A STAR IS BORN 1976

"Cut away from me?"

"Honestly, it's too much of you. They don't want you in every scene."

"They don't? Then why do they write me fan letters every day? Why do they beg me for my photograph? Why? Because they want to see me! ME...Norma Desmond! Put it back"

"Okay."      

                                                            -  Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Every generation deserves its own revolution, its own slang, its own music, and apparently, its own A Star is Born. Yes, that enduring Tears Behind the Tinsel fable about the doomed love affair between a star emergent and a star descendent is returning to the screen for its fourth iteration in 2018. 

What began life as George Cukor's What Price Hollywood? (1932), starring Constance Bennett and Lowell Sherman, was, in 1937, remade, renamed, and retooled into the form most recognized today-- A Star is Born (1937) starring Janet Gaynor and Frederic March. In 1954, original director George Cukor returned to helm what is perhaps the most familiar and iconic version of the now thrice-told tale, the musicalized A Star is Born, starring Judy Garland and James Mason. Garland's version, like those that came before, was set in Hollywood and the motion picture industry. 

When Barbra Streisand teamed with folk singer Kris Kristofferson for the eagerly-anticipated 1976 remake, the film was again made into a musical, but the setting was now the world of rock 'n' roll. Well, not quite...let's just say it was set in the music industry.

October 2018 will bring us yet another musical adaptation of A Star is Born, this time starring Bradley Cooper (making his directorial debut) and Lady Gaga (nee Stefani Germanotta), whom I’m glad to see has finally abandoned her meat dress. 

Though one might imagine a contemporary update of A Star is Born as being about an up-and-coming winner of a reality TV singing competition falling in love with an opioid-addicted social-media influencer suddenly faced with a deficit of “likes,” but from the looks of the new film's trailer—Cooper sporting long hair and a scraggly beard, Ms. Gaga granted a Funny Girl-esque scene where the hero tells the self-effacing heroine she’s beautiful—it’s clear A Star is Born: 2018 may be tipping its hat to the classic Judy Garland film, but mostly taking its cues from the Barbra Streisand version.

Barbra Streisand as Esther Hoffman

Kris Kristofferson as John Norman Howard

Gary Busey as Bobby Ritchie, a road manager

Paul Mazursky as Brian Wexler, a manager

As Helen Lawson so memorably reminded us in Valley of the Dolls, “Broadway doesn’t go for booze and dope.” But when it comes to the world of rock & roll, accept no substitutions. At least that's the philosophy of down and burnt-out rock sensation John Norman Howard (Kristofferson), who needs a bump of coke and a swig of Jack Daniels just to get through his passionless concert engagements. Concerts in which he’s obliged to give repeat performances of past successes (like a pre- “Garden Party” Rick Nelson) to faceless throngs of entitled fans he has grown to resent. Unprofessional, uncommitted, and disrespectful of his own talent, John Norman is a has-been in training, isolated and world-weary of the sex/drugs/rock & roll existence of a superstar.

More a folk singer than hard rocker, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Kris Kristofferson didn't write any of his songs for A Star is Born.  Which is a pity, and perhaps why they're so undistinguished 

One alcohol-soaked night out on the town, he happens to catch the act of curly-haired chanteuse Esther Hoffman (Streisand) and finds in the warm, lush, plush notes emerging from her fair throat, a glimmer of the commitment and raw talent he’d lost touch with within himself. Of course, he’s instantly besotted.

The Oreos
Yep. That tone-deaf name actually passed for cute and edgy back in the '70s. Though the two women flanking La Streisand appear throughout the film as Esther's backup singers and ostensible friends, neither is even given a name. Maybe that's because their primary purpose in the film is to make Streisand sound less like an "Easy Listening" artist, while simultaneously serving as signifiers of how hip and down-to-earth Esther is (Look! She even has Black friends!). In real life, backup singers Clydie King (left) and Venetta Fields are recording legends in their own right, with careers dating back to the early '60s. 

Putting aside for the moment the credibility-stretching conceit that growl-rocker John Norman would find the cutesy Captain & Tennille-esque ditty Esther is crooning remotely engaging in the first place, in order for this scene to work, one must also accept that between persistent interruptions from a waitress, a pushy fan (Robert Englund), and the eventual outbreak of a fistfight, John Norman is still able to detect something special about our Esther (her perpetual backlight, perhaps) that makes him certain his racing heart is not just the result of all that cocaine. Perhaps it was something about the way she said: “You’re blowin’ my act!” that touched John Norman's showbiz-weary soul.

They court cute, he wooing her by showing her his adorably immature and self-destructive streak, she by being all judgy about his life choices, thereby demonstrating that she’s a straight-shooter unimpressed by wealth and celebrity. How can love fail to bloom? 
And while Esther exhibits very little in the way of professional ambition (she's actually responsible for her trio losing a commercial job because a silly jingle for cat food clashes with her artistic purity), John Norman encourages her songwriting and uses his fame and connections to give his lady love a leg up in the business. Her breakthrough moment comes when she steps out on stage in a conservative pantsuit and wows a crowd of rock fans with her MOR pop groovin’... and before you know it, a star is born.

Wailin' Esther Hoffman
She's not your father's rock & roller...oh, wait...maybe she is

Romantically, John Norman and Esther are good for each other in that mutual fixer-upper way beloved of soap operas and doomed romances. So when the pair hastily marry and the movie momentarily grinds to a halt to accommodate a protracted fashion show/Barbra Streisand ass and legs appreciation hour; the only comfort to be had is in knowing they can’t keep up these shenanigans for much longer. 

With fewer montages, A Star is Born might have found some time to show us more of Esther's overnight success. With Barbra Streisand in the lead, the filmmakers seem to expect audiences to take Esther’s eventual success as a given. For in a 2 ½ hour movie titled A Star is Born, it’s almost perverse the way the film staunchly refuses to show us how she becomes a star. One minute she goes over well at a benefit concert, the next she's got a song on the charts and the world is clamoring for tour engagements. 

Further compounding the sense of things feeling rushed is we never see how Esther feels about her life being changed. Nowhere to be found are scenes of Esther reacting to sudden wealth, celebrity, or having all her dreams come true. On the contrary, Esther never seems to enjoy her success at all. The screenplay has her treating her newfound fame as some kind of necessary annoyance she has to endure in order to support her poncho habit and all those artfully staged gambols with John Norman out in the desert. 

Tony Orlando stands by as Rita Coolidge (Mrs. Kristofferson) eyes Barbra suspiciously.
Even before her inebriated husband appears in time to drop an F-bomb on live TV, Esther is the glummest Grammy nominee you've ever seen. Most of us know that the average pop star would sell their firstborn for an industry award, but not our Esther. On what should be the realization of a lifetime dream, Esther is so disinterested in the award, she almost leaves the ceremony early.

As Esther climbs further up the ladder of success (something we just have to take the film's word for)  John Norman finds it increasingly difficult to gain even a foothold, sinking deeper and deeper into his old self-sabotaging ways. Since there’s no telling how much time has elapsed between courtship to crack-up, the tension in their relationship takes a backseat to the masochism. That is until fate or a suicidal act of selflessness intervenes (it’s left ambiguous which), successfully granting Streisand fans what they’ve wanted all along: unobstructed access to La Plus Grande Diva du Monde.

Streisand fans have their patience rewarded when the film concludes with an eight-minute concert medley shot entirely in closeup. A closeup wherein Streisand's famed vocalizing is in constant danger of being upstaged (and not in a good way) by her Valerie Cherish-style boogying. The dramatic emphasis placed on this sequence: Esther on her own, singing her late husband's songs, with heightening self-assurance, introduced to the crowd as Esther Hoffman-Howard...suggests that THIS is the moment that a star is born. Which would certainly explain why the preceding 2 hours and 15 minutes have shown us an Esther far more devoted to canoodling with her hubby than pursuing a recording career. 

Initially shot in a single tight closeup, new footage restored to A Star is Born in 2018
 alters the finale to include more wide shots to give some of us a breather

I’m not overly fond of remakes, but in 1976 so much had changed both in the world of celebrity (recording artists were as big as movie stars) and society’s attitudes towards women (a wife with a more successful career than her husband wasn’t considered “quite” the emasculating tragedy it was in 1954), that a rock & roll update of A Star is Born sounded like a pretty sound idea. And while it was hard to imagine anyone bold enough to try to follow in the ruby slippered footsteps of Judy Garland in the role, if there was any star in the '70s with that kind of nerve, it was either Barbra Streisand or Clint Eastwood; and 1969s Paint Your Wagon had already strained the limits of what most of us were willing to subject ourselves to vis a vis Clint Eastwood singing. 

A Star is Born was a Christmas release, vying for holiday boxoffice dominance against another high-profile remake, Dino De Laurentiss' King Kong. I wasn't what you'd call a huge Barbra Streisand fan at the time, but when A Star is Born opened that Christmas at The Northpoint, one of San Francisco's largest theaters, I allowed myself to get all swept up in the pre-release hype. So much so that the film's central paradox--that Barbra Streisand was known for a lot of things, but heavy rockin' wasn't one of them--didn’t really hit me until I was sitting, dumbstruck, watching the movie in the theater. Almost immediately it became apparent that even the faux, sanitized vision of the rock world presented in A Star is Born was an ill-fit for Streisand's image, look, and sound.

Originally titled Rainbow Road and conceived as a co-starring vehicle for then real-life couple Carly Simon and James Taylor, a rock and roll version of A Star is Born actually makes sense. (Too much so, it would appear, if one believes accounts of Simon and Taylor turning the film down because it hit too close to home.) Newbie producer Jon Peters thought the property would make the ideal image-changing vehicle for his lady love, but it is precisely Streisand's involvement that proves the most problematic element of the enterprise. Does she possess star quality and magnetism? Yes. Is she a dynamic personality who energizes the film? Yes. Does she have a remarkable voice? Yes again. Is she for one minute convincing as the kind of singer capable of getting rock audiences to sit up and take notice? Absolutely not.

In retrospect, it strikes me that Streisand, a recording artist trained in musical theater and supper clubs, may have been better served by a A Star is Born set in the more traditional showbiz worlds of Hollywood, Broadway, or even Las Vegas. But, seeing as A Star is Born revisits the same “Oh, My Man/Oh, My Career” themes featured in both Funny Girl and Funny Lady, I can appreciate the appeal a change in setting might have presented. 

"I don't mean to be difficult... ."
Misogyny has always played a factor in how Streisand's professionalism has been represented in the press. Sensitivity to this is perhaps why, by 1976, it had almost become a staple of Streisand's films to feature a scene where she's shown telling people how to do their jobs.

Barbra Streisand hasn't really been "hip" since the early days of her career when she was seen as a kooky bohemian with an avant-garde, thrift-shop sense of style. Since then her appeal has largely been "middle": middle of the road and middle-aged. A Star is Born was an effort to recast Streisand as a contemporary of Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks, but her larger-than-life persona, studied self-awareness, showbizzy comic delivery, and penchant for drag queen levels of glamour overkill feel all wrong for the world of concert stadium rock. Even taking into account the weirdness of the 1976 music scene, wherein youth-centric TV music shows like The Midnight Special and Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert would feature such head-scratcher bookings as The Hudson Brothers and Helen Reddy appearing alongside Chaka Kahn and Fleetwood Mac; buying Barbra Streisand as a rocker still remains a major stretch.

For A Few Dollars More
Critics ripped it apart, but A Star is Born was a huge hit for Streisand
and one of the top boxoffice releases of 1976

A Star is Born is Streisand’s first feature film after satisfying a four-picture, ten-year commitment to producer Ray Stark with the “contractually obligated” Funny Lady. As the first of her films over which she was able to exert near-total control (her clashes with director Frank Pierson are the stuff of legend), it’s no small wonder that A Star is Born at times feels a tad overdetermined in placing Streisand even more front-and-center than a star-propelled vehicle like this necessitates.

A Star is Born was Streisand's big chance to present herself exactly as she wanted to be seen, and in press conferences, she was fond of telling reporters that situations and dialogue were drawn from her relationship with Jon Peters (her hairdresser on 1974s For Pete’s Sake, now producer and lover). Streisand filled Esther’s apartment with furnishings from her own home, and even indulged herself with a “Ms. Streisand’s clothes from…Her Closet” credit. For the first time Streisand actually invited audiences to draw comparisons to herself and a character she was playing. All of this makes A Star is Born doubly fascinating, for it not only gives us a glimpse of what a self-professed perfectionist thinks is good, but a sobering look at how a star, when finally granted power, chooses to wield it.

Woman on Top

On the plus side, all of this makes Streisand's Esther Hoffman considerably less passive and victimized than her A Star is Born predecessors. She fights back, yells, tells professionals how to do their jobs (a Streisand movie staple by now), and engages in gender-flip activities like proposing marriage, removing the word "obey" from their marriage vows, putting makeup on John Norman in the bathtub, wearing tailored suits when she performs, and riding John Norman like a pony when they have sex.

Lost Inside Of You
A private reason I was so keen on seeing A Star is Born is due to having developed a crush on Kris Kristofferson from having seen him earlier that year (a LOT of him) in The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea co-starring Sarah Miles.  Short of some Barbra side-boobage and several views of Kristofferson's happy trail, nothing remotely as explicit as above transpires in A Star is Born

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I know what I’ve written thus far doesn’t seem like it, but A Star is Born really IS a movie I love. Part has to do with my fond memories of this particular time in my life and nostalgia for the '70s (and this movie is as '70s as a mood ring); partly because of the soundtrack (still the film's strongest suit); and only the most self-serious Streisand fan would deny the camp appeal of the film's in-your-face vanity project aesthetic. It's all Barbra, all the time. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Part of my love and appreciation for Barbra Streisand lies in the fact that even when she’s miscast (Hello, Dolly!), ill-used (Meet The Fockers), or unhappy (Funny Lady), she’s never less than mesmerizing to watch. 

A photographer captures Esther's best side as Barbra Streisand channels Cleo Laine

As stated, I think the soundtrack to A Star is Born is its greatest asset. Academy voters must have thought so too, granting the song “Evergreen” the only Oscar win of four nominations (all technical: cinematography, sound, score). It’s a Streisand showcase all the way, but Kristofferson—granted but two songs to perform in rotation—does a nice job on “Crippled Crow” and when Streisand allows him a cameo on the songs fashioned as duets. More melodic pop than rock, I like the ballads best, my favorite being Paul Williams’ “With One More Look at You.” A testament to the soundtrack album’s strength is that listening to it provides a purer A Star is Born experience than actually seeing the movie. In the final analysis, the songs reveal character and convey a narrative arc far more evocatively than the film does.

As John Norman's road manager, Gary Busey gives a performance so good,
you practically ache thinking about what A Star is Born had the potential to be

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I think it’s fair that every generation gets its own A Star is Born. With each new incarnation comes the hope that the film will deviate from its predecessors enough to say something new and relevant to its time. Everybody loves a good love story, so there’s always that; but fame worship and the cult of celebrity dominate our culture so disproportionately and dangerously these days, a real opportunity presents itself with a remake.

So, A Star is Born, I guess it's time to take one more look at you.

BONUS MATERIAL

"Will there be anything else, Ms. Streisand?"
Barbra Streisand's assistant during the making of A Star Is Born was actress Joan Marshall. Then married to director Hal Ashby (Shampoo), she's billed as Joan Marshall Ashby in the credits, but fans of William Castle know her as Jean Arless, the knife-wielding star of Homicidal.

Guest Stars

Fans of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
are sure to recognize Maidie Norman officiating the wedding

Longtime character actress and 1988 Best Actress Oscar nominee
 (for Anna), Sally Kirkland appears briefly as a photographer

Robert Altman favorite Marta Heflin

Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund

  

That's Roslyn Kind, Streisand's younger half-sister. She appears in the film for
less time than it takes for you to read this. And she's never in focus, to boot.

Streisand & Kristofferson were reunited in 1984 for her first music video: "Left in the Dark." The six-minute video for the Jim Steinman song (which appears on her "Emotion " album) was directed by Jonathan Kaplan (The Accused, Love Field, Heart Like A Wheel). Watch it HERE

From the Literary Corner
Novelizations were a popular movie marketing tool in the '70s. If the book is anything like the purple prose featured on the promotional bookmarks (click on image to enlarge), perhaps I shouldn't have passed this one by

Are You Watching Me Now?

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2018

COME BACK TO THE 5 & DIME JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN 1982

“Life is never quite interesting enough, somehow. You people who come to the movies know that.”                                                            Dolly Gallagher Levi - The Matchmaker

Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is a (melo)dramatization of what can happen to lives when the consoling balm of idol worship (movie or otherwise) becomes a crutch for self-delusion, avoidance, and the denial of truth.

As anyone knows who has spent more than five minutes at an autograph convention; attended a pro sporting event; visited Comic-Con; stood among the glassy-eyed throngs outside a movie premiere; or navigated the choppy waters of an internet fansite chat room (a drama-queen war zone littered with trolling land mines): fame-culture idol worship and devout religious fanaticism are merely different sides of the same coin.

Life presents us with challenges and can sometimes feel like a cruel, dispiriting, achingly lonely place. In those moments when we feel its sting most keenly, it’s natural to seek solace (and sometimes escape) in the arts: that spiritual oasis of inspiration and beauty that has the power to restore hope to the human soul the way rainfall can restore life to the scorched, arid plains of a drought-plagued Texas town.

But all too often the need to salve the pain of life and fill the void of loneliness through external means (as opposed to, say, self-reflection and action) leads to the quick-fix distraction of fame culture. Fame culture being the existential bait-and-switch that says our personal lives can somehow be enriched through the over-idealization of someone else’s. Particularly the lives of those perfect demigods and goddesses of the silver screen.

Fame culture doesn’t speak to the individual who works to fulfill his/her potential through the inspirational example set by the genius and talent of others. Fame culture merely requires one to surrender the concerns of one's own existence to the enthralled pursuit of information about, and preoccupation with, the comings and goings of the rich and famous. Such passive fealty is rewarded with the blessed gift of never having to think for a second about one's own life, one's own concerns, or anything remotely connected to what is real and germane to one's life. As questionable a tradeoff as this seems, it represents the absolute cornerstone of what we jokingly refer to as pop culture.

“Believing is so funny, isn’t it? When what you believe in doesn’t even know you exist.”

Entire television networks and charitably 85% of the internet are devoted to feeding us ‘round-the-clock updates on what celebrities are up to. Celebrities whose careers and personal lives are staunchly and vigilantly defended against slander and attack by legions of devoted fans. Fandom of the sort that leads to cyber-bullying, broken friendships, and in extreme cases, death threats.

All rather sad when faced with the reality that celebrities by and large go about the business of living their lives grateful for, yet blithely unaware of, said fans’ existence (That is, outside of the hefty dollars fan devotion brings to their bank accounts. Money that enables them—irony of ironies—to build stronger fortresses, hire more bodyguards, and enforce stricter security…all the better to keep fans at arm's length.)

 “‘Cause growing up is awfuller than all the awful things that ever were."    - Peter Pan  

The desire to lose oneself/find oneself in the idealized illusion of salvation presented by the arts and fame culture is something most keenly felt in adolescence. Adolescence being the time when, in the immortal words of The Facts of Life theme song: “The world never seems to be living up to your dreams.”  Celebrity worship allows for the kind of escapism that can make the bullied and isolated feel less like outsiders and misfits, providing as it does an outlet for pent-up emotional release. At its best, the idolization of the famous can be a catalyst for change and growth; at its worst, fame idolatry can be such an effective pain reliever that it encourages avoidance, inhibits emotional growth, and promotes living in the past.

September 30, 1955
Members of the McCarthy, Texas James Dean Fan Club, The Disciples of James Dean,
react to news of the actor's death 

“Think what you can keep ignoring…”  Stephen Sondheim  -  Company 

Sandy Dennis as Mona

Cher as Sissy

Karen Black as Joanne

The year is 1975, and on the 20^th anniversary of the death of James Dean, the last remaining members of The Disciples of James Dean (make that the last remaining interested members)—a fan club that held its weekly meetings after hours in the local Woolworth’s 5 & Dime—return to the drought-ridden, near-deserted, West Texas town of McCarthy for a reunion.

Still residing in McCarthy in various states of arrested development are: moralistic bible-thumper Juanita (Sudie Bond), who inherited the 5 & Dime after her husband died; goodtime girl Sissy (Cher), “The best roller-skater in all of West Texas” and over-proud owner of the biggest boobs in town; and Mona (Dennis), James Dean fan club leader and lifetime Woolworth employee whose preeminent moment in life was being chosen as an extra in the film Giant (although no one has ever been able to find her in the film), and who lays claim to being the mother of James Dean’s only son.

Kathy Bates as Stella Mae

The only out-of-town attendees are boisterous Stella Mae (Kathy Bates), now the wife of a Dallas oil millionaire, and mousy Edna Louise (Marta Heflin), pregnant with her 7^th child and still, as she was in high school, ever on the receiving end of Stella Mae’s relentless verbal abuse.

Into this airless environment of stasis comes Joanne (a wonderfully reined-in Karen Black) playing a chaos device in a tailored suit; a woman-mysterious in a yellow Porsche (Dean died in a Porsche). In true Southern Gothic tradition, her presence incites the unearthing of secrets and the head-on confrontation of several dark and painful truths.
And as for the two Jimmy Deans of the title, they are less a titular redundancy than a reference to the two unseen Jimmy Deans of the tale. One is the Hollywood actor whose untimely death at age 24 assured him a place of cultish immortality; the other is Mona's twenty-year-old son Jimmy Dean Jr, a rebel with considerable cause. Both are the unseen male presence—"ghosts" if you will—which figure so prominently in Mona's delusions. Both make her feel special and give her life importance.

Marta Heflin as Edna Louise

As titles go, I was never too crazy about Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean which always reminded me too much of the unpleasant, similarly phrase-titled 1976 film When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? …which as it so happens, also had a diner setting. But I suppose it might also be a nod to Inge's Come Back Little Sheba and that play's similar theme of longing for an idealized past. But who cares about a title when you have Altman alumnae Sandy Dennis (That Cold Day in the Park) and Karen Black (Nashville) joined by pop star, tabloid queen, Cher returning to the big screen for the first time since her somnambulistic title-role performance in 1969s Chastity?

I saw Jimmy Dean when it was released in Los Angeles in the fall of 1982. The buzz at the time was that, on the heels of the flop trifecta of Quintet, A Perfect Couple, and HealtH (the latter I don’t recall even opening in LA), plus the off-beat oddity that was Popeye; Jimmy Dean was to be a return to 3 Women form for Altman. Filmed on a shoestring budget, shot on Super16mm and blown up to 35mm, in a year of bloated megafilms (ET, Annie, Tron) Jimmy Dean was small, personal, and idiosyncratically appealing (and oh so '70s) in its determination to be an anti-blockbuster.

Featuring the same cast as the film, Robert Altman mounted a much-ballyhooed Broadway production of Ed Graczyk's play early in 1982. The critics were not kind. The show closed after 52 performances. A week later the film version was underway and completed in 19 days.

Long before Carol Burnett’s hilarious “Eunice” character came along and forever altered my ability to take the genre completely seriously, I had been in love with Southern Gothic films. Adapted from the works of authors like Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and William Inge, these extravagantly melodramatic films had their heyday in the sexually repressed climate of the '50s. Their crisis-filled storylines—– all sex, secrets, lies, and hypocrisy—–stylistically dramatizing the submerged conflicts and contradictions of an era obsessed with sex, yet rooted in oppressive Christian dogma and the sustained illusion of conformity at all costs.

Though initially drawn to the genre for its female-driven narratives and the camp potential of the traditionally overheated performances; I eventually came to appreciate the subtle queer coding concealed in so many of the stories related to isolated individuals struggling to find love and self-acceptance in environments unsympathetic to anyone not fitting in with the mainstream.

Making his film debut as Joseph Qualley, a teen bullied for dressing up in women's clothes,
openly gay actor Mark Patton (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2) was a real-life victim of bullying
growing up in his hometown of Riverside, Mo.

Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean may not be true Southern Gothic per se, but it has all the trappings. It’s got ponderous themes (Is the entire world just a deserted dustbowl full of pitiful souls trying to give our lives meaning by worshiping gods that don’t even know we exist?); weighty symbolism (Reata, the palatial mansion in Giant, is, like so many of the characters at the 5 & Dime, only a false façade); religious allegory (Mona's assertion that she was "chosen" to bring Dean's only son into the world); and a steady stream of tearful disclosures and shocking revelations done to a fare-thee-well by a cast to die for.

"Miracle Whip is poetry, mayonnaise isn't."
Robert Altman defending one of the improvised changes he imposed upon Graczyk's screenplay.
Sudie Bond as Juanita 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

In his book, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan, late film critic Robin Wood makes an interesting point about how often the best of Robert Altman’s films are those expressing the female (if not necessarily feminist) perspective. I’d have to agree. Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean makes a superb companion piece to 3 Women: the former being a study, in reality, imposing itself upon the guarded illusions of women with nothing to cling to but the dreams of the past; the latter a kind of magic-realist exercise in which fantasy and wish-fulfillment come to erode the personalities of three dissimilar women.

While I've always had a little problem with the actual screenplay for Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (five major epiphanies in one afternoon seems a tad crowded even for a 20-year reunion), I have nothing but praise for the stellar performances, the film's themes, and Altman's sensitive and thoughtful direction. This movie is a MAJOR favorite.

PERFORMANCES

Curious that it took the formulaic, “high-concept” Hollywood of the 1980s to unite my favorite iconoclast director with two of the most famously idiosyncratic actresses of the '70s. Much has been written about the mannered acting styles of Sandy Dennis and Karen Black. Still, in Jimmy Dean, the stark originality of these actresses rescues the film from the kind of Steel Magnolias down-home, southern-fried clichés Graczyk’s screenplay flirts so recklessly with.

As with so many Altman films, the performances here represent the best example of ensemble work; each character fleshed out in ways that make even the most theatrical contrivances of the plot feel genuine and emanate from a place of authenticity.

Deservedly so, Cher was singled out for a great deal of critical acclaim for her performance. After having become something of a tabloid punchline for the public soap opera that was her personal life, she amazed audiences by more than holding her own with several formidable seasoned professionals. Her relaxed, natural performance nicely offsets the more eccentric contributions of her costars (although Sudie Bond comes across as perhaps the most real of Graczyk's characters) and she is a delight to watch. Mike Nichols, after seeing her in the Broadway production, cast her opposite Meryl Streep in 1983s Silkwood. 

THE STUFF OF FANTASY 

One of my favorite quotes is Bergen Evans’ “We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.” 

In Jimmy Dean, the past of 1955 and the present of 1975 play out simultaneously on opposite sides of mirrors situated behind the Woolworth’s soda fountain counter. Each side serving to illuminate and provide insight and counterpoint to the actions and motivations of the characters.

I’ve never seen a theatrical production of this film, but on the DVD commentary, the playwright says it was Altman’s idea (one he didn’t agree with) to have the same actors play their adult and 16-year-old selves. Maybe the decision isn’t true to Graczyk’s vision, but Altman’s idea makes for a marvelous visual commentary if you want to make a case for these characters never changing. Watching the youthful 1955 sequences played by the same mature actresses in the 1975 scenes reinforced for me the feeling that the seeds of what these characters would become have already taken root. It’s a creative choice that I think imbues Graczyk's sometimes overstressed plot points with real poignancy and poetry.

Maybe people don't change. Perhaps we just never saw who they really were. 

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

Robert Altman has often expressed a dislike of idol worship and fame culture, feeling it distracts people from looking at their own problems, and, like religion, encourages them not to think for themselves. It's certainly a theme he’s addressed before in his films (Nashville, Buffalo Bill & the Indians, HealtH, and The Player).

In a 1982 interview for New York Magazine, Robert Atman stated that one of the main reasons he was drawn to making Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean was to counterbalance his 1957 documentary The James Dean Story: a sparse, nonsensationalistic look at the brief life of the actor that Altman felt was ultimately misunderstood and subverted into a work of hagiography by James Dean cultists.

Thanks to the internet, I finally saw that for-years-rumored-about nude photo of James Dean that figures in play as an item Stella Mae pays over $50 dollars for (Edna Louise: "Is that a tree branch in his hand, or what?"). I personally don't think the model in question looks much like James Dean at all, but I do love a good myth.

Altman’s adaptation of Graczyk’s play, which depicts the most devout of Dean’s worshippers as an intensely unbalanced woman coping with the emptiness of her existence by shrouding herself in an elaborate delusion, does indeed stand in stark contrast to the harmless, romanticized view of fandom promoted by the media and so-called entertainment news. 

But what I found most provocative and what gave me the most food for thought in Jimmy Dean is how ingeniously it dramatized the two-way mirror effect of idol worship.

One side of the mirror is idealized fantasy, the other is reality. The idealized side is the side we project ourselves into when we escape into movies or obsess over the lives of celebrities. There, time is frozen. We don’t have to grow up, and the only risk is that it can become a time-stealing distraction.

The reality side of the mirror offers nothing but the naked lightbulb of having to look clearly at ourselves and our lives. Tragedy is when the world of dreams becomes so compelling to us, reality starts to pale in comparison. Salvation comes through the realization that it is only on the reality side of the mirror where genuine happiness and fulfillment is possible.

Altman may have disliked celebrity culture, but idol worship (in the form of the standing-room-only throngs crammed into the Martin Beck Theater to see Cher's legit stage debut)
played a huge role in the theatrical production even making it to 52 performances

Like a great many gay men of my generation who grew up feeling isolated and misunderstood, movies were my solace, escape, salvation, and inspiration. I grew up loving movies and movie stars, and, as the title of this blog asserts, they were the stuff to inspire dreams. I was one of the lucky ones in that I didn’t lose myself in my love of movies (well, not completely) and that my own pop cultural obsession (Xanadu…yes, THAT Xanadu) altered the course of my life and led me to a profession which has been more fulfilling to me than I ever could have imagined.

Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is a reminder that the arts are here to help us better cope with life, not retreat from it.

BONUS MATERIAL
Sandy Dennis' character in this film claims that her child is the son of James Dean. In the 2007 documentary Confessions of a Superhero, Christopher Dennis, a wannabe actor who dresses as Superman for tips in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, claims to be the secret son of Sandy Dennis.

Robert Altman's documentary: The James Dean Story (1957) on YouTube.

Cher actually made her feature film debut playing herself opposite Sonny Bono in the musical comedy spoof, Good Times - 1967 (it's also director William Friedkin's first film, and is in its own way, every bit as terrifying as The Exorcist). In 1969 with a script by Bono, Cher made her dramatic acting debut in Chastity, A film in which she plays a hippie drifter with one facial expression. Both are available on YouTube and are prime examples of late-60s cinema.

The DVD of Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean has as its only extra feature, a great, many-axes-to-grind interview with playwright Ed Graczyk, who. while respectful, clearly did not relish working with Robert Altman. Like listening to an embittered Paul Morrissey griping about how Andy Warhol got all the credit for the films he directed, Graczyk seems loath to extend any gratitude to Altman for his part in making Jimmy Dean the playwright's most well-known play. Instead, he devotes considerable time detailing (in admittedly enjoyable behind-the-scenes anecdotes) the many ways in which Altman deviated from his original concept.

The Disciples of James Dean - 1955
James Dean is the perfect pop culture icon. A figure of idolatry who didn't live long enough to
disappoint, disillusion, or age (in other words, seem human). Like all gods, he remains forever unchanged in a state of youthful perfection, 

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009  - 2015