Scorpio Rising (1964)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Kenneth Anger

Writers:

Release Date:

4 February 1972 (Finland)

Genre:

Short

Plot:

An army of gay/nazi bikers make their engines roar and ride the way to pain/pleasure as sexual and sadistic...

Plot Keywords:

Biker | Underground Film | Cult Favorite | Accidental Death | Dream Like

Cast

Ernie Allo	...	Joker (uncredited)
Bruce Byron	...	Scorpio (uncredited)
Frank Carifi	...	Leo (uncredited)
Steve Crandell	...	Blondie (uncredited)
Johnny Dodds	...	Kid (uncredited)
Bill Dorfman	...	Back (uncredited)
Nelson Leigh	...	Jesus Christ (uncredited) (archive footage)
John Palone	...	Pinstripe (uncredited)
Barry Rubin	...	Fall Guy (uncredited)
Johnny Sapienza	...	Taurus (uncredited)

Runtime:

USA:28 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Puck Film Productions

Trivia:

According to Kenneth Anger, Scorpio is the zodiac sign that rules both the sex organs and machinery, so it seemed like a good choice for the title. "Rising" implies the astrological term "ascendant."

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Blue Velvet (1986)

Soundtrack:

Party Lights

He's a rebel

Ever sit there looking at a Michael Bay movie, or a Martin Scorsese movie, or a Portishead video, or a CK1 commercial, and think, "So where did this come from, anyway?" The answer is Kenneth Anger's remarkable 1964 short film, the barbaric birth yawp of modern (and postmodern) cinema as we know it. Ostensibly a fetishistic self-generated porn reel, made, as Genet wrote his fiction, for the maker's masturbatory pleasure, SCORPIO RISING pulls together unlicensed pop songs with obsessive images of hunky guys, leather, chrome, comic strips, and death, to create a code for the programming of music, picture, and unspoken content that would go on to inform everything you see from Nicolas Roeg to VH-1. God knows where poor Anger is rubbing two nickels together, but tonight, say a prayer of thanks for the guy who made all your culture, the good, the bad and the ugly, possible.