117-119 Clerkenwell Road, London
Wed 26 Aug · 21:00
Working as a stripper in the heart of New York's infamous Forty-Second Street, Dusty navigates a world of hustlers, performers, lonely regulars and fleeting romances while searching for something beyond the grind of daily survival. Rather than building towards sensational violence or exploitation, the film drifts through the lives of its characters with surprising tenderness, capturing an overlooked corner of the city on the eve of profound change. Long believed lost before being rediscovered and restored decades later, Fleshpot on 42nd Street occupies a unique place between exploitation cinema and American independent filmmaking. Directed by Andy Milligan under the pseudonym Kelly Gordon, it strips away the lurid expectations of its title in favour of an unusually compassionate portrait of New York's sex industry and Times Square's disappearing grindhouse culture. Today it stands as one of the most distinctive and emotionally resonant films in Milligan's remarkable body of work.