Normal Love

Although Normal Love was never completed, works by Ron Rice, Andy Warhol, and Tony Conrad grew out of it.

The Mummy appears and attacks the dancers until the Mongolian Child shoots the other characters and climbs to the top of the cake.

[1][3] After the scandal produced by his previous film Flaming Creatures, Jack Smith sought to make a more approachable follow-up.

[4] Smith wrote out a detailed plan for shooting the film but kept it hidden from cast and crew members during production.

He told of an account that she had kept a statue of her patron saint in a private chapel and spoke to it daily, demanding that it bring her fortune and admiration.

This shrine became the set for the interior scenes of Normal Love, featuring drag queen Mario Montez.

[1] Smith used a pink and green color scheme for Normal Love, giving the film a pastoral quality.

[6] Smith did not record sync sound for Normal Love and enlisted Tony Conrad to produce the soundtrack.

Smith also planned to incorporate popular music into the soundtrack; his notes specify Hoagy Carmichael's "The Monkey Song" and Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight", and Amália Rodrigues.

He called for contestants to submit recordings in the style of Maria Montez saying, "Every time I look into the mirror I could scream because I am so beautiful.

Angus MacLise and Walter De Maria have performed live accompaniment when sequences from the film were screened.

In the sequence, Francine dies in a field of golden flowers as Tiny Tim plays a plastic ukulele while perched on top of an abandoned car.

[21] During the late 1960s, Smith began using footage shot for Normal Love as part of theater and performance works.

Performance reels for both Exotic Landlordism and Cement Lagoon include images ostensibly not intended for inclusion in Normal Love.

[22] In March 1963, Smith, Conrad, and Montez experimented with projecting film at a reduced frame rate to produce a flicker effect.