Ciao! Manhattan

Sixties-era model-cum-actress and Andy Warhol hanger-on Edie Sedgwick stars in this amalgam of ersatz home-movie scenes and artsy avant-garde cinema. Assembling b&w footage of Sedgwick cavorting around the Big Apple in 1967 (for a movie that was never finished) with color footage shot several years later, Ciao! Manhattan uses the later scenes as a framing device to show how a woman named Susan became a drugged-out character who--follow me closely here--hangs around her southern California mansion asking, “Where's lunch?” Dubbed “The Citizen Kane of the drug generation” by the Village Voice on its release in 1972, this is really more of an example of a clothes-less emperor. Fortunately, the commentary tracks with co-directors John Palmer and David Weisman, and actor Wesley Hayes, plus an interview with Sedgwick biographer George Plimpton, provide interesting anecdotes and an informative cultural context for the filmmaking. Mainly for its curiosity value, this cult film warrants marginal consideration. (T. Rich)