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synopsis:
Hustler White is a romantic comedy about hustlers on Santa Monica Blvd.
A streetwise yet clumsy and accident-prone hustler named Monti
(Tony Ward) is pursued by a benign yet grumpy foreign visitor, Jurgen Anger
(Bruce LaBruce), who has come to LA to write his memoirs.
After ripping off a john, Monti inadvertently commits a hit and run,
uncerrmoniously mowing down a fellow hustler named Eigil (Kevin P Scott).
Jurgen spots Monti on the Boulevard immediately following the incident, and,
after unsuccessfully following the devastatingly handsome rent boy, unwittingly
comes into possession of the bloody t-shirt with which Monti has
attempted to wipe the blood from the stolen car involved in the hit and run.
As Jurgen continues his pursuit of the young man, using the t-shirt as his
excuse, we follow Monti through his typical routine of various sordid and
bizarre encounters with hustlers, johns, and pornographers, the narrative
occasionally leaving him to explore some of these rather extraordinary
scenarios.
Among the other characters we encounter are hustlers, Eigil,
of the hit and run, and Piglet (Ivar Johnson), the latter suffering from
a severe case of unrequited love for the former, johns Stew Blake (Glen
Meadmore), a born-again country and western singer, and Seymour Kasabian
(Ron Athey), a mortician, not to mention real life porn stars Kevin
Kramer and Alex Austin as themselves.
Hustler White is definitely not a
musical, but it does feature music by the likes of The Boredoms, Glen
Meadmore, and PME. Hustler White includes no women, no drag queens, no
drugs, and no AIDS. It is a deluded utopian fantasy you won't
want to miss.
source
: Strand Releasing
US, Catalog 1996
| cast: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Tony
Ward |
as |
Montgomery
"Monti" Ward |
| Bruce
LaBruce |
as |
Jürgen
Anger |
| Kevin
P. Scott |
as |
Eigil
Vesti |
| Ivar
Johnson |
as |
Piglet |
| Kevin
Kramer |
as |
Kevin
Kramer |
| Alex
Austin |
as |
Alex
Austin |
| Ron
Athey |
as |
Seymour
Kasabian |
| Glen
Meadmore |
as |
Stew
Blake |
| Graham
David Smith |
as |
Ambrose
Sapperstein |
| Miles
H. Wildecock II |
as |
Peter
Festus |
| Bud
Cockerham |
as |
Bud
Cockram |
| Michael
Glass |
as |
Mrs.
Glass |
| Vaginal
Davis |
as |
Buster
Booté |
| Joaquin
Martinez |
as |
Ryan
Block |
| Darryl
Darlton |
as |
Divinity
Fudge |
| Tony
Powers |
as |
Tony
Powers |
| Paul
"Superhustler"
Bateman |
as |
Billy
Ray
Jaded |
| |
|
|
|
team:
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| director: |
|
Bruce
LaBruce |
| co-director/
writer: |
|
Rick Castro |
| director
of photography: |
|
James
Carman |
| editor: |
|
Rider
Siphron |
| producers: |
|
Jurgen
Bruning and Bruce LaBruce |
| film
distributor: |
|
Strand
Releasing; NR (Nudity/ |
|
|
Adult
Situations/Strong Sexual |
|
|
Content/Not For
Children/Adult Humor) |
|
|
82 minutes |
| release/
opening
dates: |
|
Germany:
October 17th, 1996
|
|
|
USA:
September 20th, 1996
|
|
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France:
September 3rd, 1997
|
Buy
the DVD here
!
Interview
by Queer View with BRUCE
LABRUCE & RICK CASTRO
|
[...]
Queer View: Wasn't it difficult to get Tony Ward? I can imagine he is very expensive because of his appearance in such videos as Justify My Love.
Bruce LaBruce: He was a former model of Rick's, Rick has known him since the 1980s, and he did it for very little.
Rick Castro: Originally we had cast a hustler in the lead, his name was
Monti, that's where we got his name, and – shall I tell him this?
Bruce LaBruce: Yes...
Rick Castro: Within a week before the production he had got one girl pregnant, he married another girl, and he stole another actor friend of ours a guitar and John Wayne Gacy paintings. So Bruce and I decided he wouldn't be very reliable for the shooting. And Tony would have been my first choice. I thought he would be afraid to do this so I didn't approach him immediately. But after the first actor fell out, I called him and said, you know, let me know what you think about this script. And he called back immediately and told us he definitely wanted to do it. So that was great.
Queer View: I was surprised because in his videos he looks so wooden and so cold, and in Hustler White he is quite animated and funny.
Rick Castro: I think so, too and I think it's because he really understood the script. He's known me for years, so he was comfortable and he trusted me. And he had a good rapport with Bruce as well. He had no fears that we would do anything that he doesn't want.
Bruce LaBruce: I think that's exactly why he did it. He has done so much modeling and had always been stoic, now he felt intuitively that here he could do something else. He tried to take over direction
sometimes.
| Queer
View: There was one reference to Andy
Warhol's Flesh with Joe Dallesandro,
when Tony
is playing with the small child. Was it this?
|
|
JOE
DALLESANDRO in
FLESH |
|
Rick Castro: It was the child of his girlfriend's at the time. He said he doesn't know wether it is his. It doesn't really look like him up he thinks it is. As for Tony, I
think this project is really more him than his modeling
carer. His modeling career, he thinks it is
bullshit. He does it for the money. With us, he was really generous with his
time. Bruce LaBruce: He didn't only show up when he was in a scene, he also showed up to watch the shooting.
|
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|
_______________________________________
| "Using
Tony's made us so mainstream we even got
mentioned in Entertainment Weekly... and
the National Enquirer, too." BRUCE
LABRUCE |
________________________________________
Interview from ProDuct
magazine,
Issue one with BRUCE
LABRUCE
[...]
Nicolas Chwat: Does Tony Ward turn you
on? Didn't you feel like fucking him? I mean ... he had sex with Madonna! That's
something!!
Bruce LaBruce : I found Tony Ward to be
sexy, but not because he had fucked Madonna. I didn't feel like fucking
him, and vica versa, i'm sure!
________________________________________
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