Andy Warhol’s Bad (1977, Jed Johnson)

I can’t account for how this movie could have nearly a 7/10 rating on IMDB, unless the only people bothering to watch and vote are drug-addled youth who think it makes them hip to pretend to like everything with Andy Warhol’s name on it. Movie is John Waters lite with crap dialogue and acting. Story’s not great, filmmaking is worthless, movie only seems to exist for shock value.

Money-grubbing Carroll Baker runs an electrolysis business and a hitman business out of her home. Her “nephew” Perry King moves in to work on a job for a week, while a detective is shaking her down for protection money and her sister-in-law is whining pathetically about her life, her baby and her missing husband. Bunch of contracts come in for the all-female assassins, kill a baby, a dog, a mechanic. Perry has been misbehaving all week, fnally gets his call to kill an autistic kid but refuses to do it, detective kills Carroll, sis-in-law is still sad, the end.

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Why make this movie? Warholstars.org gives no clues, just talks about how they financed it, problems with casting, and jealousy behind the scenes. Andy apparently never talked to director Jed after this came out.

Heh, one negative review says “still, it makes you appreciate Paul Morrissey”.

Wikipedia just says the baby-throwing scene is “infamous” and that Julie Christie and George Cukor attended the premiere.

I guess the movie could be called “outrageous” if it wasn’t so boring and lifeless… but coming out soon after Rocky Horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Thriller, Shivers, Salo, Taxi Driver, and Morrissey’s monster movies, what’s the point in just aiming for outrageous? This being the same year as Eraserhead, it’s no wonder nobody talks about “Bad” anymore. This was the last movie with Warhol’s name on it (unless Blank Generation counts).

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This movie is as old as I am. Carroll Baker, one of the only good actors here, played the title role in Baby Doll and a lead role in Giant (both ’56). Lenny Bruce’s daughter was in this. The awful police detective was in Blazing Saddles and Super Fly and died in ’96. Girl who played Mary (sis-in-law) has had good roles in lots of things (Forbidden Zone, Crybaby, Tapeheads, Big Top Pee-Wee, Masked and Anonymous, Fat City), lost her legs in 2000 from a blood disease. Director Jed Johnson died in the TWA Flight 800 explosion in ’96, never directing anything else before or after, and Warhol died in ’87 after hosting two seasons of “Andy Warhol’s 15 Minutes” on television.

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