My Hustler

My Hustler is a 1965 American film by Andy Warhol, and Paul Morrissey. The film is propelled by the sonorous, magnetic acting of 30-year-old Ed Hood interacting with the blonde Hustler, Paul America. Joe Campbell ("Sugar Plum Fairy"), Genevieve Charbin and Dorothy Dean also compete for the attentions of the Hustler and provide foils for the interaction of the main characters. The erudite and very funny Hood, a perpetual graduate student in English at Harvard and "live parody of southern gentility", was recruited by Chuck Wein. Hood's magnetic performance was driven by his deep, mellifluous voice, trained by elocution lessons as a privileged child in Alabama, and lubricated copiously by alcohol. Among his many peculiarities was his habit of drinking beer from the bottle, not by placing the bottle to his lips, but into his mouth, sucking on it, as seen in the film. Production The film is a collaboration between Warhol, Chuck Wein and Paul Morrissey, with Morrissey as camera and audio operator and Wein credited as director, and was filmed over Labor Day Weekend, 1965, on Fire Island, NY using a 16mm Auricon news camera. My Hustler is the first Warhol film worked on by Paul Morrissey, who introduced, in this film, camera movement and audible sound to Warhol's cinematography. Release