Andy Warhol's I, a Man

How great is Valerie Solanas? In her vignette in this highly Paul Morrissey-accented porno spoof, she stands in a poorly lit hallway and rebuffs the star, Tom Baker's, attempts to bed her. Her rapidfire delivery suggests a long-term study of 1930s third and fourth bananas--gum-chewing wisecrackers handed a scene's one good and last line. If only Andy had given her the Ingrid Superstar treatment instead of shutting her out in the cold, things would've been so different--Warhol would've gone on making good movies, and Morrissey would have had no career. There is also a spicy and almost mesmeric sequence with the extraordinary Nico, who, in addition to all her other qualities, is infinitely more able to act improvisationally than the cloddish nonactors assembled here. Baker, the straightest, most earnest and dullest figure ever put at the center of a Warhol movie, has no gift for impromptu dialogue; the women opposite him generally don't either.