Underground (1980) by Eric Mitchell

In June 1980, (Eric) Mitchell released a sixteenmillimeter feature that was specifically designed to be shown at midnight and was called Underground More Morrissey than Warhol (with a cameo appearance by Taylor Mead), the film is Sunset Boulevard out of Heat, transposed to nowave haute monde. The Gloria Swanson character, here a faded underground underground superstar obviously modeled on Edie Segdwick, is played with convincing selfabsorption by platinumhaired Patti Astor, another Poe graduate. Mitchell, whose emotional affect makes Joe Dallesandro seem like a Jack Lemmon hysteric, is the hustler who manages to briefly install himself in her foredoomed life; while, in a witty bit of casting, Factory juvenile René Ricard enacts the von Stroheimlike protector whom Mitchell nudges aside but fails to replace. Underground is well acted and handsomely shot, but never redeems the comic potential of its first twenty minutes, inexorably going vague over the punkunderground artworld.