Women in Revolt is Morrissey's most Political Movie to date, It takes a satirical look at women's liberation which was gaining mass attention at the time this movie was made. The movie shows three Women who revolt against various oppressions. Joining forces they create a political group called P.I.G.S. an acronym standing for Politically Involved Girls. There are some interesting Parallels between the Movie and the shooting Andy Warhol experienced at the hands of Valerie Solanas in '68, She was a fierce Feminist, creating a manifesto called S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) and one can see the apparent mocking of the whole women's lib. movement with Casting three Transvestites/drag queens to play the Lead women. If this was intentional is unknown to me, but there must have Anti-feminist atmosphere at the factory after Valerie. The movie dosen't really touch up on Political issues for too long, and like any Movie from the factory is always filled with interesting character's, Like Mr. Morrissey says himself it's the character's that made the films. Some of the more memorable moments are Jackie Curtis having her boyfriend do her nails spraying him with air freshener, and then throwing matches at him to speed up his housework, having him totally naked with his flabby body exposed adds to his further degradation.
6 Reviews
Transvestite tirade takes trousers to task
melvelvit-118 January 2010
An hysterical-in-spurts skewering of the then-topical Women's Liberation Movement obviously inspired by the near-fatal shooting of Andy Warhol by a crackpot feminist a few years earlier. Paul Morrissey "directs" this ad libbed diatribe that owes a debt to Jackie Susann's VALLEY OF THE DOLLS as transvestites Candy Darling, Jackie Curtis, and Holly Woodlawn talk non-stop while going from dissatisfied society deb, teacher, and model to wallowing in the depths of despair after becoming P.I.G.s (Politically Involved Girls). The objectified males are merely peripheral and mostly naked but the Kim Novak-obsessed Candy is both funny and fascinating. It's a shame he/she died so young.
Paul Morrissey's tour-de-force of drag queen feminism!
Casey-526 May 2000
No one has reviewed this gem yet? Wow! This is the fourth Warhol/Morrissey film I've seen and the only one without Joe Dallesandro. But he isn't missed too much with the amazing talent and storyline given here!
Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling, and Holly Woodlawn (the three top drag queen Superstars) are three members of PIGs (Politically Involved Girls). We see their trials, tribulations, relationships with men (and women), their feminist attacks on men, and how they all end up wasted and abandoned.
Of the three lead actresses, Jackie Curtis is my favorite. She knows how to deliver dialogue to make it zing with humor, she knows which facial contortions display which emotions, and she certainly is a natural comedienne. I had only seen her previously in "Flesh" and was not impressed (by her acting or her drag get-up), but here, Jackie gets a look that suits her and delivers the goods. Candy Darling is a gorgeous willowy blonde (the only queen with a chest resembling a woman's) and she is just as great as the socialite member of PIGs. She is a lot better than she was in "Flesh" and gives a star-making performance. Now, Holly Woodlawn was Oscar-worthy in "Trash" and was the main reason why I bought this movie. Instead, her character here is badly composed and Holly is given little to do throughout the movie! Her one good scene: her opening scene where she's yelling at/beating/having sex with her boyfriend Marty. Other than that, Holly is wasted and just plain forgettable. It's not her fault, I blame director Paul Morrissey for spending unequal screen time with all three actresses!
"Women in Revolt" has several hidden surprises for Warhol fans. Veteran Warhol actors make appearances, but don't live up to their previous performances. Jane Forth is a member of PIGs, but how could she top the rich girl in "Trash"? She has barely any lines and appears in three scenes. Geri Miller, another one of my favorites, is seen briefly in Lorraine's Bar and has no lines. Shame, her voice is cute and so is her personality. Maurice Braddell, the old artist in "Flesh", is Candy's stuck-up father. He also isn't as memorable as his previous role. Michael Sklar, the welfare worker in "Trash", plays a sleazy promoter who Candy sleeps with to get a job. He's not too good here. Jonathan Kramer, who was one of few Warhol Superstars to appear in "Midnight Cowboy" (as a transvestite), is a crummy journalist who humiliates Candy and gets into a fistfight with her! He's great! Martin Kove plays Marty, Holly's boyfriend, completely in the buff, quite a change from his appearance as a comic relief cop in "Last House on the Left"! Johnny Kemper is "Mr. America", a male gigolo who conforms Jackie to heterosexuality. I wonder if they were a real-life couple? An in-joke is evident when Candy mentions her new movie, "Blonde on a Bum Trip", an actual exploitation movie made in 1968!
Overall, "Women In Revolt" is a forgotten Morrissey film, but is a whole lot funnier than his Dallesandro films, features a better ensemble cast than any of his other films, and is itching for a new modern audience to embrace it!
Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling, and Holly Woodlawn (the three top drag queen Superstars) are three members of PIGs (Politically Involved Girls). We see their trials, tribulations, relationships with men (and women), their feminist attacks on men, and how they all end up wasted and abandoned.
Of the three lead actresses, Jackie Curtis is my favorite. She knows how to deliver dialogue to make it zing with humor, she knows which facial contortions display which emotions, and she certainly is a natural comedienne. I had only seen her previously in "Flesh" and was not impressed (by her acting or her drag get-up), but here, Jackie gets a look that suits her and delivers the goods. Candy Darling is a gorgeous willowy blonde (the only queen with a chest resembling a woman's) and she is just as great as the socialite member of PIGs. She is a lot better than she was in "Flesh" and gives a star-making performance. Now, Holly Woodlawn was Oscar-worthy in "Trash" and was the main reason why I bought this movie. Instead, her character here is badly composed and Holly is given little to do throughout the movie! Her one good scene: her opening scene where she's yelling at/beating/having sex with her boyfriend Marty. Other than that, Holly is wasted and just plain forgettable. It's not her fault, I blame director Paul Morrissey for spending unequal screen time with all three actresses!
"Women in Revolt" has several hidden surprises for Warhol fans. Veteran Warhol actors make appearances, but don't live up to their previous performances. Jane Forth is a member of PIGs, but how could she top the rich girl in "Trash"? She has barely any lines and appears in three scenes. Geri Miller, another one of my favorites, is seen briefly in Lorraine's Bar and has no lines. Shame, her voice is cute and so is her personality. Maurice Braddell, the old artist in "Flesh", is Candy's stuck-up father. He also isn't as memorable as his previous role. Michael Sklar, the welfare worker in "Trash", plays a sleazy promoter who Candy sleeps with to get a job. He's not too good here. Jonathan Kramer, who was one of few Warhol Superstars to appear in "Midnight Cowboy" (as a transvestite), is a crummy journalist who humiliates Candy and gets into a fistfight with her! He's great! Martin Kove plays Marty, Holly's boyfriend, completely in the buff, quite a change from his appearance as a comic relief cop in "Last House on the Left"! Johnny Kemper is "Mr. America", a male gigolo who conforms Jackie to heterosexuality. I wonder if they were a real-life couple? An in-joke is evident when Candy mentions her new movie, "Blonde on a Bum Trip", an actual exploitation movie made in 1968!
Overall, "Women In Revolt" is a forgotten Morrissey film, but is a whole lot funnier than his Dallesandro films, features a better ensemble cast than any of his other films, and is itching for a new modern audience to embrace it!
Great Film Despite Jackie Curtis
angella_fields2 March 2006
This film was meant to be a staring vehicle for Holly Woodlawn but she felt too overpowered by Candy D. and Jackie Curtis and so became smaller and smaller in the film...(Or so says Paul Morrisey in the Bonus Features on the DVD) Candy Darling is absolutely marvelous in this film...Tis a pity she died so young...this movie is the only documentation of her great acting ability. I would say that Candy was much better than Jackie in the film. As most Warhol movies are Improvised...but following a plot..Jackie felt the need to speak all the time and to try and overpower everyone else in the scenes with her...when some of the minor characters spoke, Jackie constantly interrupts and delivers her own lines. Even in Candy Darling's famed "Go out and Earn It" scene..Jackie shouts something after every single thing Candy says. The director said that he had to constantly ask Jackie to tone it down! Despite this....the movie is still excellent (takes some patience though)...and is a wonderful documentation of the cultural revolution of the period (and a great satire of women's liberation)...
don't judge Warhol/Morrissey by this title!
marymorrissey6 September 2011
Warning: Spoilers
I'm amazed there are only raves to be found here for this incredibly sloppy and basically pretty terrible, although certainly very funny, movie! It must be that the only viewers who get around to it are those already sold on "Trash" "Flesh" "Dracula" etc. It doesn't take a great deal of thought with this one to deduce that the intent was to insult the object of derision, "women's lib", all the more by means of its ineluctable tenor of slipshodité. The motivation for which, of course, is easy enough to sympathize with, given that poor AW was so shot more or less point blank repeatedly by the leader of SCUM, who'd degraded herself in "Bike Boy", but through the device that was HER revenge, managed an effective bid for immortality, to which she clung, in her dotage (as she ended up a crazy street person by the beginning of the 80s), evidenced dramatically enough by her decision to "be here now" as it were cued (as I believe I pointed out in another review somewhere, here? ) by "revival house" revivals of this film, at least once, in 1980, when I saw "women in revolt" in Manhattan. Ms. Solanis was in da house, in my row for goodnessakes (film festish seating, way up close) not as any kind of special guest, mind you, but as a mere patron/ticket holder! That's right, paying for the privilege, shades of Jackie and Mr. America!
It is unfortunate, though, to get to Jackie, that Jackie Curtis did an extra dose or two of amphetamines for this one and steps on everybody's lines. However, even this seems "spot on" since the style PM seemed to be after is that "really bad underground film ca 1970-80" of the sort I remember being roped into for NYU students: get nude, roll around be divinely decadent. (Another time, I wasn't in the movie, but there was a very precious film student from England I met driving a cab who invited me to a screening of his fabulously art directed but utterly drivulous portrayal of nude jealousy amidst the scenery... I guess I had dinner with the director, I can't possibly remember... but will never forget his saying, "I think I saw her the other day..." "Who?" "Why, GARBO, of course!" - so this sort of thing wasn't entirely relegated to no budget productions. There was also a thriving academic version thereof. I bring all of this up to try to illustrate that in its particular badness, "Women in Revolt" is pretty durned precise in chasing the overall vibe that must have been its objective. Think "Cockettes". A scene outside with a construction worker and the mad libbers (which I won't "spoil") is a particularly spot-on example of the feebly "outrageous" cute enough in this context, ah guess, but... Good lord, I hope nobody comes to this film before some of the truly great Warhol Morrissey collaborations and winds up imagining that this is the standard.
It is unfortunate, though, to get to Jackie, that Jackie Curtis did an extra dose or two of amphetamines for this one and steps on everybody's lines. However, even this seems "spot on" since the style PM seemed to be after is that "really bad underground film ca 1970-80" of the sort I remember being roped into for NYU students: get nude, roll around be divinely decadent. (Another time, I wasn't in the movie, but there was a very precious film student from England I met driving a cab who invited me to a screening of his fabulously art directed but utterly drivulous portrayal of nude jealousy amidst the scenery... I guess I had dinner with the director, I can't possibly remember... but will never forget his saying, "I think I saw her the other day..." "Who?" "Why, GARBO, of course!" - so this sort of thing wasn't entirely relegated to no budget productions. There was also a thriving academic version thereof. I bring all of this up to try to illustrate that in its particular badness, "Women in Revolt" is pretty durned precise in chasing the overall vibe that must have been its objective. Think "Cockettes". A scene outside with a construction worker and the mad libbers (which I won't "spoil") is a particularly spot-on example of the feebly "outrageous" cute enough in this context, ah guess, but... Good lord, I hope nobody comes to this film before some of the truly great Warhol Morrissey collaborations and winds up imagining that this is the standard.
Warhol had his 15 minutes, and not one minute more.
bettycjung29 April 2018
4/27/18. I watched this because it was an Andy Warhol movie. Sadly, the satire is lost on me. It's more pxxx (that rhymes with corn), and it's not even art house material at that. When this came out, 47 years ago, it was a movie of drag queens giving voice to women's liberation that was just starting up, pointing out the inconsistencies of the roles women were trying to define during the years of social change. So, the sexual exploitation is supposedly not as offensive because the women were men in drag. In the "metoo" "timesup" era the satire is pretty trite and offensive on many levels. In retrospect, Warhol had his 15 minutes, and not one minute more.
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