Scene 1
The Operating Room
The Operating Room“The film begins with an avant-garde image. It is a static shot and it is only through time and a certain amount of dialogue that we realize that we are seeing a women’s face as she lays on a table, the top of her head towards the camera, her eye made humongous by a large, lighted, surgeon’s magnifying glass. Zoom out with Hedy’s head, the back of her head; she is having a face lift. Hairdresser (a doctor) is working on her wig. A second doctor is working over her face which we can not see. Much excited talking between the three” (Howard Tavel, scriptwriter).
“Zoom out with Hedy’s head, the back of her head; she is having a face lift. Hairdresser (a doctor) is working on her wig. A second doctor is working over her face which we can not see. Much excited talking between the three.”
“Hedy keeps asking how she will look with this new face lift, will she be beautiful, etc. Doctors are very excited about their work, groan with ecstasy and anticipation.”
“DOCTORS: Magnificent, magnificent, my child! This is my greatest creation. Not since Bride of Frankenstein has anything equaled this! Turn your puss just a bit, my child, that’s it.”
Style Note “Without the necklace and bracelet,
poor Hedy would look like a relative of Frankenstein!”
—Designer John Corkery
The operation is a failure
Jack Smith: “’You clumsy fools! You know that you have both been debarred from the medical profession!”—and then proceeds to take a surgical hand in the sculptural cosmetic himself.’”
“With ‘Hedy,’ Warhol puts a magnifying glass to FAME, and his unblinking camera, which constantly wanders away from the action, leaves us feeling that it is not as glamorous or as exciting as we have been fooled into believing. In fact, it seems, it is downright boring” (Tavel).
“Hedy is filmed in the traditional Warhol style of 1965. There are two reels each of which runs 35 minutes and when played back to back creates a 70 minute movie. Black and white film is used. The microphone on the camera is used and the sound is horrendous, much of the dialogue is indiscernible much of the time” (Tavel).
