Two Lost Exploitation Films from Trash-Cult Favorite Andy Milligan Will ‘Re-Premiere’ at Tribeca

“It’s truthful funny to maine that Andy Milligan has go this awesome cult figure,” Laura Shaine Cunningham told IndieWire. To Cunningham — an writer and playwright who describes her stint successful Z-grade movies arsenic “a wholly aberrant section successful my life” — Milligan was a sadist pinch a reddish beard who did his champion to ruin her bully clip while shooting a movie connected a derelict workplace extracurricular Woodstock, New York, successful 1965. “He was prolific, but not talented,” she added, a communal sentiment moreover among Milligan’s astir passionate defenders. 

And Andy Milligan does person a cult, a mini but devoted subgroup fascinated by nan opposition betwixt nan cracked auteurism of his films and nan callous commercialism of their production. “These are existent independent movies, and if you really are inclusive and you really want to spotlight independent filmmaking voices, past Andy Milligan needs to beryllium there,” said Jonathan Penner, programmer astatine Tribeca Festival, wherever 2 Milligan films will surface connected Friday, June 13.

Milligan’s films “will move you,” Penner added. “[They] whitethorn not move you successful nan astir pleasant way, which is OK. Not each creation is nice. Andy Milligan was not a bully guy, and he didn’t make bully movies. But they are adjacent and beloved to my heart, because scary movies successful wide are astir fearfulness and suffering and mortality, and Andy made movies astir nan darkest crap successful humanity.”

A once-promising independent filmmaker and cheery Off-Off-Broadway pioneer, Milligan sold his psyche to 42nd Street successful nan mid-’60s. He did truthful by joining up pinch shaper William Mishkin, who would supply Milligan pinch mini sums of money to churn retired one-take wonders — scary movies and sexploitation pictures, mostly — that ran continuously successful grindhouses until nan prints wore out. Then, they were thrown away. “They were considered orphans that cipher cared about,” Jimmy McDonough, writer of nan Milligan curriculum vitae “The Ghastly One,” said.

“Mishkin successful peculiar cared very small astir his legacy,” McDonough added. “He saw it arsenic each very modern worldly that you worked to decease astatine nan time. Maybe a fewer much years passed [when] you could get it into a drive-in and fool group into reasoning it was successful color.” Then Mishkin’s son, Lou, took complete nan business successful nan mid-’80s. So nan communicative goes, aft an question and reply with Fangoria, wherever Milligan complained astir him, Lou destroyed nan remaining films retired of spite. “Melted down for nan metallic content,” arsenic Severin Films interrogator Todd Wieneke put it. 

‘Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me!’Severin Films

As a result, galore of nan films Milligan made for nan Mishkins are now considered lost. But Wieneke kept looking, and aft years of searching, he discovered 2 antecedently unseen Milligan films, “The Degenerates” (1967) and “Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me!” (1968). Both were recovered successful Europe, wherever it’s communal for unclaimed materials to beryllium sent to nationalist archives erstwhile a film institution goes into receivership, a believe Wieneke credited to nan “deeply entrenched movie cultures” successful these countries.

“Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me!” was primitively shipped to nan Netherlands arsenic portion of a package of Mishkin films. This peculiar title, a panic New York flat melodrama successful nan style of Doris Wishman, was a mediocre fresh for nan all-night theaters successful Amsterdam’s red-light district. And truthful it “sat connected nan shelf, unscreened, not a azygous blemish connected it,” arsenic Wieneke said, for decades. It was yet sent to nan Eye Filmmuseum and kept, unlabeled, successful its archive until it was yet catalogued successful 2023. 

McDonough said that “Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me!” is “the astir mainstream of [Milligan’s] exploitation pictures, certainly, and possibly each of his unusual pictures.” McDonough credits this to nan truth that Milligan didn’t constitute nan movie — Josef Bush, champion known for nan cheeky 1968 cheery guide “The Homosexual Handbook”, crafted nan book from Mishkin’s outline.

“Mishkin really felt for illustration this was his ‘Star Wars,’” McDonough laughed. The movie was a deed connected 42nd Street, possessing a definite tawdry intermezo value. It’s besides a valuable clip capsule: “Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me!” contains immoderate of nan only known footage of nan Caffe Cino, nan bohemian West Village java shop that nurtured Sam Shepard, Al Pacino, and Andy Milligan. 

“The Degenerates,” meanwhile, resurfaced astatine nan Royal Belgian Film Archive. This print’s origins are murkier — Wieneke believed it “fell into backstage hands” betwixt its first theatrical tally and its rediscovery astatine nan archive.  It comes subtitled successful French and Flemish, and for illustration “Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me!,” it was restored by Severin Films aft being scanned astatine nan archives. The restorations are clean, but not excessively clean: Citing “defects that are autochthonal to nan print,” Wieneke said, “sometimes you tin hole things, but it’s not aesthetically correct to hole them.”

“The Degenerates” is technically subject fiction, though it plays much for illustration a feverish blend of “The Beguiled” and “Faster, Pussycat! Kill, Kill!” “It’s very overmuch successful characteristic pinch Milligan,” McDonough said. “There’s ranting, there’s raving, there’s venomous family dysfunction, and full demolition astatine nan end.” Cunningham sounded amused recounting her scenes successful nan movie, astir a set of six women “surviving successful nan post-apocalypse” connected a ungraded workplace successful Woodstock. “I do retrieve moving done nan rainfall pinch a pitchfork … nan full point was perfectly ludicrous,” she said.

‘The Degenerates’Severn Films

“Everyone said [Milligan’s] films were ungettable. As if they didn’t really exist,” Penner said. This is particularly existent of his sexploitation pictures: The eternal fame of nan genre has ensured that Milligan’s scary movies — pinch colorful titles for illustration “The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!” — person remained successful circulation since nan VHS era. But sexploitation is “a pouch that’s ne'er going to beryllium duplicated,” according to Wieneke. “It’s very overmuch a merchandise of its clip and nan carnivalesque characters who worked down nan scenes.” 

Penner will effort to seizure nan ambiance of old, gritty 42nd Street astatine “That’s TribecXploitation! The Andy Milligan Time Machine,” portion of nan festival’s Escape from Tribeca sidebar. “There’s a concealed history of nan movies successful New York, a really profound history connected 42nd Street,” Penner said. “These movies genuinely will return you backmost to a different clip and spot and filmgoing experience, which is very beautiful to me.”

Both “Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me!” and “The Degenerates” will “world re-premiere” successful nan program, on pinch a action of trailers and commercials meant to seizure nan look and consciousness of late-’60s New York. (The show will besides premiere a caller documentary, “The Degenerate: The Life and Films of Andy Milligan,” co-directed by Severin Films’ Josh Johnson.) McDonough and Cunningham will make nan pilgrimage, arsenic good arsenic Milligan players Natalie Rogers and Hope Stansbury. All will stitchery for a ceremony of Milligan and nan grindhouse movie civilization that made him — minus nan thoroughfare hustlers and discarded needles. 

“The thought that we’re showing his pictures astatine nan Tribeca Film Festival … his shade will beryllium location cackling, madly, conscionable laughing his ass off,’” Penner said. “These movies sank beneath nan bottommost of nan barrel, and we’ve fished them out.”

For McDonough, who was adjacent pinch Milligan successful nan years starring up to Milligan’s decease from AIDS complications successful 1991, nan homecoming is personal. “I consciousness his beingness connected a regular basis,” he said. “When I wrote [“The Ghastly One”], cipher wanted to perceive astir Andy Milligan … now Andy belongs to nan world successful a larger fashion. I’m conscionable thrilled that he’s yet being acknowledged arsenic nan idiosyncratic, unmatched talent that he was.” 

Asked if he thinks nan shade of Andy Milligan will beryllium coming astatine nan screening, McDonough laughed: “Wear your Kevlar vests is each I person to say. You ne'er cognize really Andy mightiness onslaught backmost — pinch a kiss, aliases thing sharper.”

“That’s TribecXploitation! The Andy Milligan Time Machine” will surface astatine nan Village East by Angelika astatine 8 p.m. connected Friday, June 13 arsenic portion of nan Tribeca Festival.