Scorpio Rising (1963)
Director: Kenneth Anger – Assistant: Tony Bardusk – Music: Ricky Nelson, Little Peggy March, The Angels, Bobby Vinton, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, The Crystals, The Ran-Dells, Kris Jensen, Claudine Clark, Gene McDaniels, The Surfaris - Production: Puck Film Productions – Country: United States – Running Time: 28’
Cast: Bruce Byron (Scorpio), Johnny Sapienza (Taurus); Frank Carifi (Leo), John Palone (Pin [stripe]), Ernie Allo (Joker), Barry Rubin (Fall Guy), Steve Crandell (Blondie [Sissie]), Bill Dorfmann (Back), Johnny Dodds (Kid), Jim Powers (Biker)
The film:
"K. Anger gained an unexpected popularity, which never happened to an independent filmmaker before, with the film Scorpio Rising, released in 1963. On the 12th of May 1966, «Variety» wrote: '… [the film] has recently been programmed at the Greenwich Village House and the owners have started to earn a lot of money like never before. So the show will be reprogrammed until July. It’s a mixture of surrealism - violence - motorbikes and seductive masculine naked chests. Now, more and more people find amusing the scene where the song She Wore Blue Velvet accompanies the images of a boy, wearing a studded jacket who is buttoning up his blue jeans. [...]'
With its precise references to The Wild One, Scorpio Rising has become a necessary reference point which has inspired the entire series of the Hollywood motorcycle movies, among which, Easy Rider and WR-Mysteries of the Organism by Dusan Makavejev, stand out."
[Robert A. Heller, Kenneth Anger in Paolo Bertetto (curated by), Il grande occhio della notte. Cinema d’Avanguardia Americano 1920-1990, Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Torino; Lindau, 1993, pp. 85-86]
The film restoration:
The preservation of Scorpio Rising was realized by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino starting from a 16mm positive copy held by the Museum, part of Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle and acquired in 1992 by the director Kenneth Anger.
The preservation, aimed to print an internegative scene and sound with the successive synchronization of the image and sound, made possible the correction of the most evident signs of use of the original elements, the density of the image and, when necessary, of the color.
The work was conducted in 2010 by the laboratory Haghefilm Conservation B.V. Cineco in Amsterdam.
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In detail
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