My Hustler

”My Hustler” was the third or fourth project I participated in with Andy and was a concept again devised by Chuck Wein. Chuck had the idea that a decadent young man selling himself to some older men on Fire Island would be more interesting than a bored young rich girl sitting on a bed.
Unfortunately, on the trip out to shoot the film, Chuck, who thought that this subject could actually have some commercial viability at a theatre, felt that Andy's non-stop-filming would waste all the footage and the result would be first one more unwatchable experiment. Since Chuck had actually gotten his friend Dorothy Dean to pay for the entire cost of the shooting (all of $500.00) he might have had an argument.
Once on the Island he asked me to operate the camera as he directed. He thought that I would just go along with the rest of his friends. When I refused to load or operate the camera unless Andy operated the camera his revolt collapsed, he went away and three reels were shot that afternoon and evening. Since I had to come up with some suggestions as to what the actors would do and talk about, given only the pre-existing concepts suggested by Chuck, I placed the young man on the beach sun-tanning himself while the others talked about him. I told the three to be as funny as possible and just keep talking without any ''dramatic'' pauses or empty spaces.
The problem arose that the actors doing all of the talking were not anywhere near the young man on the beach and could not be contained in the same fixed shot. Only panning from the young man to the group on the porch would allow both to be on screen. Andy's idea was to only show one fixed shot of the one on the beach and only hear the others talking. My suggestion was to do both versions. He would set the shot on the beach and after the reel was finished the half hour would be repeated but I would operate the camera panning back and forth.
For the second sequence I chose the only place both small enough to light and appropriate to the story of the film, the house's very small bathroom. Here a very good actor named Joe Campbell made the sequence interesting. When we watched all the reels, it was obvious that the panning camera was much better than the fixed one. That I think was the last time Andy used this fixed camera device. It actually did very good business in a large Broadway movie house.
I learned a lot from this film, the first of the experiments I felt I had given some kind of actual direction to.
Paul Morrissey

Medverkande
Paul America, Ed Hood, John MacDermott, Geneviève Charbon: Producent
Andy Warhol: Manus
Chuck Wein: Foto
Paul Morrissey: Talat språk
English