Slaves of New York (1989) on Netflix
Eleanor designs hats in downtown New York and lives with Stash, an unknown artist waiting for a break. He is unfaithful, and she stays because she has nowhere else to live.
- Netflix2.0/5
- IMDb5.6/101,265 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes22%
Trailer
Plot summary
Eleanor is an aspiring hat designer in the downtown New York art world, surrounded by artists and models who want fame, or oblivion, or love and acceptance, and who find high rent, faithless partners and jobs with no future. Stash, her younger boyfriend, is an unknown artist waiting for the break that would change things for him. He is unfaithful and careless with her. She once told him she had been attracted to him because he was dangerous. Even as the relationship comes apart, Eleanor stays, since she has nowhere else to live, which in effect makes her a slave.
Cast
- Bruce Peter Youngas Mikell
- Jonas Abryas Mickey
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Slaves of New York (1989)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Tama Janowitz wrote her Eleanor and Stash stories as a script for Andy Warhol; after Warhol died, Merchant Ivory bought that script and it became this film.
- James Ivory said that out of 100 girls who read for Eleanor, not one had Bernadette Peters's originality; he wanted someone unusual yet ingenuous and not too knowing.
- The film became a cult classic among gay communities in the United States, notorious for a scene where a drag act performs The Supremes' "Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart" while walking down a street in full evening gowns.
- The lead character Stash took his name from a real New York graffiti artist called Stash, a friend of Tama Janowitz, who appears as an extra in many of the film's party scenes.
- The film's modest $5 million budget meant there were no lengthy rehearsals; the cast had only one read-through before shooting began.
