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I once read a criticism of some of John Waters's lesser movies that opined: "they demonstrate just how few of our remaining taboos are really worth violating." Much the same thing could be said of the movies cranked out by the Andy Warhol "Factory" in the early seventies. These movies, usually directed by Paul Morrisey, are generally avatars of the gender confusion that resulted from the then-burgeoning sexual revolution. Like their patron, these films are androgynous in the extreme. None moreso than Women in Revolt, with its cast of transvestites playing women who shed their traditional roles, embrace Women's Liberation, become lesbians, and are all destroyed by their transgressions. While, on paper, this sounds interesting--it sounds pretty funny, actually, and in parts, it is--the actual filming of these concerns leaves a LOT to be desired.

Part of the reason that Women in Revolt is so unpalatable is a simple matter of craft. The film looks like someone's home movies gone horribly round the bend. It depicts a grotty, squallid world peopled by hateful, unpleasant creatures. It is said of Warhol and Morrisey that they always wanted to put beautiful people in their movies, but this film seems to be an exception. Of our trio of "stars" only Candy Darling is convincingly feminine. Maybe that's the point of the satire, but I found it distracting. More annoying, still, is the improvisational nature of the dialogue and performances--they simply aren't good enough to pull this off and Paul Morrisey sure as hell isn't John Cassavettes (who had a vision of how to do this sort of thing).

As annoying as all of this is, the worst part of this is that it's boring as hell. Scenes that aren't working stretch out interminably. I am pretty sure that this is intentional--Warhol once said of the first Star Trek movie: "It's boring, but that's okay. I like to be bored." Is this a valid aesthetic viewpoint? Maybe. Michaelangelo Antonioni certainly shared this notion, but he had the craft to pull it off. Morrisey did not. Either way you slice it, though, it is bound to have the audience squirming in their seats.  Perhaps the only INTERESTING thing about the movie actually has very little to do with what's on screen. Was this movie the inspiration for Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side,"  with its depiction of three transvestites named Candy, Jackie, and Holly? Possibly. Or maybe he just knew them from hanging around the Factory.