I Was A Male Yvonne DeCarlo

Shot mainly during the late ‘60s and edited (or re-edited) a decade or more later, I Was a Male Yvonne de Carlo (as the can in which it was discovered was labeled) is one of several films and slide-shows in which Jack Smith presents himself as a mock celebrity. The movie opens with the excerpt from No President originally called Marsh Gas of Flatulandia – several minutes of black and white footage of steam escaping from manholes segues to an interior scene of various creatures emerging from dry ice vapors – then shifts to color to show the filmmaker, clad in a leopard-skin jumpsuit, attended by a nurse as he sits amidst the detritus of the Plaster Foundation (Smith’s duplex loft cum performing space). Smith waits under the visible movie lights, drumming his fingers. A fan presents him with a black-and-white glamour shot (Smith in profile, posed with a sinuously curved dagger) to autograph as the Warhol superstar Ondine , dressed entirely in black leather, snaps his picture. Violence erupts as the nurse takes out a whip to discipline the star’s fans. When a female creature pulls out the same dagger depicted in the glamour shot, Smith jumps up and shakes the weapon from her hand. The action is post-scripted with footage of a steam shovel patrolling the rubble where a 14th Street movie palace stood. (J. Hoberman )