# Heat (1972 film)

Heat is a 1972 American comedy drama film written and directed by Paul Morrissey, produced by Andy Warhol, and scored by John Cale. The film stars Warhol superstars Joe Dallesandro, Sylvia Miles and Andrea Feldman. It was conceived by Warhol as a parody of the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard. It is the final installment of the "Paul Morrissey Trilogy" produced by Warhol, following Flesh (1968) and Trash (1970).

## Plot

Joey Davis is an unemployed former child star who supports himself as a hustler in Los Angeles. Joey uses sex to get his landlady to reduce his rent, then seduces Sally Todd, a former Hollywood starlet.
Sally tries to help Joey revive his career but her status as a mediocre ex-actress proves to be quite useless. Sally's psychotic daughter, Jessica, further complicates the relationship between Sally and the cynical, emotionally numb Joey.

## Cast

* Joe Dallesandro as Joey Davis
* Sylvia Miles as Sally Todd
* Andrea Feldman as Jessica
* Pat Ast as Lydia, the motel owner
* Ray Vestal as Ray, the producer
* Lester Persky as Sidney
* Eric Emerson as Eric
* Gary Kaznocha as Gary
* Harold Stevenson as Harold (credited as Harold Childe)
* John Hallowell as Gossip columnist
* Pat Parlemon as Girl by the pool
* Bonnie Walder as Bonnie

## Production

Heat was based on an idea by writer John Hallowell. The film was shot in Los Angeles in 1971. Without a written plot, it was produced for less than $100,000 in two weeks.

## Release

In May 1972, Heat was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. In August 1972, the film was screened at the 33rd Venice International Film Festival. It was the first Andy Warhol production permitted to be shown in Italy.
The film was screened at the New York Film Festival on October 5, 1972, before opening the following day at New York's Festival Theatre and then expanding to the Waverly Theatre in Greenwich Village and the Rialto Theatre in Times Square on October 11.
Prior to its October 1972 opening at San Francisco's Music Hall venue, it was screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
The film grossed $28,000 in its first week.

## Reception

The film was well received at Cannes Film Festival and the New York Film Festival screening was standing-room only and was received by a generally enthusiastic crowd however three people walked out, with one lady claiming "It's the most disgusting thing I have ever seen" and referring to the films of the era "Make them, make them, just don't show them to anybody." At a panel discussion following the New York Film Festival screening, Otto Preminger called it "depressingly entertaining".
After previously ignoring most Warhol films, the New York Daily News reviewed the film, with Kathleen Carroll awarding it three stars. The advert for the film was censored in the Daily News with a t-shirt painted on Dallesandro and a bra strap on Miles.
Andrea Feldman, who had a much larger role than in previous Warhol films, committed suicide shortly before the film was released. Her performance garnered positive reviews, with Judith Crist, writing in New York magazine, "The most striking performance, in large part non-performance, comes from the late Andrea Feldman, as the flat-voiced, freaked-out daughter, a mass of psychotic confusion, infantile and heart-breaking."
In a review for the Los Angeles Times, Kevin Thomas described Heat as a "captivating but too drawnout parody of 'Sunset Boulevard' crossed with 'Where Love Has Gone.' He added, that the film "rings true at its core; it's around the edges that indulges in self-defeating spoofery and sexploitation."
Peter Schjeldahl of The New York Times wrote that Heat is "by far the slickest and most coherent specimen of Warholian cinema to date; it is also, for me, the least interesting. If it lacks the harshness and distraction of previous Warhol Factory productions, it also lacks their sense of serendipity and thorny life. Without being boring, it's a bore."
Jerry Stein of The Cincinnati Post described the film as "an unexpectedly cold, harsh comedy in its lack of compassion."