Angel, Angel, Down We Go (also released as Cult of the Damned) is a marvelously psychedelic film. It is also unabashedly campy and clearly made by people who were hoping they could get those crazy hippies into the movie theater doing some weird stuff. It comes complete with dissociative episodes expressed in painterly collages by Shirley Kaplan and flatly narrated by folk singer and songwriter Holly Near. Ms. Near plays the role of Tara Nicole Steele, an unhappy debutante (also known as "The Fat Girl") who takes up with cultish band of sky-diving rock stars. Jennifer Jones plays Tara Nicole's mother, Astrid, a status-obsessed harpy who is also constantly referred to as "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World". And Ms. Jones does look absolutely gorgeous at 50 years young wearing nothing beside a bed sheet, or evening gowns designed to look like she's wearing nothing but a bed sheet casually tied at her bosom. There are scenes of hilarious cruelty between Astrid and her billionaire Airline tycoon husband, who prefers the company of naked young men.

Oddly enough, the film pre-dates the story of the Manson Family, which broke soon after the 1969 release. Oh, and it's a musical. Jordan Christopher, who plays the cult's leader, improbably named Bogart Peter Stuyvesant, does all the singing as a Jim Morrison-type: shirtless and in leather pants. Mr. Christopher is really pulling out all the stops for this performance. Like he's not saving any energy to drive home afterwards. One of the tamer songs "The Fat Song", can be seen in high quality here. A faded version of the theatrical trailer, which really encapsulates everything you need can be seen here. But sadly for Mr. Christopher, his character is so over the top that he reminded me of Dick Shawn's turn as L.S.D. or Lorenzo St. Dubois in the 1968 film The Producers. If you haven't seen Mr. Shawn's hilarious hippie parody watch it here, and do a little compare and contrast.

Roddy McDowell has the role of a cult member that was probably a real let-down after Planet of the Apes. But he does it as if it were Lear.

The whole thing can be found under its alternate title here. Should you watch this movie? No, you should not. Well, maybe just a little. The first 15 to 20 minutes are great. The party scene in particular is gorgeous. Ms. Near's slow-motion descent down the staircase to the sitar-inflected titled song is a highlight. I'd say it's great up through "The Fat Song" and then the whole thing gets bogged down in over-blown dialogue. There is a terrible scene in the middle of the film when Bogart Peter Stuyvesant meets Tara's parents and he talks Lorenzo St. Dubois-style nonsense for what seems like five hours. It is unbearable. The dialogue feels like it was originally written for a play, where it would make sense to have lots of expository dialogue about sky-diving. You'd need to create the scene with words because you can't sky-dive in the theater. But with the extreme visuals of the film it becomes, at the very least, de trop, and at full throttle, like nails on a chalk board painful. Someone needed to cut at least 1/3 of the dialogue.

Ms. Near does a terrific job. I loved the scene when she was trapped upside down on the ceiling while everyone else was sitting down below (mostly because I feel that way a lot). Ms. Near gives such a good-natured performance, game for anything and with laughter in her eyes. And she looks beautiful, the brocade robes and towering wigs really suit her. The film posits her as "The Fat Girl" but she isn't particularly big. If she does have any extra on her, it looks great. In fact, the other women just look weirdly emaciated around her.

Ms. Jones has some marvelously catty lines and plenty of meaty situations to explore. Many have bemoaned the appearance of a gen-u-ine Hollywood star in this sort of rubbish. But perhaps Ms. Jones merely knew the Bette Davis truth of the matter: that plum roles for women over 40 are best found in B movies.

But don't watch the whole thing. Really, you'll just be hurting yourself. Instead, check out Les Blank's terrific God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance, an un-narrated documentary of the 1967 Love-In in Los Angeles on Easter Sunday. A beautiful day in the park with a lot of sweet souls doing their own thing. Each mediating, playing music, dancing, or even totally tripping out. There is lots of style inspiration here and the gentle editing almost makes you feel like you are there. A wonderful hypnotic quality permeates this film, along with a kindness, both to the participants and to you as you watch.

Take me to your leader, Anne Carlisle in Liquid Sky

To sound the depth of 80s inspiration, I recommend Liquid Sky. Though to be perfectly frank, the plot and the acting of this 1982 movie make watching it rough going at times. It's the sort of underground cult film that interested me more as a young'un, when my life maintained a veneer of bourgeois respectability. Now that life is quite seedy enough, I prefer to go to the opera. But despite these caveats, Liquid Sky has a beauty of its own that you must not miss.





Many images from Liquid Sky are permanently burned into my brain. The most famous one, of course, is the androgynous Anne Carlisle, who co-wrote the screenplay (or possibly wrote it entirely), in Bowie-esque face paint dancing with a preying mantis on her arm. Unfortunately this scene from the film is not available on youtube.

Set primarily in the perpetual twilight of Manhattan's nightclub Danceteria, Liquid Sky is populated with such thoroughly unpleasant people that no one really cares when their friends are vaporized by aliens right in front of them. The dialogue, such as it is, is delivered in affectless, dead-pan junkie-speak. But what Liquid Sky has going for it is low-budget spectacle. It is also a time capsule of early 80s counter-culture before New Wave was cleaned up and commercialized. Plus there is some nice use of heat aura photography and stop motion animation.

And the costumes, oh, the delight of the costumes. Puff skirts, portrait collars, pink and blue streaks in platinum hair, androgyny, over-sized mens wear, all paired with face paint that is equal parts Kabuki and clown. The film captures the playfulness and the aggression of it, where glam rock and punk commingled. There is also an unintentionally funny song, Me and My Rhythm Box, performed by Paula E. Sheppard.

The plot can be dismissed as risible, yet it has undercurrents of real William S. Burroughs-type Science Fiction as drugs, aliens, and violence are intertwined. Underground fashion model Margaret and her heroin dealer girlfriend Adrienne live in a neon-lit hovel filled with avant garde costumery. The smack is hidden behind something that looks like a blank template for a Japanese Noh mask. Aliens arrive in a tiny space craft and perch on the roof. The aliens are also after the heroin addicts as they thrive on the chemicals released by humans on the nod, until they figure out that vaporizing humans having orgasms is a better high. A whole series of terrible things happen to Margaret, who is used and exploited by everyone. But since she is unable to have an orgasm (sort of like the virginal final girl in horror movies), she finds that she can get the aliens to vaporize all those who have wronged her. And that's the short version without any spoilers, honestly.

Ms. Carlisle, who plays two characters (Margaret and in drag as Jimmy), carries this film on her back. Her performance is what makes the film watchable. Margaret is believably vulnerable (despite being about 2 feet taller than everyone else in the film) and Jimmy is petulantly slimy and churlishly real.

The soundtrack is pure early 80s electronica. Repetitive, mechanical and naive, it sounds like what a smacked out Phillip Glass might have composed for an orchestra of merry-go-rounds. More about the soundtrack here. It can really worm its way into your brain. (Full disclosure: I have this soundtrack on cassette tape somewhere. I used to think it was the perfect music for driving L.A. freeways.)

Enjoy the fashion show, goslings.

Today marks the 34th anniversary of Philippe Petit’s art caper. At 7:15 am on August 7, 1974, the French funambulist, juggler and street performer, only 24 years old at the time, did a 45 minute tight rope walk on a cable strung between the very tops of the two World Trade Center towers. Over 100 stories above the ground. Without a net. Without a harness. And, as one snarky commenter wrote: and in bell bottoms, for crying out loud.

Indeed, Mr. Petit was rocking a David Bowie as the Thin White Duke kind of look.

Rita Hayworth and I went to see Man On Wire the other night, an interesting documentary, by James Marsh about Mr. Petit’s legendary skywalk.

The footage of the walk itself, although as one of the policemen who arrested him said: “it was more like a dance”, is white-knuckling. Even if you don’t have vertigo. There is something elated and beautiful and terrible about the whole thing. My heart was in my throat watching it. Mr. Petit is obviously in ecstasy, or some heightened state of being. You can’t miss the joy that shines out of him.



















The towers were still under construction at the time and Mr. Petit and his crew disguised themselves as construction workers and business men, complete with fake ids to infiltrate the building with over 500 lbs of gear to make it all happen. Mr. Marsh’s documentary focuses on the how rather than the why to show the 6 years of planning that made this stunt happen. Mr. Marsh frames the coup as a heist, which adds to the excitement.

Many of those involved in the initial planning backed out of working the event itself. As one puts it: I didn’t want to be responsible for something that could cause a friend’s death.

Possibly Mr. Petit was conscious of having a legacy to protect even then. (Or perhaps he was just lucky enough to have a devoted friend with a camera.) Man on Wire has a lot of footage from the planning stages of what Mr. Petit called “the coup”, as well as footage of his early street performances. There are a few black and white reconstructions with actors. I found these distracting, but mercifully they were few. Mr. Petit had done similar high wire walks before. One in Paris, between the towers of Notre Dame, and one in Australia, over a massive tension bridge. But nothing equivalent in height and difficulty as the Twin Towers.

Mr. Petit himself, who currently lives in upstate New York and is an artist in residence at Saint John the Divine, is a very lively interview subject. For the events that were not filmed or photographed, he acts them out. His energy is very intense. Like stand back or you’ll crack the lens on the camera intense. One of his collaborators says that when he first met Mr. Petit, he thought he was crazy, or a con man. And certainly, that’s how he comes off. But when you see him walking the wire, he is another person. Transformed by concentration, you see the artist in him. Clearly, he was born to do this. But there will be some fall out around him because of it.

Sneaking into the Twin Towers, shooting an arrow between the two to link them with a wire, and orchestrating this whole stunt was illegal. Not mean, or bad, Mr. Petit points out, but illegal. But because of massive public outcry, the charges against him were reduced to trespassing and disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to perform a free show for children in Central Park, which became a major media event. Obviously a stunt like that would land him in Guantanamo today.

His friends were not so lucky. Some were fined. One was immediately and permanently deported from the U.S. He appears to have abandoned all of them. I’ve never had any experience of fame, nor have I been around anyone who blew up, but I think this is fairly standard.

His girlfriend at the time, Annie Allix, is the most philosophical about it. She says something like: Our relationship ended at that moment, and that’s how it should be. It’s beautiful that way. Ms. Allix was Mr. Petit’s constant support during the venture. She says that it was exhausting (I can only imagine). Her description of their relationship was telling. She said he was riveted by him. That he was so thrilling and courted her so sweetly, but that she became completely subsumed into his life to the point that he never even considered that she might have something of her own to do. I mean, there’s only so much of that a girl can take. Yeah, after getting him up there and down safely, and after 6 years of planning and sacrifices, I’d sure feel like that project was done too.

What Man on a Wire fails to mention is funding. Several transatlantic crossings for several people, a cable that cost $10,000 in 1974 (adjust that for inflation and that’s a whole lot of mango). Hard to finance all that as a street performer.

Rita Hayworth and I were discussing this after the film when a lovely French woman in fabulous glasses (and don’t French women always have the most amazing glasses?) interjected: these were children of privilege, you could tell by where they lived in Paris. But Rita Hayworth had an excellent point: what parents would give a kid thousands of clams to do some crazy thing that would probably get him killed? He must have had other income streams. Or other supporters. Perhaps since the whole thing was illegal, certain aspects remain secret to protect these supporters.

Thankfully, Mr. Marsh never mentions the destruction of the Twin Towers. I mean, you'd have to have been in a coma for the past 7 years not to know about that. In that sense the film could be seen as a tribute to the Towers but without any of jingoistic shlock that now surrounds almost any mention of these structures. The film importantly points out that the World Trade Center was not popular in the 70's. It was merely seen as a big behemoth in an already cash-strapped city. Mr. Petit's performance helped to raise public support for the buidlings.

I first heard of Mr. Petit in 1990. A distant cousin was visiting me from abroad. She was studying architecture and wanted to see the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Naturally we waited until the very last day of her visit, when she had to catch a plane that afternoon. It was also the morning after a particularly raucous party (though some of the guests were still in my apartment). Both of us were wearing beaded 1920s party frocks and admittedly still drunk when we took the hour long subway ride uptown. To see the cathedral at dawn was worth it.

But our appearance (and alcohol induced high spirits) attracted the attention of a pair of stonecutters who were working on the cathedral’s façade early to beat the summer heat. They insisted on giving us the grand tour of the place which was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. No, that’s not a double entendre; the building is that amazing. It’s the largest Neo Gothic structure in the world and to this day it’s still unfinished. They led us through secret passageways, we met the peacocks in the garden, and finally we climbed pigeon-shit encrusted ladders (in high heels) to be on top of the dome. That was terrifying, and ecstatic. Heights, I tell you, they are something.


To get there, we went through Mr. Petit’s office, a little nook nestled right beneath the cathedral’s roof. They told us that he was a professional wire-walker and an artist in residence at Saint John the Divine. And I thought: nice work if you can get it. But it was hard to conceptualize what that would look like.

Indeed, I don’t think that the spectators on the ground could really see all that much on this morning 34 years ago. He was a very distant figure 100 stories up. The magic of the high wire then exists not so much in the seeing of it, but the feeling it produces in the spectator.