Cocaine Cowboys | |
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Directed by | Ulli Lommel |
Screenplay by |
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Produced by | Franz-Christoph Giercke |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Jochen Breitenstein |
Edited by | Paul Evans |
Music by | Elliot Goldenthal |
Release dates |
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Running time | 87 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Cocaine Cowboys is a 1979 American crime drama film directed by Ulli Lommel and written by Lommel, Spencer Compton, Tom Sullivan and Victor Bockris. [1] It stars Jack Palance, Sullivan, and Andy Warhol [2] who made a cameo appearance. [3] [4] It was actor Tzi Ma's film debut. [5]
Cocaine Cowboys is about cocaine dealing members of a rock band who get into trouble with the American Mafia. [6]
Andy Warhol appeared as himself. [3]
The film was given a very negative review at the time of its release by Tom Buckley in The New York Times. [3] Buckley wrote that apart from a good performance by Jack Palance, the other actors were "obvious amateurs", the story "flimsy", the dialogue poor and despite previous acting and directing successes Ulli Lommel's direction was "rudimentary". [3]
When mentioned in a Reuters news article in 2007 the film was referred to as a "clunker". [7]
Filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary both praised the film on the first episode of The Video Archives Podcast.
Cocaine Cowboys was filmed in 1979 at Warhol's summer home in Montauk, East Hampton, Long Island, New York. [3] [8]
Andy Warhol was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered one of the most important American artists of the second half of the 20th century. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films Empire (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).
Roger Roberts Avary is a Canadian-American film, television director, screenwriter and producer. He worked with Quentin Tarantino on Pulp Fiction, for which they won Best Original Screenplay at the 67th Academy Awards. Avary directed Killing Zoe, The Rules of Attraction, Lucky Day, and wrote the screenplays for Silent Hill and Beowulf.
Warhol superstars were a clique of New York City personalities promoted by the pop artist Andy Warhol during the 1960s and early 1970s. These personalities appeared in Warhol's artworks and accompanied him in his social life, epitomizing his dictum, "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes". Warhol would simply film them, and declare them "superstars".
Walter Jack Palance was an American screen and stage actor, known to film audiences for playing tough guys and villains. He was nominated for three Academy Awards, all for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, for his roles in Sudden Fear (1952) and Shane (1953), and winning almost 40 years later for City Slickers (1991).
Jackie Curtis was a pansexual American underground actor, singer and playwright best known as a Andy Warhol superstar. Primarily a stage actor in New York City, Curtis performed as both a man and in drag. Curtis' plays included Glamour, Glory and Gold, Amerika Cleopatra, and Vain Victory. Curtis made his film debut as Jackie in Andy Warhol's 1968 Flesh, directed by Paul Morrissey starring Joe Dallesandro. Curtis starred as Jackie in Warhol's 1971 Women in Revolt film which satirizes the Women's Liberation Movement and alludes to Valerie Solanas and her SCUM Manifesto. While performing in drag on stage and screen, Curtis would typically wear lipstick, glitter, bright red hair, ripped dresses and stockings. Curtis pioneered this combination of camp trashy glamour as a style that inspired many entertainers, including Jayne County, the New York Dolls, and all following glitter rock musical performers of the late-1970s, such as David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Gary Glitter and Mott the Hoople.
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in Manhattan, New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities, and Warhol's superstars. The original Factory was often referred to as the Silver Factory. In the studio, Warhol's workers would make silkscreens and lithographs under his direction.
Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro III is an American actor and Warhol superstar. He was a sex symbol of gay subculture in the 1960s and 1970s, and of several American underground films before going mainstream.
Ulli Lommel was a German actor and director, noted for his many collaborations with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his association with the New German Cinema movement. Lommel spent time at The Factory and was a creative associate of Andy Warhol, with whom he made several films and works of art. He moved to the United States in 1977, where he wrote, directed and starred in over 50 films.
Suzanna Potter Love is an American former actress and screenwriter known for her collaborations with her husband, director Ulli Lommel, in the 1980s. She starred in Lommel's supernatural slasher film The Boogeyman (1980) and the psychological thriller Olivia (1983); she also co-wrote and starred in Lommel's horror films BrainWaves (1982) and The Devonsville Terror (1983). She had minor appearances in Lommel's science fiction musical film Strangers in Paradise (1984) and Revenge of the Stolen Stars (1985) before retiring from acting.
Lonesome Cowboys is a 1968 American Western film directed by Andy Warhol and written and produced by Paul Morrissey. The film is a satire of Hollywood Westerns, and was initially screened in November 1968 at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where it won the Best Film Award. On May 5, 1969, it was shown for initial viewings at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre in New York City.
Rene Ricard was an American poet, actor, art critic, and painter.
Tzi Ma is a Hong Kong-American actor. He has appeared in television shows including The Man in the High Castle and 24, and films including Dante's Peak, Rush Hour, Rush Hour 3, Arrival, The Farewell, Tigertail, and Mulan. From 2021 to 2023, he starred in the American martial arts television series Kung Fu on The CW.
Blank Generation is a 1980 American-produced music film, directed and co-written by Ulli Lommel. It stars Carole Bouquet, Richard Hell, and Suzanna Love.
Revenge of the Stolen Stars is a 1985 American comedy fantasy film directed by Ulli Lommel and starring Klaus Kinski, Suzanna Love, Barry Hickey and Ulli Lommel.
Daniel – Der Zauberer is a German biographical musical drama film written and directed by Ulli Lommel, starring pop singer Daniel Küblböck as himself. The film was a box-office bomb and was panned by critics.
Tally Brown was an American singer and actress who was part of the New York underground performance scene, particularly Andy Warhol's "Factory" and who appeared in or was the subject of films by Andy Warhol and Rosa von Praunheim. She was born and died in New York City.
Louis Waldon was an American film actor, whose career spanned nearly 45 years. He was born in Modesto, California.
The Garrick Cinema was a 199-seat movie house at 152 Bleecker Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Andy Warhol debuted many of his notable films in this building in the late 1960s. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention played here nightly for 6 months in 1967.
The 55th Street Playhouse—periodically referred to as the 55th Street Cinema and Europa Theatre—was a 253-seat movie house at 154 West 55th Street, Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that opened on May 20, 1927. Many classic art and foreign-language films, including those by Jean Cocteau, Sergei Eisenstein, Federico Fellini, Abel Gance, Fritz Lang, Josef Von Sternberg and Orson Welles, were featured at the theater. Later, Andy Warhol presented many of his notable films in this building in the late 1960s. Other notable films were also shown at the theater, including Boys in the Sand (1971) and Him (1974).
Enfant Terrible is a 2020 German drama film directed by Oskar Roehler about the German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It was selected to be shown at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival.