NEWLY RESTORED PRINT COURTESY OF THE GLADSTONE GALLERY


"I WAS A MALE YVONNE DECARLO, which stars Smith himself, takes its title from one of his live performances: I Was a Male Yvonne DeCarlo for the Lucky Landlord Underground, staged in the early 1980s. Shot mainly during the late '60s and edited a decade or more later, I WAS A MALE YVONNE DECARLO is one of several films and slide shows that feature the filmmaker as a mock celebrity. It opens with the excerpt from No President originally called 'Marsh Gas of Flatulandia' - several minutes of black and white footage of steam escaping from manholes segues to an interior scene of various creatures emerging from dry ice vapors - then shifts to show the filmmaker, clad in a leopard skin jump suit, attended by a nurse as he sits amidst the detritus of his duplex loft on Grand and Greene Street.

"Smith waits under the visible movie lights, drumming the fingers. A fan presents him with a black and white glamour shot (Smith in profile, posed with a sinuously curved dagger) to autograph as the Warhol Superstar Ondine, dressed entirely in black leather, snaps his picture. Violence erupts as the nurse takes out a whip to discipline the star's fans. When a female creature pulls out the same dagger depicted in the glamour shot, Smith jumps up and shakes the weapon from her hand. The action is post-scripted with footage of a steam shovel patrolling the rubble where the Broadway Central hotel once stood." - J. Hoberman

"I WAS A MALE YVONNE DECARLO, which stars Smith himself, takes its title from one of his live performances: I Was a Male Yvonne DeCarlo for the Lucky Landlord Underground, staged in the early 1980s. Shot mainly during the late '60s and edited a decade or more later, I WAS A MALE YVONNE DECARLO is one of several films and slide shows that feature the filmmaker as a mock celebrity. It opens with the excerpt from No President originally called 'Marsh Gas of Flatulandia' -- several minutes of black and white footage of steam escaping from manholes segues to an interior scene of various creatures emerging from dry ice vapors - then shifts to show the filmmaker, clad in a leopard skin jump suit, attended by a nurse as he sits amidst the detritus of his duplex loft on Grand and Greene Street. "Smith waits under the visible movie lights, drumming the fingers. A fan presents him with a black and white glamour shot (Smith in profile, posed with a sinuously curved dagger) to autograph as the Warhol Superstar Ondine, dressed entirely in black leather, snaps his picture. Violence erupts as the nurse takes out a whip to discipline the star's fans. When a female creature pulls out the same dagger depicted in the glamour shot, Smith jumps up and shakes the weapon from her hand. The action is post-scripted with footage of a steam shovel patrolling the rubble where the Broadway Central hotel once stood." -- J. Hoberman Note: Sound on tape from the Jack Smith Record Collection (Jerry Tartaglia).