I distinctly recall an Interview q & a with Superman star Chris Reeve. The issue was dated December ’78, and Andy Warhol himself was one of Reeve’s interviewers. (It was a group chat thing.) It was memorable because of a question that Warhol asked Reeve. He asked, “Why didn’t the producers let us see your sex?” — i.e., why did you have to wear a codpiece when you wore your Superman outfit?

Warhol was always a little playful and put-on-ish in conversation. What he meant deep down is that he found the 26 year-old Reeve attractive, etc. He was probably also thinking, “Wow, it would have been great if Reeve had been around when we shot Lonesome Cowboys ten years ago…”

One of Warhol’s “lost” ’60s films, Lonesome Cowboys was a 100% improvised gay spoof of classic western machismo. (Hitching posts used as ballet barres, etc.) Paul Morrissey directed, wrote, shot most of it, edited. Warhol was indisposed in post-production, having been shot by Valerie Solanas on 6.3.68.

Lonesome Cowboys is a whimsical cluster of splotchy bits and ends. No story, digressive, sophomoric, non-rhythmic cutting, cruddy sound. Warhol factory players Viva, Taylor Mead, Louis Waldon, Tom Hompertz, Eric Emerson and Joe Dallesandro costarred. Shot in January 1968 in Old Tucson and the Rancho Linda Vista Dude Ranch in Oracle, Arizona on a budget of $3,000.

The film opened at the Andy Warhol Garrick on Bleecker and the 55th Street Playhouse on 5.5.69.

There was an Italian-language DVD kicking around in the ’90s or early aughts but no longer. You can’t stream it or anything now. Not that you’d want to — it’s a mess.