SUPERSTAR IN A HOUSEDRESS
Directed, Produced, Written, Edited by & Director of Photography: Craig B. Highberger.
Music by: Paul Serrato.
Country of Origin: USA. 95 min. Not Rated.
With: Joe Dallesandro, Harvey Fierstein, Paul Morrissey, Sylvia Miles, Michael Musto, Lily Tomlin & John Vaccaro.

Like an East Coast version of The Cockettes (2002), this film is yet another look at gay '70s counterculture. Sigh. But who could fail to be sucked into the anarchic abandon, creative high, and generally non-PC approach to sexual politics and gender identity? In other words, who would resist the world of Jackie Curtis, “Superstar in a House Dress"?

Born on the Lower East Side, Superstar follows the life of Jackie Curtis as he wafts through the Factory world of Andy Warhol, the films of Paul Morrissey, the theatrical avant-garde of La Mama and John Vaccaro’s Play-House of the Ridiculous. Drawing on a spectacular wealth of archival stills and moving images, the film is held together by a plethora of talking head interviews with Curtis' surviving contemporaries.

Director Highberger, Curtis' personal friend and documenter, is obviously passionately nostalgic about this time and place, and still in love with the mythological Jackie Curtis. The heroes of the film, as Vaccaro points out, are the true artists of this counterculture. According to him, it doesn’t exist today. It's all about money. And the baddies include Warhol, who according to Morrissey, was without an idea of his own.

And let's not forget the drugs. Lily Tomlin, quoting her partner, Jane Wagner, laughingly comments that sitting at home all day doing drugs and watching TV, it's not hard to see the absurdity of the dominant culture. While Harvey Fierstein argues that drugs and alcohol do get in the way of creativity, there is still plenty of lip service to the romanticism of drugs, despair and genius.

One of the most powerful scenes is near the beginning where we see beautiful black-and-white images of the teenage Curtis. Photographer Gretchen Berg describes their meeting, and the obvious depth and sorrow in Jackie's eyes. Unfortunately, it is a moment that is left stranded.

This is the difficulty with a documentary review, to separate the subject (and the passion and sweat of the filmmaker) from the film itself. And ultimately, Superstar does not deliver. The structure is unclear, the archival material is sparse and the narration leaden. Through the relentless sound bites, the film is more about telling than showing, and by the end of the film Jackie Curtis is no clearer. The lyrics for the end credits, "Who are you anyway" are unfortunately apt.

Jane C. Wagner, Director/Producer (Emmy and Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning Girls Like Us and the Sundance Best Short Film Award winning Tom's Flesh)
May 2, 2004