This 16 mm, silent film shot in black-and-white was made a few months after Warhol's mural Thirteen Most Wanted Men was censored at the New York Pavilion at the New York World's Fair. These flat-on police mug shots were "fixes" that inspired a constant flow of similar portraiture on film for about a year or more starting in 1964. This film is a series of three-minute film portraits of Freddie Herko, Gerard Malanga, Winthrop Kellogg (Kelly) Edey, Denis Deegan, Bruce Rudo, and other young men who would hang out at the Warhol art Factory. They all exude sex appeal by simply existing and being noticed by the camera, in the way that the accused men in the mural present a rougher sexuality. No one acts. Warhol seemed to view numbers as elastic, or perhaps just not particularly relevent when compared to character or "stardom" in his films. He continually referred to his mural as "Ten Most Wanted Men" in conversation; the "Thirteen Most Beautiful Women" actually number 14; and the "Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys," "Fifty Fantastics," and "50 Personalities" are just casually assigned numbers.
by "Blue" Gene Tyranny
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