Ondine Movies
American actor Ondine (born Robert Olivo) is best remembered as one of Warhol's "superstars" at the artist's avant-garde filmmaking Factory. Ondine also actively participated in New York's Theater of the Ridiculous and frequently performed at the La Mama Theater. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1971
In this film that seeks to make a comedy about obscene telephone callers, several callers and their victims are shown. Most of the film is about one of the callers who is so beguiling that before long, many of his victims are hoping that he will call them back. Indeed, one of his victims is so entranced that she exerts considerable effort trying to find him, not for prosecution, but to see how his real-life virility compares with his virtuoso telephoning. One interesting sidelight is that the film contains three members of Andy Warhol's art-gang (including Ultra Violet). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1970
- NR
A bizarre fantasia of sorts on the classic 1963 Hollywood epic of the same name, Michel Auder's Cleopatra is an extended improvisational feature involving many seminal figures from Andy Warhol's Factory. In it, Auder takes on the persona of Caesar, his girlfriend Viva portrays Cleopatra, and various other "stars" including Nico, Ondine, and Taylor Mead populate the sidelines. Auder transposes the settings and events of the original film to modern-day: Upstate New York fills in for Egypt, snowmobiles offer a substitute for horses, and late-'60s Rome serves as Caesar's stomping grounds. The city's famous Cinecitta Studios - the same studios used in the original - were used to shoo the film's orgy and battle scenes. Auder's unstructured, uninhibited method of work caused him to lose his funding for the project, and as such, Cleopatra exists only in an unedited, rarely screened work copy. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- 1970
- R
This film contains a collection of commercials, interviews, and music featuring Joan Baez, Richard Pryor, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Lenny Bruce, Andy Warhol, and Allen Ginsberg. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1968
Unscreened until 1998, almost a decade after Jack Smith's death, I Was a Male Yvonne De Carlo contains footage he'd shot in the 1960s and '70s. The introduction is an unsettling montage of steamy manhole covers (which Smith had sometimes shown as a short called Marshgas of Flatulandia). A pair of transvestites are seen living in a hovel with a shrine to Mario Montez. For Smith, Universal's promotion of Yvonne De Carlo as a replacement for Mario Montez typified how profiteers substitute the ersatz for the genuine, and so he spends most of this film as the titular male version of Yvonne De Carlo: an adored celebrity, bearded and wearing a leopard-print jacket, who endlessly signs his autograph and poses for photographs. The ending consists of film Smith shot of an old New York movie house being demolished, which literalizes the film's themes of cultural vandalism and irreparable loss. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Smith, Ondine, (more)
- 1968
This characteristically offbeat, but tedious, Andy Warhol film was finished just before Warhol was seriously wounded by a gunshot wound inflicted by one of his disgruntled followers. It was released soon after Warhol's recovery. Though the film tends to be a muddled, haphazard collection of seemingly unrelated scenes, it begins clearly enough by introducing the main character: the flamboyant, verbose Ondine, an infamous homosexual who makes a passing attempt to live life as a heterosexual. Ondine is also adventuresome enough to try and learn "college wrestling" from a young male prostitute. In the most memorable scene of the film, a nude boy standing over a motorcycle is buried in trash after he and other willing parties participate in a food-and-garbage orgy. The film is re-edited from his earlier 25-hour marathon Four Stars. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- 1967
The medieval writings of Thomas a Kempis supposedly are the inspiration behind this Andy Warhol film. A young son reflects on his place in the world. Brigid Polk is the young boy's mother, with Ondine as his father. Nico plays the maid and Taylor Mead place a homeless man in this lifeless feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigid Polk, Ondine, (more)
- 1967
One of the first "underground" films of the 1960's to achieve a degree of mainstream acceptance (it was an actual hit in New York City, was well-received in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and was banned in Chicago and Boston), Andy Warhol's The Chelsea Girls offered a long, unblinking look into the lives of Warhol's retinue of "superstars" as they showed off for the camera in their various rooms in the notorious Chelsea Hotel, long a favored New York hangout for writers, artists and bohemians. Along with such notables of the moment as Eric Emerson, Brigid Polk, Ondine, and Mario Montez, one of the "girls" was Mary Woronov, years before she gained a cult following for her work in Rock 'n' Roll High School and Eating Raoul. The three-and-a-half hour film consisted of two series of images shown simultaneously, though only one soundtrack was audible; in 1995, Warhol associate Paul Morrissey prepared a video edition for broadcast on British television, though the film has yet to be broadcast in the United States and there is no authorized video release as yet in North America. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ondine, Mary Might, (more)
- 1964
An example of the rather tame nudie films (featuring lots of bare bosoms but no sex) that predated their hard-core cousins, Raw Weekend is set in a forest where a movie crew gets distracted when they see a topless woman out for a stroll. Unable to resist temptation, they follow the natural beauty to a sunlit beach where she and another half-naked girl have lunch and do a little swimming. Later, the frolicksome duo are joined by a third girl, an actress who is tired of studying her script. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
