Star 80 (1983, Bob Fosse)

It's a testament to the intensity and visceral impact of Bob Fosse's final film Star 80, that a few days after re-watching it, Star 80-inspired dreams (nightmares?) were waking me up at all hours of the night. The recent Warner Archive-issued DVD of the film is its first-ever widescreen release on home video, at least in Region 1 land, and it has been long overdue.  The reality-based drama is not an easy watch by any means, due to its very upsetting, sordid subject matter--it dramatizes the rapid rise of Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten (played by Mariel Hemingway) and her tragic murder at the hands of her estranged husband Paul Snider (Eric Roberts).  It's almost unbearably dour and I debate with myself whether we really needed Fosse to turn his considerable gifts towards such a painful, relentlessly downbeat storyline.  All that said, large swaths of the film are eminently watchable due to the dexterity and fluidity with which former dancer and choreographer Fosse moves the narrative; it's a master-class in the "based on a true story" film, seamlessly weaving in and out from harrowing crime scene re-enactments, flashbacks to happier times, talking head-style interview segments, and some propulsive, entertaining montage sequences. Music--source cues and a period-specific, pop score by Ralph Burns--is expertly spotted throughout the picture and is an important part of Fosse's storytelling.  It's a shame that Burns' excellent music, which includes several original songs, was never released on a soundtrack LP so that it could have a life outside of the film.

After undergoing rigorous training to get in shape for her role as an Olympic athlete in Robert Towne's Personal Best, Hemingway transformed her looks again, including breast implant surgery, for the part of Dorothy Stratten in Star 80.  Where Eric Roberts was far prettier than the man he was playing, Paul Snider, Hemingway faced unfair criticism in some quarters for not being pretty enough to play Stratten.

Cliff Robertson is a very convincing Hef, though Hef himself was not so pleased with the depiction and sued the production because he did not like how he was portrayed.

Based on Teresa Carpenter's Pulitzer Prize-winning story in the Village Voice, Star 80 is one of the grimmest major studio films I can recall, which is saying something considering the film was made and released at a time when serious, cynical dramas were rapidly going out of fashion.  Like Cutter's Way or Mike's Murder, Star 80 is a "'70s movie" that somehow got made in the '80s.  As mentioned, it's a downer and, on top of that, it's a damning critique of Tinseltown and the star-making machinery. With those things in mind, it's not surprising that it was made by Alan Ladd Jr.'s Ladd Company, which, along with Orion Pictures, was one of the beacons of adventurous and uncompromising films in '80s Hollywood.  That such a film was financed and released at the time is also indicative of Fosse's clout, following three Best Director nominations and one win in the previous decade.

Longtime Playboy photographer Mario Casilli (whose subjects included Dorothy Stratten) was responsible for re-creating Stratten's Playboy layouts for the film. 

Star 80 is one of a handful of movies that I remember watching on late night network television when I was an 8 or 9 year-old kid in the guest room at my grandparents' house.  Obviously this is not a children's film and I could not appreciate or comprehend it wholly at that young age.  That said, as with Class of 1984, another film I discovered in much the same way, I watched Star 80 with rapt attention, and I point to it as a formative film for me, one that I think directly led to my longterm interests in character-based drama, more generally, and true crime stories in a more specific sense.

Hef's brother Keith Hefner portrays the photographer who takes the shots that get Dorothy into the Mansion. 

Although Hemingway is top-billed, it's Roberts' Snider that takes center stage and is the film's prime focus.  It's the kind of big, Method-y performance people usually go crazy for and for which awards are handed out...except for the fact that the character he's playing is such a piece of a shit.  Roberts would have other quality leading roles following this film, but I don't know that he could ever totally get out from under the shadow of having played Paul Snider.  

Mariel Hemingway with Lisa Gordon, playing Dorothy's kid sister Louise, called "Eileen" in the film.  When she was 20, Louise Stratten married Bogdanovich and they remained a couple for 13 years.

Much like Hemingway's prior film, Personal Best, Star 80 is based on very recent events, and both films benefit from the fact that they were made so soon after said events, before their respective milieus had changed too much.  Had Star 80 been made just a couple years later, I think it would've been considerably more difficult to re-create the period-specific details that the film revels in.  At the very least, it would probably have required a significantly higher budget for the art department (which included Academy Award-winner and previous Fosse collaborator Tony Walton). Even if one is not taken too much with the narrative of Star 80, I maintain that anyone with even a fleeting interest in disco-era Hollywood will find the film's textures and pop-culture content (apart from some legally-mandated name changes) riveting.  The art direction is specific enough that I caught a barely-visible (on the standard definition DVD-R, anyway) The In-Laws poster in the background of a 1979 LA street scene.

Hemingway's role in Star 80 has parallels with her previous star vehicle, Robert Towne's Personal Best, in that in both films she plays naive characters not developed or confident enough to extricate themselves from problematic relationships. 

Fosse and his music department (the aforementioned Burns) use Rod Stewart's (and Jorge Ben's) "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy" to perfect effect (I suspect the song was an inspiration to the real-life Snider), as well as the Billy Joel catalog ("Big Shot" and "Just the Way You Are"); the latter artist is also featured prominently and similarly effectively on the Personal Best soundtrack ("Rosalinda's Eyes").

In an inspired bit of casting, Fosse brought in Carroll Baker, whose starring role in Elia Kazan's Baby Doll had made her a sex symbol in the '50s, as Dorothy's "take no bullshit" mother.  Seen here refusing to sign necessary release forms for Dorothy, she is ultimately the film's most redeeming character.

Was the real Dorothy as sweetly naive and innocent and easily manipulated as Hemingway's Dorothy? She was a far from fully formed 20 year-old when she was murdered, so it may not be so far off from reality, but it doesn't completely jibe with other accounts I've seen and heard.  In Fosse's film, she is constantly acted upon, whether by Snider, Hefner (Cliff Robertson), or "Aram Nicholas" (Roger Rees). The film would have been stronger and less one-sided if Fosse had followed Dorothy to New York and shown her growth as an actress, her developing independence, and her love affair with Nicholas (Bogdanovich); however, this would have taken away from his thesis that everyone--Snider, Hefner, Bogdanovich, Playboy, Hollywood--exploited her, benefited from her, and deserved some share of the blame for her demise.  Instead, Fosse stays on Snider to the bitter end, while Dorothy remains a cipher throughout, and the film takes on an increasingly numbing inevitability and ugliness.  To be fair, I'm not sure this material could ever really be terribly revelatory or profound...it just would've been better--and more affecting--if Fosse had any interest in making Dorothy a three-dimensional character with agency.

In his feature film debut, the late British actor Roger Rees plays Aram Nicholas, the fictional character meant to represent filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich.  Bogdanovich's They All Laughed is dubbed "Tinsel Time" for legal purposes in Star 80.

Roberts has related that Fosse told him that Snider was Fosse, if Fosse had not become a success.  So I think it's apt that my favorite section of the movie--and which I think Fosse probably had the most fun doing--encompasses the scenes that depict the constantly-scheming Snider in his element in Vancouver, before he ever met Stratten.  I'd have rather seen Fosse keep on that track, making a movie about that disco-era scoundrel, who's plenty interesting and unpredictable, without veering down the road to murder.  

The Walking Stick (1970, Eric Till) & Summer of '42 (1971, Robert Mulligan)

When I requested Eric Till's The Walking Stick and Robert Mulligan's Summer of '42 from the Warner Archive recently, it did not occur to me that aside from the fact that both are melancholy dramas from back to back years in the early '70s, they share another more specific distinction, the kind of connection which gives obsessives like me great pleasure: each film spawned an original musical theme, which would go on to significant success, outside of the film, in both instrumental and vocal versions.

Stanley Myers' "Cavatina," most famously performed by virtuoso Australian guitarist John Williams, is well known from its use as the theme from Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter in 1978; what most do not realize, and I include myself here, is that the piece was actually composed for The Walking Stick almost ten years previously.  Of course, due to The Walking Stick's obscurity and The Deer Hunter's great notoriety, the piece remains attached to the latter in just about every mention of the song.

Subsequently, lyrics were added to "Cavatina" and the song was performed, as "He Was Beautiful," by Cleo Laine and others.  Whether the lyrics were inspired by The Walking Stick, I'm not sure, but they aren't too far off from the feelings of Samantha Eggar's character in the film.  David Hemmings, a few years removed from Blowup, is top-lined, but it is Eggar who is the main protagonist and who leaves the greatest impression in terms of performance.  She plays Deborah Dainton, an employee of a renowned British auction house, who is reclusive outside of work, due to the lingering shame she feels about the childhood polio that mangled her leg and left her with a severe limp and claustrophobia (from her medical treatment in an iron lung).  Eggar is a revelation, performing a variety of difficult scenes and emotions in a beautifully subtle fashion.  Hemmings is excellent as the struggling artist who, despite his dubious intentions, brings the reserved Eggar briefly out of her shell.

Another pleasure of The Walking Stick and other films, particularly dramas, of that era, is the willingness on the part of the star, in this case Hemmings, to play unheroic, unlikeable, and heel-ish. Hemmings is all of those things at one point or another in The Walking Stick and while it probably did nothing for his box office standing, it makes for a more complex performance and a more interesting film.

Outside of the National Film Theatre, now known as BFI Southbank.

The Walking Stick made me think of The Panic in Needle Park, released the year after by Fox: both are gritty dramas that feature a woman immeshed in a toxic relationship, in which she is alternately drawn to and repelled by a man who has his charms, but who is at the end of the day...not good.

While very much an actors picture, Till and d.p. Arthur Ibbetson also ensure that it is visually rich, filling the Panavision frame with evocative shots of late '60s London, locations which surely have been thoroughly transformed in the forty-five subsequent years since filming took place.  Just as the "dirty old New York" films of the '60s-'80s now serve a documentary function so, too, do films like The Walking Stick, which are the London counterparts to those films from the other side of the pond.  I imagine that the shabby area which houses Hemmings' studio and which he refers to as "the backdoor of London," has since been gentrified and rebuilt into a luxury area. [Postscript: After I wrote this, I looked up West India Docks, which Hemmings mentions as the location of his studio, and found that the spot is now part of a major business district, Canary Wharf.]

"The backdoor of London" aka West India Docks.

Later in the film, Till stages an impressive, white-knuckle heist sequence; the tension is heightened by the shakiness and amateur-ness of the operation.  The leader of this raggedy group of thieves is played by veteran actor and playwright Emlyn Williams who makes quite a creepy impression as Hemmings' manipulative "patron." Williams is quietly menacing in the film's most devastating scene wherein he proves his dominance over Eggar and Hemmings, barely having to raise his voice in the process. 

Emlyn Williams hand on Hemmings' shoulder in this scene is filmed to suggest that the older man's "patronage" had certain strings attached.

Myers' suspense cues here are reminiscent of his later work on Sitting Target, a favorite film and soundtrack of mine.  Myers' diverse score also includes a lush orchestral love theme as well as some pleasant easy listening and pop sounds.  From this interview with Williams, I learned that he does not actually play on the Walking Stick soundtrack.  It goes without saying, that a full CD or vinyl release of Myers' lovely score would be most welcome...you can hear a really good, romantic, non-"Cavatina" cue in the scene which is embedded on the WA page for the film.

Hip Londoner Hemmings lolls about topless in his studio in Blowup and in The Walking Stick.  In much the same way that Richard Lester's Petulia is set in post-"Summer of Love" San Francisco, the London of The Walking Stick is noticeably less "swinging" than it was in the Antonioni film.

On the production side of things, The Walking Stick is notable for being the first producing credit of agent-turned producer Alan Ladd Jr.  "Laddie" would, of course, move on to become President at Fox, where he famously green-lighted Star Wars and Alien, before starting his own production company, The Ladd Company, known for a string of quality films in the early to mid-'80s such as Blade Runner, Body Heat, Once Upon a Time in America, The Right Stuff, and Mike's Murder.  Ladd's executive producer on The Walking Stick and all of the films he produced in England before returning to Hollywood and Fox was Elliott Kastner, a producer of many a favorite Obscure One-Sheet film.

The original theatrical trailer, which appears on the WA MOD DVD, features the aforementioned love theme and "Cavatina." 

Hemmings strikes a perfect pose on the cover of his lone LP, which includes a cover of an otherwise unreleased Gene Clark tune, upping the hip quotient of this record exponentially.  The record was put out by MGM, who also released Blowup and The Walking Stick, so it's clear they had a lot invested in the Hemmings brand at this time.

The Warner Archive disc appears to be the first-ever widescreen home media release of this scope film, and perhaps the inaugural home video release of any kind.  The transfer is of the unrestored variety, in that the master is sourced from "as is" elements--scratches, grain, and other film-inherent artifacts remain, which is, of course, better than the digitally scrubbed alternative; aforementioned artifacts have more to do with elements of the original photography that appear to be rather tricky to translate to video.  While it is great to have it at all, I sure wish we'd see more Blu-ray releases in the WA.

One of the many assets of Robert Mulligan's Summer of '42 is its lush, haunting, and instantly memorable theme music from Michel Legrand.  The theme would be recorded, with lyrics, as "The Summer Knows" by Barbra Streisand (the producer's original choice to play the female lead), Frank Sinatra, Scott Walker, and others.  The music only appears in instrumental form in the film and this is the right choice.  It is a testament to the overall power and effect of Legrand's score that he won the Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score even though the entire score essentially consists of a single theme, which is used throughout the film.  Legrand's music meshes perfectly with Mulligan and writer Herman Raucher's nostalgic images and narration (beautifully read by an uncredited, Bronx-accented Mulligan, even though it's Raucher's memories that the film is based on); to more jaded eyes and ears, it'll all surely be too maudlin and earnest.

Pianist Peter Nero had a hit with his recording of Legrand's "Theme from Summer of '42."

The opening credits of Summer of '42 featuring my favorite version of Legrand's main theme (as was common practice, it was re-recorded and re-arranged for the LP version), which appears over an evocative series of snapshots, most of which will appear later in the film proper.

Based on Raucher's coming of age summering on Nantucket, Summer of '42 ushered in a wave of films that looked back at the '40s and '50s.  The film was criticized by some contemporary critics for looking back too fondly and rosily at the early '40s; I wasn't there, but for the purposes of this story, the portrayal feels appropriate, seems authentic, and since it's based on the screenwriter's teenage memoirs--which include the loss of his virginity--I'm not surprised that the film's tone is alternately wistful, idealized, painful, and hazy (accentuated by the soft focus of Robert Surtees' cinematography)...it seems that's how many people look back at that period in their life, especially as they begin to reach middle age, as Raucher was when he wrote the screenplay and novelization for Summer of '42.

O'Neill wrote her own sequel to the film, which she tried to sell to Lifetime at one time.  Raucher wrote a sequel, which was produced by WB as Class of '44; he subsequently refused to sell his rights to allow the studio to remake the property.

Gary Grimes, who briefly cornered the market in the early '70s playing young innocents in Westerns and period films such as this one, is Hermie, a fifteen-year-old boy who falls hard for a slightly older woman (Jennifer O'Neill) staying alone on the island after her husband leaves to serve in WWII. O'Neill is exceptionally beautiful, graceful and kind, and even if she is younger than the real Dorothy was, it's hard to imagine an actress better suited or more perfect in this role.  Grimes gives a fine performance and was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for his work, but after starring in the sequel, Class of '44, as well as in Westerns alongside John Wayne and Lee Marvin, Grimes walked away from the Hollywood life and his career as an actor in the late '70s and has spent the last few decades working for a non-profit far out of public view.

"We called ourselves the 'Terrible Trio.'"

Though there is lots of chatter in the film between the boys (Grimes, Jerry Houser, and Oliver Conant) about sex and trying to get laid, the film's best and most lasting moments are very quiet save for the sounds of the island--waves crashing, trees rustling, ships' horns--or Legrand's theme.  Often, Mulligan will show characters talking, but not allow us to hear the words, as when Hermie observes Dorothy (O'Neill) with her husband at the start of the film and later when she says goodbye to her husband when he ships off.  This stylistic approach is most effectively and memorably taken by Mulligan during Hermie's evening visit to Dorothy's house in the film's final act.  Many other period films mining similar thematic territory have followed, but Mulligan's film remains one of the most, if not the most, moving and sensitive screen iteration.

Richard Benjamin and Steve Kloves went to idyllic Mendocino little more than a decade later to film Racing with the Moon, another superlative entry in this subgenre and almost surely inspired by the form initiated by Mulligan's film, as well as its subsequent success.

It's great that the Warner Archive has made this DVD available again, after it had gone out of print, but at this point in the home video evolution, it's disappointing that they didn't issue the film on Blu-ray where Surtees' photography and the breathtaking scenery of Mendocino (standing in for Nantucket) could be that much more appreciated.  And, it wouldn't be Obscure One-Sheet if I didn't complain about Warner Bros. removing the original Kinney Services-era studio logo at the head of the film with a '90s Time Warner logo.

A longer theatrical trailer than the one which appears on the DVD.

The final frame of Summer of '42, featuring the Kinney-era studio logo.