With the exception of 1963's Tarzan and Jane Regained...Sort of, which used a soundtrack created by Taylor Mead, Harlot was Warhol's first foray into sound film. It stars a transvestite named Mario Montez (in honor of Hollywood star Maria Montez), who sits in full drag on a couch in Warhol's Factory, suggestively eating bananas. A bored woman sits beside him, and two men (one of them in a tuxedo) stand behind them. Off-screen, Ronald Tavel, Billy Name, and Harry Fainlight discuss, among other things, the pros and cons of various female movie stars. With typical Warholian perversity, the characters onscreen remain for the most part silent. This primitive dialectic between sound and image would be developed more successfully in such later films as The Chelsea Girls.
by Tom Vick
synopsis
