A Critical Essay by Cary Collins
Taylor Mead, Andy Warhol superstar
Here I am, back from a wonderful leisure trip (auess you live in a wonderful country!THE QUEEN OF SHEBA MEETS THE ATOM MAN
Rice died before he finished shooting this film which Alberto Moravia called a "violent, childish and sincere" protest against the industrial world. Between 1979 and 1982 Taylor Mead, who also acts in the film, prepared this final version of what was to be a three hour epic.
This free-form comic epic is a showcase for the inspired clowning of Mead and his unlikely foil, an enormous (and frequently nude) black woman (Winfred Bryant). Cameos by Jack Smith, Judith Malina, Julian Beck, and others. Incomplete at filmmaker Ron Rice’s death at age 29, a version of the film prepared by Mead was restored by Anthology Film Archives. Rice wrote, "This is your opportunity to help challenge the Hollywood stranglehold on morals, expression, and art and what have you. Dig us."
RON RICE
Though dying before the age of thirty, having made only a few films, Ron Rice nevertheless left behind the mark of his strong, intuitive gifts as a film-maker. A high school dropout and restless drifter, Rice initially made his way to film when he purchased an 8mm camera to record bicycle races. In San Francisco he met Taylor Mead which lead to the production of The Flower Thief, with Mead as its off-beat hero. In its great feeling for spontaneous illogicality, the film not only defied the professional conventions of slick narrative, but seemed to capture the spirit of a rebellious generation.
), and here is a weird classic of beat cinema, enjoy!
Ron Rice - The Queen Of Sheba Meets The Atom Man - 1963-82.avi 
