Lonesome Cowboys [PAL]

Crazy verite work from the Wharhol gang. Fully impovised (I guess you could call it that) much wandering around acting hostile. Joe Dallesandro walks away with what ever there is to steal simply because his manner is so simple, he's so photogenic and he has a crazy scene where he begins to dance in the go-go manner of the late sixties. He's both rediculous and fantastic at once. The picture was a scandal at the time and got a lot of people into serious trouble although we'd not consider it lewd today.

very poor conversion.

In case you are leery of the Italian DVD, I just got a copy and it played fine, in English; it also has Italian subtitles and an Italian dubtrack, both of which can be turned off (I forget whether via the remote or the main menu - you never really know with Italian imports). The film looks like a home movie shot on overcast days in Old Tucson, and it looked that way in the theaters during its first run; this is no worse. The disk is PAL, and has no indication of region coding, so be forewarned. I am really glad this is available in some form - Taylor Mead was a comic genius and it was a delight to see one of his most outlandish performances again.

Seller has US in name but is in Soviet EU and doesn't work in US.and this is a US made film, too badNeeds to be made much clearer by the seller which ZONE it is.

Fine

Can't play this CD, it's a European Disc and won't play on American equipment. Should have been noted on write up, complete waste of money

Andy Warhol's and Paul Morrissey's most celebrated films managed to capture the attitudes and lifestyles of a generation much more honestly and accurately than most of their contemporaries. Much of this early work was semi-scripted, featuring characters from the fringes of society who dominated the screen with their outrageous dialogue and antics. Lonesome Cowboys (1968) uses the traditional Western genre to defiantly fly in the face of convention.In a small town in Arizona, Ramona (Viva) the local prostitute, runs a cheap and unprofitable whorehouse aided by her effeminate, rambling sidekick nurse (Taylor Mead). Their tranquillity is shattered when a group of cowboys ride into town and the leader of the gang (Louis Waldon) threatens Ramona with physical violence if she dares try to seduce any of his boys. The opening image of the cowboys on horseback is a familiar one, but it's not long before we're reminded we are not watching a typical Western as Ramona notices one of the cowboys has false eyelashes and mascara. We soon discover that the cowboys are in fact all gay brothers who sleep with each other and are more concerned with their hairstyles than conquering the Wild Frontier.The brothers talk about their desire to escape from the hard life they have been forced to lead and how they aspire for better things, as in this dialogue between Joe (Joe Dallesandro) and Alan (Allen Midgette) -JOE: "I wanna do the same things you wanna do, I wanna get a home, get married, get some children..."ALAN: "I haven't had my hair done, we haven't been able to ride, we've been sleeping out under the goddamn rocks and I'm tired of this life!"There is no particular sustained theme throughout the film as a whole; there are no gunfights, no real villains to speak of, and certainly no bank robbery. There is a sheriff, but he is totally ineffectual at enforcing his authority and even more hopeless at persuading the boys to control their unpredictable behaviour, let alone his own (later we see him in full drag cavorting with the outlaws). So, while there are certainly elements familiar and even typical of the Western, those conventions are not adhered to for long.When the gang is first filmed riding into town, we see elements synonymous with the archetypal Western, but the spaced-out Viva and her camp sidekick Taylor Mead are not typical in any way. The film insistently invokes key generic motifs whilst simultaneously refusing to reproduce its core reference material; most obviously the sexual inversion of the cowboys toying with the familiar clichés of male camaraderie. Traditionally the central theme of the Western is 'the conflict between civilised order and the lawless frontier', the principal dilemma with Warhol's cowboys is the sleeping arrangements.Lonesome Cowboys features the usual fractured editing, general incoherence, and absurd comic sex scenes synonymous with Warhol's/Morrissey's early work, the film gleefully breaks away from tradition and formula and successfully subverts the genre and the time-honoured codes of the Wild West.___________A note on the DVD release:Lonesome Cowboys has only ever been officially released on VHS (in the UK through Virgin Video in 1984). I checked with The Andy Warhol Museum who owns the copyrights to the films and videos and they confirmed that RaroVideo does not own any rights to any of the films, excluding Flesh, Heat, Trash, Women in Revolt, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula (Paul Morrissey), and Bad (Jed Johnson). The Italian DVD by RaroVideo is a poor quality bootleg, there are no extra features apart from a short interview in Italian with Mario Zonta from the Andy Warhol Foundation (not to be confused with The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts), there is also a ten-page booklet in Italian and English.

It actually got stuck in one of my portable DVD-players and now has effectively ruined my ability to use the player. Nor do I have the option to return said disc.

For all the problems he had (with the FBI amongst others) in making it, Lonesome Cowboys is the most accessible, humorous and least nombrilist and long-winded of all Andy's films. Viva is superb as ever; her attempted seduction scene and the sheriff dressing up in drag are out of this world. Unfortunately the sound on this copy is sometimes a bit confused; it was not, if I remember rightly, in the original? Nevertheless a must!

This is a classic film however this DVD is not a good copy of the film.

fine