"I salute the champ of shit."

December 3, 2008 9:14 PM

Norman Mailer directed a movie featuring himself, his then-current wife, one of his ex-wives, Rip Torn, an Andy Warhol superstar, and Hervé Villechaize. It didn't end well. (warning: language, blood, crying children)

Background here and here.

posted by Joe Beese (22 comments total)

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by not_on_display at 9:34 PM on December 3, 2008 [2 favorites]

Wonnnnderful, brother!

I loves me some Rip Torn!
posted by Manhasset at 9:35 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

I read this as warning: language, blood, crying, children.

and I was more scared.
posted by jimmythefish at 9:43 PM on December 3, 2008

I don't blame Torn. The movie is one long dare -- Mailer dares his cast to assassinate him. Rip Torn took him up on the dare, and he's right when he says the movie doesn't have an ending without it.

And this is one of the only times you will actually see this actor both ripped and torn, so you could say Mailer was merely following up the dare inherent in the actor's name.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:45 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

I thought this was a double, but it turns out I was remembering this comment by nickyskye in the Mailer obit thread. Some neat Mailer stuff in there too.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:58 PM on December 3, 2008

Mailer was such a product of his times that I'm pretty certain he'll be forgotten within another 20 years.

The fight scene with Torn was kind of interesting though. But a few minutes in it's clear that it was staged, more or less.
posted by bardic at 10:20 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

But a few minutes in it's clear that it was staged, more or less.
posted by bardic

NO! Really?
posted by Eekacat at 10:47 PM on December 3, 2008

NO! Really?

Eh, it's rather easy to snidely dismissed this as "staged" when, in reality, it's better described as a performance. It requires some goddamn balls to willingly get hit in head with a hammer or have your ear bitten off and, by way of comparison, rather unimpressive simply to pass judgment on someone else's artwork because you happen to notice the artifice of it.
posted by dhammond at 11:02 PM on December 3, 2008 [2 favorites]

The cast of Maidstone has some interesting characters, a strange assortment including:

John de Menil

Ultra Violet, who is still alive and kicking.

Lucy Saroyan was the daughter of William Saroyan and Carol Marcus (who later married Walter Matthau). Lucy's mother, Carol " is the real-life inspiration for the character Holly Golightly in the 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote." Her brother is the minimalist poet, Aram Saroyan.
posted by nickyskye at 11:21 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

language, blood, crying children

aka Thanksgiving at the scody household
posted by scody at 11:22 PM on December 3, 2008 [5 favorites]

Is it just me or does young Rip Torn bear a striking resemblance to the Ice Truck Killer from Dexter?
posted by katillathehun at 11:24 PM on December 3, 2008

Don't know about that, but he certainly bears little resemblance to old Rip Torn. I really had to squint to see Artie from Larry Sanders.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 4:14 AM on December 4, 2008 [2 favorites]

This is fascinating and weird. Thanks for posting it.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 5:29 AM on December 4, 2008 [1 favorite]

Cocaine is a helluva drug.
posted by photoslob at 6:35 AM on December 4, 2008 [3 favorites]

I don't blame Torn. The movie is one long dare -- Mailer dares his cast to assassinate him. Rip Torn took him up on the dare, and he's right when he says the movie doesn't have an ending without it.

Indeed. Pauline Kael - no mean provocateuse herself - wrote:

To the degree that there is any hero involved in this sad enterprise, it is Rip Torn, who, perceiving that there was no movie unless something happened, attacked the star (and director) with a small hammer.

It may not be much of a film experience - but it's certainly a spectacular folly. Mailer sold $70,000 worth of his shares in The Village Voice - almost half a million in today's money - to finance it. ["A prosperous and sentimental holding", as he described it in "A Course in Film-Making" - his thought-provoking (naturally) essay on the enterprise, collected in Existential Errands.] Filming in East Hampton a month after RFK's assassination - with a volatile mix of professional actors, bored rich, and shady hangers-on all drinking, drugging, and screwing - it was (in the parlance of the times) a heavy scene.

One of the rich who loaned their expensive house to the enterprise had it trashed for their trouble. And Villechaize almost drowned during filming. Which makes one wonder... If he had died, would Fantasy Island have come to fruition? And without Fantasy Island, would we have "KHAAAAN!!" ?
posted by Joe Beese at 6:54 AM on December 4, 2008 [1 favorite]

Had it been Hervé Villechaize with the hammer, I suspect everybody on the Internet would already be familiar with this clip.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:48 AM on December 4, 2008 [3 favorites]

this movie needs Klaus Kinski.
posted by spicynuts at 9:34 AM on December 4, 2008 [4 favorites]

More boom mike!
posted by doctorschlock at 11:20 AM on December 4, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's not every day that Norman Mailer gets out assholed.
posted by king walnut at 12:51 PM on December 4, 2008 [3 favorites]

Norman Mailer is one of those guys who everyone in your parents generation knows, but no one in your generation knows, other than by name.
posted by Eideteker at 4:38 PM on December 4, 2008 [1 favorite]

no one in your generation knows, other than by name.

I met him once at a diner in Brooklyn. I sat down and started talking with the men on either side of me. Years later they both became famous. One was Mailer and the other was James Baldwin.

Oh, wait, that didn't happen to me. That happened to Brando.
posted by Manhasset at 4:55 PM on December 4, 2008 [1 favorite]

I did see Norman Mailer once. He was coming south down the east side of Fifth Avenue in New York City as I was heading north. We crossed paths somewhere between 59th and 60th Street. I didn't get a good look at him because I didn't want to gawk - but he seemed to be in a grumpy mood. However, it was shortly after his film adaptation of Tough Guys Don't Dance had opened to contemptuous indifference - so I may have been projecting.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:18 PM on December 4, 2008