Bike Boy

Bike Boy
Film poster
Directed byAndy Warhol
StarringJoseph Spencer
Viva
Ingrid Superstar
Distributed byAndy Warhol Films
Release date
  • October 5, 1967 (1967-10-05)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Bike Boy is a 1967 American avant-garde film directed by Andy Warhol. The film follows motorcyclist Joe Spencer and features a small role by radical feminist Valerie Solanas, who attempted to assassinate Warhol in 1968.

Plot

Bike Boy follows Joe Spencer, member of a member of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, as he navigates a series of episodic, non-linear encounters with Warhol's bohemian "superstars."

Cast

Release

Bike Boy opened at Hudson Theater in New York City on October 5, 1967.

The film's uncut footage was also included in **** (Four Stars), Warhol's approximately 25-hour film. This footage was later edited into a longer version of Bike Boy, which opened in July 1968 at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theater. Renamed in Warhol's honor while he was recovering in hospital after being shot by Valerie Solanas, the theater premiered the longer version of Bike Boy alongside The Nude Restaurant.

Critical reception

Howard Thompson of The New York Times panned Bike Boy, calling it one of Warhol's "super-bores" and writing that it "belongs in the Hudson River." He describing its characters as "a group of unappetizing young people slouch around in front of the camera, talking primarily about sex, directly or obliquely." He highlighted Joe Spencer as the motorcyclist writing, "There is some perverse humor as the twittering clothiers flutter around the new customer. But for the remainder of the film, which uncoils for two hours, the hero babbles incessantly and obscenely about his sexual prowess, capacity and versatility."

Legacy

A negative image of Joe Spencer from the film, showing a skull tattoo on his upper arm, was used on the cover of the Velvet Underground's second album, White Light/White Heat, released in 1968.

Warhol recorded in his diary on September 16, 1979, that actor Richard Gere credited ''Bike Boy'' with inspiring him to pursue acting:

"Went to Lester Persky's Yanks party at Trader Vic's. It turned out to be a really intimate dinner for only about fourteen people. Lester arrived with Richard Gere, and John Schlesinger arrived and Tommy Dean. … Richard Gere said that ten years ago he came in on a bus from New Jersey and went to see our movie Bike Boy in the Village, and he said from then on he's been trying to be an actor—it took him eleven years, he said."

See also

References

  1. ↑ "'Bike Boy,'Warhol's Latest, Opens Oct. 5 at the Hudson". The New York Times. September 28, 1967. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 9, 2026.
  2. 1 2 "THEATER IS NAMED FOR ANDY WARHOL". The New York Times. July 16, 1968. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 10, 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 Thompson, Howard (October 6, 1967). "Screen::More Warhol 'Bike Boy' Opens at the Hudson Theater". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 9, 2026.
  4. ↑ Unterberger, Richie (April 23, 2017) [2009]. White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day by Day. London, England: Jawbone Press. ISBN 978-1-906002-81-7. Retrieved March 29, 2015.
  5. ↑ Hackett, Pat, ed. (1989). The Andy Warhol Diaries. New York, NY: Warner Books. p. 240. ISBN 978-0-446-51426-2.