwick and surrounded by Warhol's lost children. We've been here before, but without the hindsight: a camera cruise along a hustler's meat-rack, kitchen-talk over cold canned spaghetti, Taylor Mead grimacing in a spastic dance, the silent stud a sullenly passive observer. Mitchell's ear for campy native wit and eye for figures in a loft-scape happily keep at bay the otherwise contagious NY ennui.

Patti Astor

... Vickie

Rene Ricard

... Kenneth

Tom Wright

... Frank

Eric Mitchell

... Victor

Jackie Curtis

... The Room-mate

Cookie Mueller

... The Barmaid