The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man. 1963/1981. USA. Photographed and directed by Ron Rice. Edited and musical score by Taylor Mead, 1981. With Winifred Bryan, Taylor Mead. Restored by Anthology Film Archives and The Film Foundation with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Restored 35mm print courtesy Anthology Film Archives. 109 min.. 109 min.
In addition to its extensive and eclectic film programming, Anthology Film Archives also preserves or restores around 25 titles annually, under the leadership of archivist John Klacsmann, focusing on works of art created outside the commercial mainstream. The avant-garde filmmaker Ron Rice, who died at 29 in 1964, made just four lyrical, free-spirited films, prompting Anthology founder Jonas Mekas to call him “one of our most original artists.” The Queen of Sheba Meets Atom Man was left unfinished at the time of Rice’s death. Costar Taylor Mead compiled a score and edited the version into its final form, which was restored by Anthology in 2018. Anthology’s notes for the film include art critic and curator Ed Lefingwell’s description, which starts: “New York plays itself, as Taylor Mead and Winifred Bryan regale in pas de deux among the trashcans and the towers. The Studiedly Goofy and the Monumentally Grand are joined in masterly pas de don’t by a scenery-gnashing Jack Smith and, in turn, by the likes of Ron Rice, Julian Beck, Judith Malina, Jonas Mekas, and Ed Sanders (and Marlon Brando and Lawrence Olivier, sort of).”