Four of Andy Warhol’s Most Beautiful Women
Mrs. Warhol
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Four of Andy Warhol’s Most Beautiful Women
Directed by Andy Warhol.
US, 1964, black & white, silent, 15 min.
In this condensed version of Warhol’s 13 Most Beautiful Women, Warhol simply lets the camera roll while a each of a quartet of potential Superstars strikes a screen-test pose. Warhol made hundreds of such “screen tests,” in which subjects posed silently in close-up before a static camera without direction for the duration of a single roll of film. Many of these portraits were compiled into series, including 13 Most Beautiful Boys and 50 Fantastics.
A recently preserved Warhol film, Mrs. Warhol features Andy’s real-life mother, Julia Warhola, filmed in her basement apartment and playing “an aging peroxide movie star with a lot of husbands,” including the most current spouse, played by Richard Rheem. Casting her as a former Mack Sennett bathing beauty, Warhol follows his delightfully oddball mother as she goes about her daily domestic routines.