Scorpio Rising

Concept, direction and editing by Kenneth Anger. Music by Little Peggy March, the Angels, Bobby Vinton, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, The Ran-Dells, Kris Jensen, Claudine Clark, Gene McDaniels, The Surfaris. Filmed in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Cast: Bruce Byron (Scorpio), Johnny Sapienza (Taurus), Frank Carifi (Leo), John Palone (Pinstripe), Ernie Allo (Joker), Barry Rubin (Fall Guy), Steve Crandell (Blondie), Bill Dorfman (Back), Johnny Dodds (Kid).

A Magick ritual in four parts using a motorcycle gang, juxtaposed with mythic figures from Hollywood, politics and religion, as its central force, with commentary in the form of thirteen 1950's and '60's pop songs.

In 1962, Anger began to make Scorpio Rising. He did research on motorcycling and became friendly with a group of Brooklyn bikers whom he says were "terribly touched by anyone that shows any interest in the thing they dig" and called them "the last romantics of this particular culture," the equivalent of cowboys.

When first shown, the film caused numerous scandals and lawsuits - and not merely because of the brief male nudity: perhaps the most bizarre suit came from the American Nazi Party which claimed that Anger had desecrated the swastika.

A conjuration of the Presiding Princes, Angels and Spirits of the Sphere of Mars, formed as a "high" view of the Myth of the American motorcyclist. The Power Machine seen as tribal totem, from toy to terror. Thanatos in chrome and black leather and bursting jeans.

Part I: Boys & Bolts (masculine fascination with the Thing that Goes).
Part II: Image Maker (getting high on heroes: Dean's Rebel and Johnny: the True View of J.C.)
Part III: Walpurgis Party (J.C. wallflower at cycler's Sabbath).
Part IV: Rebel Rouser (The Gathering of the Dark Legions with a message from Our Sponsor).

Dedicated to Jack Parsons, Victor Childe, Jim Powers, James Dean, T.E. Lawerence, Hart Crane, Kurt Mann, The Society of Spartans, The Hell's Angels, and all overgrown boys who will ever follow the whistle of Love's brother. (Kenneth Anger)

Sado-masochism, death and sensuality, sex and angst - Scorpio is America's buried collective adolescence manifested in the isolated pop-art visions of decayed dreams. It reflects the last grasp of the dying Age of Pisces (Christianity) as a motorcycle race roaring toward oblivion . . . (Carel Rowe)