BOOTLEG FILES 810: “Vinyl” (Andy Warhol’s 1965 unofficial adaptation of “A Clockwork Orange”.
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Unauthorized use of Burgess’ book and several classic rock songs.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: There is no great call for this one.
Everyone is familiar with Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film version of the Anthony Burgess novel “A Clockwork Orange,” but some people might not realize there was an earlier screen adaptation – by, of all people, Andy Warhol.
Warhol’s film is called “Vinyl” and the title is never explained within the production – but, then again, Kubrick never bothered to explain what “A Clockwork Orange” meant. Warhol changed the central character’s name from Alex to Victor and telescoped the story into a bare bones endeavor that borrowed some of Burgess’ themes within the lo-fi setting of a Warholian underground cinema setting.
“Vinyl” opens in a promising manner with a tight close-up of Victor gazing enigmatically into the camera. The character is played by Gerard Malanga, a handsome man with long blonde hair who starred in Warhol’s underground films. Victor begins looking left and right, but it is initially unclear what is happening. As the camera pulls back, we see Victor clad in a leather jacket and white t-shirt sitting in a chair and lifting dumbbells. To Victor’s right is a chic young blonde woman in a strapless black dress who is smoking cigarettes while drinking from a plastic cup – she’s played by Edie Sedgwick, who looks like an old-school movie star. Behind him to his right is a man in a suit who is smoking a cigar – he’s played by J.D. McDermott and there will be some time before his presence is explained. Behind them is a group of men hanging out in various levels of lethargy – everyone seems to be in a corner of an undefined room (actually, it was Warhol’s legendary Factory studio in Manhattan).
After Victor stops lifting weights, he gets up to light a cigarette and interrupts a young man delivering a huge stack of newspapers. Victor tears the newspapers from the man’s hands and then leads him to the rear of the space, where another man helps him chain the hands of the bullied victim. Unfortunately, Warhol’s camera remains stationary and fails to follow Victor, resulting in a sequence where most of the action occurs outside of the frame.
Victor returns to where he was lifting weights and launches into a jumbled monologue where he gives self-congratulatory accolades over “the bad that I do.” Malanga’s voice is weak and the proclamations regarding his delinquency are dull. Inexplicably, Martha and the Vandellas’ “Nowhere to Run” starts playing and Victor begins dancing while Edie Sedgwick – who appears to be sitting on a trunk – sways her upper body.
Victor then starts to rip the clothing from a man wearing sunglasses while calling him “Scumbaby.” That man is played by Warhol collaborator Ondine, who wrestles Victor to the ground. While this happening, a man in a white t-shirt can be seen in the background interacting with two shirtless men, one standing beside him while another positioned in a diagonal configuration.
Ondine’s character calls on McDermott’s character to arrest Victor, and McDermott is finally revealed to be a policeman. Victor is tied to a chair by the man in the white shirt (played by Tosh Carillo), who cuts open his shirt and puts a leather bondage hood over his face. Victor is forced to watch the shirtless men – the standing man is torturing his diagonal counterpart. This modified version of the Ludovico Treatment cures Victor of his criminal habits, and he is released from his bonds and fondled by the doctor while a hitherto unknown man in a leather jacket emerges and starts dancing with Edie Sedgwick.
One can question whether this qualifies as a film adaptation of “A Clockwork Orange” since the film is roughly 10% of the source material and 90% Warholian excess. Not unlike many of Warhol’s underground films from the era, “Vinyl” is more interesting as a historic relic of the pop art/underground culture movement than as a serious work of cinematic imagination. Malanga quickly becomes a bore, but McDermott is hilarious as a rough cop and Sedgwick is such a bewitching distraction that her presence almost compensates for the silliness surrounding her.
While much of “Vinyl” seems improvised, the film was scripted by Ronald Tavel. For no clear reason, the cast is identified by an off-screen voice midway through the production.
Remarkably, Anthony Burgess met Andy Warhol at a New York party one year after “Vinyl” was made, but the artist made no mention of his film to the visiting British novelist. In fact, Warhol did very little to share “Vinyl” with the wider world. Much of this had to do with the misappropriation of copyright protected work – not just Burgess, but the unauthorized use of music by Martha and the Vandellas, the Rolling Stones, the Isley Brothers and the Kinks.
The film was first seen in 1965 as part of Jonas Mekas’ Film-Makers’ Cinematheque listing in and was later projected as background imagery during a pair of Velvet Underground concert gigs – all of this in lower Manhattan. The film wasn’t seen again until a 1977 screening at Cinema Collective, also in lower Manhattan. The film was mostly unseen until 2017 when screenings took place at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh as part of the observance of the 30th anniversary of Warhol’s death.
Most sources list “Vinyl” as running 70 minutes, but an hour-long version is on YouTube. Due to copyright problems with the Burgess material and the music, it is unlikely that a commercial home entertainment release will happen soon.
And while hardly a great film, “Vinyl” is a zany fossil from a hippy-dippy past. For those who dare, check it out at this link.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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