Product Details

• Actors: Carlos Gomez, Marilu Henner, Leslie Jordan, Kris Kamm, Kathy Kinney
• Directors: Julia Jay Pierrepont III
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Ariztical
• DVD Release Date: January 11, 2005
• Run Time: 107 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0006J28BY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,028 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Leslie Jordan Sordid Lives is stuck in gay mans Purgatory where he must plead his case before God. Storyteller (Jordan) arrives after an overdose from the Pershing Point Hotel. His monologue winds the wicked tales of Tripper (Mark Pelligrino) the handsome hustler and Miss Make Do (Erin Chandler) the destitute debutant. Lost in Pershing Point Hotel is a dark comedy that traces the incredible escape from an oppressive Southern Baptist upbringing to a pilgrimage of salvation: the drugs and clubs of 1970s gay Atlanta. System Requirements: Running Time 107 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MISCELLANEOUS/SPECIAL INTEREST Rating: NR UPC: 631008057699 Manufacturer No: CQC576

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Jordan's autobiographical fantasia, April 11, 2005

By 

W. Oliver (Alabama) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lost In the Pershing Point Hotel (DVD)

Leslie Jordan, the talented pint-sized actor who makes frequent hilarious guest spots on "Will & Grace," wrote this autographical tale which was formally produced as an off-Broadway play. How much of it is true-to-life would be interesting to know but suffice to say, he was come a long way since the depressing drug-hazed disco 70s in which most of the action takes place.

The film starts out with The Storyteller (Jordan) being loaded into an ambulance and then telling his story to the Almighty in an all-white purgatory. Beginning with some quite hilarious scenes of his childhood, in which he shocks his religious fanatical parents with his confessions of being gay, he lives with them until his late 30s and then flees to Atlanta, the "gay mecca" that he has read about in magazines. Arriving at the seedy Pershing Point Hotel, he immediately makes friends with an ostracized debutante whom he christens "Miss Make-Do." Miss Make-Do (Erin Chandler in a terrific natural performance) is a drug addict who works as a go-go dancer and sometimes hooker to finance her drug habit.

Miss Make-Do and our hero eventually have a falling out and he then hooks up with a straight bad boy named Tripper (excellently played by Mark Pellegrino). Their platonic and depressing relationship, living in the dire straits of a basement, showcases some of the film's best writing and most earnest scenes. Back in purgatory, Jordan cuts loose with some penetrating comments on the nature of God and being gay.

Shot on a small budget, the film nevertheless sports a professional look and the cinematographer has diffused many of the 70s scenes with green and red hues that illustrate the seediness of the situation. The supporting players are as fine as the leading actors. John Ritter appears as a minister in one of the film's early scenes. Kathy Kinney has a brief but funny sequence in a doctor's waiting room and Sheryl Lee Ralph is hilarious as a holy-roller nurse.

An interesting film but not all that entertaining, fans of Leslie Jordan might want to take a look at it. Unfortuately there are no extras and a commentary by Jordan is really needed.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "I want to be accepted for who I am", April 28, 2005

By 

M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lost In the Pershing Point Hotel (DVD)

Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel is a low budget independent movie that raises some serious and rather interesting issues about faith, belief, and the value of life. And while the execution is sometimes shoddy, the narrative overly didactic, and the message sometimes too preachy, the film has an honesty, and integrity that makes for a quite involving 100 minutes or so. The story, originally from a stage play, tells of one gay man's upbringing and hardships growing up in the South. The film concentrates on his life during the heady days of the 1970's where he gets involved in the Atlanta party scene and the underground gay drug culture.

After a drug overdose, the main protagonist, (Leslie Jordan) known as the storyteller narratives this rather sad, reflective story just as he's preparing to meet God. He tells us that he grew up in an oppressive Southern Baptist Household where homosexuality was considered a moral evil, and where one must sublimate one's desires to the greater glory of God. In order to cope, he spends years renouncing sex, until at the ripe old age of forty, where, styling himself as type of a Lilliputian dandy à la Truman Capote, he leaves his sheltered home for the bright lights of Atlanta.


Upon arriving in the big city he meets debutante refugee and drug connoisseur Miss Make-Do (Erin Chandler) who introduces him to the wonderful world of chemicals and the film's ostensible hotel Pershing Point, a low-rent Chelsea-like dive full of addicts, drag queens, and gangsters. After his benefactress kicks him out for taking up with a thuggish coke dealer, the wretched foppish protagonist finds another protector in Tripper, a roughneck junkie, ex-con, and pimp. The two form a weird platonic and dependent relationship that eventually spirals into an opiate oblivion.

Much of the film looks as though it was filmed on a sound stage, with the action bathed in hues of gold, blue and red; from the outset the film has a theatrical and overly dramatic quality that actually works well with the contentious subject matter. Anyone who is familiar with the gay, inner city party scene will immediately be familiar with many of the scenarios. The storyteller and Miss Make-Do swallow pills like candy and snort endless lines of coke, until of course, their addled lifestyle catches up with them.

Written by Jordan and purportedly based on his own life experiences, the film's themes will probably strike at the heart of any gay man who has ever had a crisis of faith, or has left a small hick town for life in the big city. Jordan is surprisingly good in the lead role, and he manages to combine a mixture of dandified foppishness with middle-aged cragginess to great effect.

The supporting cast is also terrific, with Chandler doing a great job of playing a coke addled, spoilt little rich girl. Watch out for the scene when they both overdose on MDA while shopping in a second clothes shop - it's horrific in its implications, but it's also a riot. Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel could have been about 20 minutes shorter - the pace becomes a little labored towards the end, and Jordan places a little too much emphasis on his crisis of faith, but I think the movie will appeal to those who like their movies somewhat edgy, alternative, and underground. Mike Leonard April 05.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Different Side of Atlanta, November 21, 2009

By 

stoic (Mobile AL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Lost In the Pershing Point Hotel (DVD)

After seeing Leslie Jordan in "Sordid Lives" I looked forward to watching his other films. I borrowed a copy of Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel and saw a different side of Jordan.

In Sordid Lives, Jordan played the campy cross dresser Brother Boy. The part was over the top and very memorable. Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel is also campy, but it is a much grittier film. LPPH concerns a 38-year-old gay man (Jordan) in the 1970s. He decides that he can no longer stand to live in his parents' home in a small southern town, so he moves to Atlanta to "find himself." In Atlanta, he lives at the seedy Pershing Point Hotel.

The story is all about the bizarre characters Jordan encounters in Atlanta. There is a drug addicted heiress, who befriends and then betrays Jordan. There is also a heroin-addicted pimp who hooks street kids in order to lure them into prostitution. (Bizarrely, the pimp becomes Jordan's love interest). Jordan also has a strange relationship with his cellmate after he is arrested for drug possession.

LPPH is not a perfect film. The film is a strange mixture of camp comedy and stark truths about the difficulties in our lives. The filmmakers aren't always entirely successful at managing these two very different moods. The DVD that I watched was of very poor quality. The sound was so bad that I had difficulty hearing it (there are no captions) and the picture "froze up" so many times that I finished watching the film on my laptop.

Film fans who want to see something different should find a copy of Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel.