April 21: Gone Legitimate — A movie featuring an adult film actor in a mainstream role.
Employees of the Arkansas Fracking Industries (AFI) somehow go from fracking to releasing a shark covered in spikes into the swamps around a prison, just in time for Anita Conners (Cindy Lucas), Michelle Akira (Christine Nguyen), Sarah Mason (Skye McDonald), Shannon Hastings (Amy Ho) and Samantha Pines (Tabitha Marie) getting broken out by Anita’s grilfriend Honey (Dominique Swain). Meanwhile, detectives Kendra Patterson (Traci Lords) and Adam (Corey Landis) are in a totally different movie, mostly in their car.
Directed and written by Jim Wynorski, this is exactly what you want it to be: angry women busting loose from the big house while running into a shark in the swamp. Improbable. Impossible. Entertaining.
More sharks should show up in places they should never be. This movie was ridiculous and cheap as it should be. I enjoyed every minute.
From the CUFF program: “The story of D.O.A. frontman Joey “Shithead” Keithley, who transitioned from a punk activist musician to politician when he was elected for the Green Party in Burnaby, BC. In 2018, punk icon Joe Keithley turned art into reality by winning a council seat in his hometown of Vancouver. When he ran for reelection in 2022, his campaign demonstrated how music can still effect change, even in these surreal times. Something Better Change documents Keithley’s 40+ year journey as an activist musician in Canada’s most iconic punk band, and how it informs him as a Green Party politician today.”
Scott Crawford also directed Creem: America’s Only Rock’n’roll Magazine and Salad Days: A Decade of Punk In Washington.
This features appearances by Ian and Alex MacKaye, Duff McKagan, Jello Biafra, Beto O’Rourke, Keith Morris, and Dave Grohl as it tells the story of how Keithley has transitioned from frontman to politician.
As The Stranglers said in the song of the same name:
“Something’s happening and it’s happening right now You’re too blind to see it Something’s happening and it’s happening right now Ain’t got time to wait”
Joe didn’t want to wait for someone else to do the things he saw that weren’t happening. This shows the journey of someone who once went by Joey Shithead, from punk to a man concerned about his neighbors. Unlike many politicians, he talks about the actions he wants to take, not just running for power or popularity.
I encourage you to see this movie — check out the Facebook and Instagram pages — because it’s inspiring to see someone take action because they genuinely believe in it. It reaffirmed my faith that sometimes, good people do good things.
Something Better Change screens as part of the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival, which runs April 17–27. For more information, visit https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/.
Former Hollywood star Rita Bristol and her daughter Patti are about to open in a big new Broadway musical, until Patti is gunned down in a bizarre robbery attempt.
Season 1, Episode 11: Broadway Malady (January 13, 1985)
Tonight on Murder, She Wrote…
Broadway legend Rita Bristol (Vivian Blaine) and her daughter Patti (Lorna Luft) are set to star in the Broadway musical Always April, produced by her son Barry (Gregg Henry), but death — and Jessica — are close.
Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury, and were they in any exploitation movies?
Lew Feldman is Milton Berle, who at one point was the biggest star on TV. He also was and had the most enormous cock or so it has been reported.
Rita is Vivian Blaine, perhaps best known for Guys and Dolls, but she was also in Parasite and The Dark.
Barry Bristol is played by Gregg Henry, who starts all the problems in Body Double.
This is the second of twelve episodes where Michael Horton plays Grady Fletcher, Jessica’s nephew. If you think Jessica is bad news, Grady causes problems everywhere he goes and is my most hated supporting character, not just on this show, but in history.
The doomed Patti? That’s Liza’s half-sister Lorna Luft. This is her first of two appearances on the show.
Marc Faber is portrayed by Robert Morse, who played Bertram Cooper on Mad Men. He’s also in The Loved One.
Si Parish is Patrick O’Neal, who was in The Stepford Wives and The Stuff.
Gregory Sierra appeared in six Murder, She Wrote episodes but is perhaps best remembered as Detective Sergeant Chano Amenguale on Barney Miller. He’s another cop in this, NYPD Det. Sgt. Moreno.
Gretchen Pasko is played by Barbara, who also portrayed Whinnery and Sister Sara in Hamburger: The Motion Picture, as well as in Crawlspace.
In the smaller roles, Kate Metcalf is Sharee Gregory, Ed Bakey is Monsignor Kelly, Roberto Roman is Taki, Johnny Seven plays “Man,” Irma Garcia is Veronica, Edson Stroll is De. Peter Weber and Victoria Harned is a newscaster.
What happens?
Former star Rita Bristol is returning to the stage, thanks to her kids, Barry and Patti. How does Jessica get involved? Brady, her hated nephew, is in charge of the books. He gets all excited about inviting her, but there are already some problems, as the director, Marc Faber, is really tough on the star. Grady, you should also know, always dates exactly the wrong woman and here he’s with Kate, Patti’s understudy.
After dinner, Barry and Patti are mugged. Patti is shot while Barry returns gunfire and kills their attacker. Jessica sees through everything and thinks that this was a planned murder, but the NYPD is too busy to listen.
Patti survives, but is replaced by Lonnie Valerian. Meanwhile, Jessica sees the mugger on an old TV show and tells the cops again, yet they still have no interest. Soon, mother and son are fighting and Rita is out of the show. Who is going to come now?
Meanwhile, Rita goes all in on unaliving herself, using alcohol, pills and the gas oven, eventually expiring at the hospital. Of course, it’s acting…
Who did it?
Barry, who wanted to be out from under his mother’s shadow. She lives, as does his sister.
Who made it?
Hy Averback was all over TV, but also made Where the Boys Are 1984, The Girl, the Godl Watch & Dynamite, the second Love Boat TV movie, Chamber of Horrors, Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! and also had 27 acting roles.
This episode was written by Tom Sawyer, who produced 79 episodes of this show and wrote 24, as well as The Carpenters…Space Encounters TV special.
Some facts…
Rita is watching a black-and-white movie that she says is “Moon Over Rio.” It’s really Three Little Girls in Blue and that’s Vivian Blaine singing “Somewhere in the Night.”
There is a missing scene, as a different ending was shot with choreographer Miriam Nelson featuring dancers on stage, showcasing the final performance. Instead, we get Grady talking on the phone.
Not bad, despite Grady. Seriously, I can’t deal with him and how he just serial dates and gets Jessica into trouble.
Give me a reasonable quote:
Jessica Fletcher: Well, tell me about Kate.
Grady Fletcher: There’s not much to tell, Aunt Jess. She ran off with some TV weatherman from Pittsburgh.
Jessica Fletcher: Oh, Grady, I’m so sorry.
Grady Fletcher: Oh, she was okay. We didn’t have that much in common. But wait till you meet Francesca. Aunt Jess, she’s beyond belief. Now look, how soon can you get down here?
What’s next?
A trip to New Orleans gets off to an eventful start when the leader of a popular jazz band is poisoned during a performance.
Synopsis from the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival site: A punk rock horror film where a girl turns into sweets — and everyone wants a taste. After a brutal assault by an ice cream man, punk girl Candy becomes host to a mutant baby. Her pregnancy accelerates at a horrifying rate, and as her body begins transforming into ice cream, those around her see her not as a person, but as something to be consumed. Fetishized by strangers, and betrayed by those she trusted, Candy fights to reclaim her body before she melts away completely. Fueled by a blistering punk rock soundtrack and dripping with grotesque body horror, this film oozes with raw feminist subtext. Blending midnight movie chaos with social satire, this wild exploitation film has it all—grindhouse grit, surreal shocks, and a heroine who refuses to be devoured.
It needs to be stated up front: Potential viewers of Canadian body horror/exploitation shocker Sugar Rot who wish to avoid films involving rape and other forms of sexual assault will want to steer clear of the film, as writer/director Becca Kozak subjects protagonist Candy (Chloë MacLeod) to numerous amounts of both.
Kozak tackles social issues revolving around the exploitation and commercialization of women’s bodies, and she doesn’t hold back on pushing buttons and boundaries. There’s something here to offend almost everyone, and at the same time, there’s plenty of what exploitation film aficionados crave: nudity and sexual situations, over-the-top set pieces, and jaw-dropping practical gore effects, with plenty of goop and glop for good measure.
MacLeod gives an all-in performance in her lead role. Some of the situations in Sugar Rot are a bit on the nose, and that extends to character names, such as Candy’s punk-rocker boyfriend being named Sid (Drew Forster) — there’s even a Sid and Nancy reference, if you didn’t get the connection already — and a doctor named Herschell Gordon (Charles Lysne). Forster and Lysne join Michela Ross and Tyson Storozinski as the main supporting players, all of whom give the proper amount of camp and scenery chewing that their deliberately baroque characters require.
ery little is sacred and few targets are safe in Kozak’s debut feature. She had goals for this film and she reached for them, resulting in a colorful — in more ways than one — punk-fueled slice of cinematic anarchy. Sugar Rot will put you off of dessert while giving you food for thought.
SUGAR ROT screens as part of the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival, which runs April 17–27. For more information, visit https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/
April 20: King Yourself! — Pick a movie released by Crown International Pictures. Here’s a list!
Robert Strong (John Savage) goes to visit his brother Edward (Will McMillan) and his wife Joan (Anne Saxon), only for him to fall for his sister-in-law — yes, there’s the title — and meet his brother’s mistress Deborah Holt (Meridith Baer, who invented home staging and has a show on HGTV) and also — run-on sentence much? — get invovled in the drug trade.
Oh, Crown International Pictures. Despite being called The Sister-In-Law, she disappears halfway through this movie and we never see her again. Instead, this becomes a heroin movie. Yes, there’s a cat fight, but this is really the story of two brothers — one who wants to be rich, another who is hitchhiking across the country — and the women are just in the way. And banjo music. So much banjo music.
The ending? A gut punch. Wow.
This is the only movie Anne Saxon ever made and she may have made it under an assumed name.
An After Hours-type comedy of misfortunes for the mid-2020s, writer/director Brandon Daley’s $POSITIONS finds less-than-lovable loser Mike (Michael Kunicki in an all-in performance) quitting his longtime factory job when his cryptocurrency hits in the $30,000s. Naturally, those figures don’t last for long, and neither does the newfound popularity that he found with his sudden wealth.
To add insult to injury, his girlfriend Charlene (Kaylyn Carter) gets the better end of the deal when he suggests an open relationship — just ask new flame Lorenzo (Jeffrey A. Hunter). As caretaker for his brother Vinny (Vinny Kress), Mike tries desperately to reaccumulate crypto wealth, even though the brothers’ newly Christian, recovering addict cousin Travis (Trevor Dawkins in a strong supporting role), recently released from prison, tries to convince him that cryptocurrency is a scam.
$POSITIONS is the type of feel-bad comedy in which the protagonist is hard to root for and in which you know matters will only get continuously worse. Daley certainly heaps the challenges onto Mike.
Daley keeps the proceedings going at a frenetic clip, though the suspense is often tied to shots of the crypto going up or down on Mike’s phone app, with the action doing what it needs to accordingly. If schadenfreude humor is your cup of bitter tea, $POSITIONS is certainly worth a watch.
$POSITIONS screens as part of the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival, which runs April 17–27. For more information, visit https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/.
April 19: Record Store Day — Write about a movie starring a musician.
Ah, 1993.
The first movie of Ted Demme (The Ref, Beautiful Girls, Blow), Who’s the Man? unites Yo! MTV Raps hosts Doctor Dré and Ed Lover as barber shop employees turned cops, working for Sergeant Cooper (Dennis Leary, amazing). While they try and become actually decent police officers, their former barbershop boss Nick (Jim Moody) is killed by a developer named Demetrius (Richard Bright) and they get on the case.
If you were a hip hop artist in 1993, chances are you are in this. Guru, Ice-T, B-Real, Apache (“Gangsta Bitch,” anyone?), Ashanti, Bushwhick Bill (“My hands were all bloody from punchin’ on the concrete”), Busta Rhymes (who somehow was in a Halloween movie and said, “Looking a little crispy over there, Mikey, like a fried chicken motherfucker. May he never, ever rest in peace.”), Del the Funkee Homosapien, DJ Lethal, Eric B., Everlast, Fab 5 Freddy, Flavor Flav, Heavy D, House of Pain, Humpty Hump (“Like Anita, I’m givin’ you the best that I’ve got”), Kid Capri, Kriss Kross, Kool G Rap, Melle Mel, Pete Rock, Phife Dawg, Queen Latifah, Run D.M.C., Yo-Yo and even Kurt Loder and Karen Duffy from MTV as a hitman and a cop.
Plus, the soundtrack has “Party and Bullshit” by Notorious B.I.G. on it — his first single — and “Hittin’ Switches”by Erick Sermon.
There are sadly few rapper movies these days. Between this and Tougher Than Leather— plus the movies of the Fat Boys and Kid ‘n Play — times were different once.
April 19: Record Store Day — Write about a movie starring a musician.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn
In late summer, 1984, Purple Rain was the number one film at the American box office. Its soundtrack was the number one album that spawned two number one hit singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The following year, Prince won 4 Grammys, an Oscar and two American Music Awards.
Following the massively lucrative Purple Rain tour in 1985, Warner Brothers let Prince do whatever Prince wanted. He began construction on his Paisley Park studios and quickly began working on a script for another movie. One reflective of his love for old films and his good mood at the time. The result is a black-and-white comedy called Under the Cherry Moon. A film that harkens back the classic screwball comedies from Hollywood’s golden era like Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story.
Early on, there was chatter that Martin Scorsese would direct the film, but Warner Bros. hired Mary Lambert. A few weeks into production, Prince fired her and took over the helm himself, retaining legendary Michael Ballhaus (Raging Bull) as cinematographer. The film was shot in color, but Prince, being the creative alien he was, insisted all release prints be struck in black-and-white. An unusual choice for 1986.
Prince’s second feature film is about an American pianist/gigolo named Christopher Tracy (Prince) and his best friend Tricky (Jerome Benton.) They live and work in the south of France during the mysterious time in history where people dressed like it’s the 1920s but they have modern computers, boom boxes and speak 1980s modern lingo.
After reading about her in the paper, which is in English, in France. Christopher and Tricky set their sights on heiress Mary Sharon for their next big financial scam to get a hold of some of that sweet paper that Mary will inherit on her 21st birthday from her greedy, philandering father Isaac Sharon played by Steven Berkoff and her long-suffering mother Mrs. Sharon (Alexandra Stewart).
Prince is essentially playing the Morris Day character from Purple Rain. He even stole Jerome Benton for his sidekick. And it kind of works. Sometimes. Jerome plays…well, Jerome. Again. I particularly enjoy the scene where the two friends argue over Mary. Tricky gets drunk and stomps around in a white cowboy hat, declaring to the sky, “It’s a full moon and the werewolf can KISS. MY. ASS.”
Despite their different backgrounds and class distinctions, it isn’t long before Christopher starts wooing Mary, who eventually hooks up with him despite being in an arranged engagement to a tightass named Jonathan. She hates Jonathan and confides in her mother, who herself longs for true love, fun and freedom but is too stodgy to do anything about it.
Mary and Christopher sneak off to have sex in a few different places including a phone booth, a racetrack, and a grotto on the coast where they argue constantly about their class difference and how uptight she is. To complicate things, Christopher is also boinking Isaac’s mistress Mrs. Wellington played by Francesa Annis from David Lynch’s Dune. This really pisses Isaac off. He decides enough is enough and sends his minions out to kill Christopher.
Meanwhile, Mary finds out about Christopher’s original scheme with Tricky to use her for her money and breaks up with him. The chase is on. Can Christopher get to Mary in time to tell her he truly loves her before the bad guys get to him? Nope. Isaac’s minions shoot and kill Christopher, who dies in Mary’s arms over the song “Sometimes it Snows in April”, one of the few songs Prince wrote about death.
Did I say this is supposed to be a comedy? That’s the main problem with this film. It’s uneven tone. Some things, like the cinematography, the gorgeous French Riviera locations, wardrobe and soundtrack work well while some, like the script and acting, don’t. If you watch the trailer, it’s clear that even the studio didn’t know how to market this movie.
Ultimately, it’s all about Prince preening around in awesome outfits being goofy. At one point, he even takes a bath in front of Tricky. In this unforgettable scene, Prince’s character plays with a rubber duckie in the bath while wearing a huge, black sombrero. Before a smattering of dialogue, he growls, “fascist” as he drowns the unlucky duckie in soapy bathwater. Depending on your attachment level to Prince, this scene will either make you laugh or freak you out completely.
Then there’s a cutsie subplot revolving around their inexplicably young, hot French landlady Katy (Emmanuelle Sallet) who hooks up with Tricky in lieu of rent and calls people “Cousin” like she’s from Uptown, Minneapolis.
About a year or so after Christopher’s murder, Mary writes Tricky, now back in Miami, an expository letter to fill in the audience on what happened to her. She is living on her own, grieving for Christopher. She has separated from her family completely, broken her engagement to Jonathan and launched a lucrative transatlantic real estate venture with Tricky and Katy. Mary is cautious at the prospect of finding true love again someday. Because you can’t really do any better than learning what it is to be loved by a male prostitute she knew for a week.
There is never any mention of anyone being arrested for Christopher’s murder or any comeuppance for Isaac Sharon. The film ends with Tricky chasing Katy up a flight of stairs in their new building, demanding the rent. Then, over the credits, we see the music video of Prince and The Revolution playing the song “Mountains” amongst heavenly clouds. The best scene in the film.
Along with this song, the film’s soundtrack, titled Parade, also featured the number one hit single “Kiss” although its music video in no way connects the film, instead showcasing Wendy Melvoin. This album was by far the most experimental released by Prince during his time with The Revolution, who by then had expanded in the number of touring musicians and became known as “The Counterrevolution.”
I love Clare Fischer’s orchestral arrangements on the soundtrack, the best of which is “Mia Bocca”, given to Jill Jones and released separately on her self-titled solo album. Prince and Fischer collaborated by sending tapes through the mail for decades and never actually met.
The film remains an oddity. Beloved by diehard Prince fans and abhorred by just about everybody else. A commercial and critical failure, it stands as an example of what not to do as a follow-up to a hit movie.
The album, however, remains one of my favorites in the Prince back catalogue. While Purple Rain’s music propelled the film’s story and expressed the emotions of its character, the music and the movie for Under the Cherry Moon don’t enjoy the same cohesion. “Girls and Boys” is a real banger of a funk pop tune, but we only get to hear a snippet in the film. “Kiss” was a huge hit, but the make out scene it accompanies is downright awkward compared to the smoke and fire on display in Purple Rain’s sex scenes.
The contributions of Wendy and Lisa on this record cannot be understated nor can the inspiration provided by Wendy’s twin sister Susannah Melvoin.
Susannah was not only engaged to Prince at the time, but she was also meant to play Mary Sharon. The wrecka stow scene? Yeah, that really happened with Susannah. The funniest scene in the film.
To ease her disappointment when the studio rejected her, Prince declared to her at sunrise in a hotel room in Paris, “I don’t want you to be in the movie. I want you to be my wife.” The relationship, like this film, didn’t work out quite the way anyone thought and ultimately led to the demise of the greatest band Prince ever had.
I was lucky enough to see Prince and Revolution on the Parade tour in the summer of 1986 just a month or so before he broke them up. It was the biggest mistake he ever made. They were fantastic. No other band, no matter how great, meshed quite like this one.
Prince died on April 21st 2016. The same day he recorded “Sometimes it Snows in April” in 1985. A few days later, a light snow fell from the sky above Paisley Park.
Note 1. In 2009, Prince watched Kristin Scott Thomas in one of her recent films. He was so taken by her beauty after more than 20 years, that he composed the song, “Better with Time” for her.
April 19: Record Store Day — Write about a movie starring a musician.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn
I was 12 in 1984, living in a small town in upstate NY with very little to do in terms of entertainment.
That summer, I was utterly obsessed with the movie Ghostbusters. I had the T-shirt and thee soundtrack and collected every issue of every magazine that wrote about it.
That August, the film got knocked out of a stellar hold-over run at our tiny local theatre for something called Purple Rain. I remember vividly riding by with my mom and voicing my frustration that my favorite film had been usurped. I noticed the line of teenagers and young adults wrapped around the corner and filed it into the back of my mind. It played for a solid month.
The following March of 1985, Prince and the Revolution brought the Purple Rain tour to Syracuse. I didn’t attend, but my friends who did wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks.
Prince was everywhere, and I just didn’t get it. Until I saw the video for “Little Red Corvette” on Friday Night Videos that April. When he broke into that split during the guitar solo, something in my soul (and my nipples) woke up and said, “Hello!” I immediately went out and bought the only Prince record my local store had in stock. Purple Rain. The album blew my mind. It was rock-funk fusion perfection. The album came with a poster of his band, The Revolution. As I hung it upon my bare wall, I wondered, “Who are these female musicians, and the guy dressed like a doctor?”
My family had no VCR at that time, so I saved my babysitting money and rented one. The first film I rented was, of course, Purple Rain. Soon after, I rented a second machine and made a dub of the original so that when the inevitable day came for us to finally get our own VCR, I’d be able to watch this movie ad infinitum. Which I did.
Through the film, I discovered the identities of the people on the poster. Revolution members included r. Fink on keyboards, Bobby Z. on drums, Brown Mark on bass, and most importantly, real-life couple Wendy Melvoin on guitar and the classically trained Lisa Coleman on keyboards. I also discovered that as impressive as the album was, the band’s live performances were outstanding.
Flash forward to 2025. Prince is gone, having passed away alone in an elevator in 2016. The estate re-released the film for one night only all over the globe in 4K with a new Dolby mix for the soundtrack. I was in the second row, with a glass of wine and a good friend, cheering all the way for The Kid, Prince’s semi-autobiographical character created for the film. He’s a dick. But that’s the point.
The Kid comes from a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic, abusive, failed musician father, Francis L. (Clarence Williams III, and his long-suffering mother (Olga Karlatos) whose singing career was ruined by said father.
The Kid is a control-freak misogynist just like his dad. His bandmates struggle with his their lack of creative input – something true to life where publishing rights and royalties were concerned.
The band’s regular gig at First Avenue is under threat from another regular band at the club. The Time (another Prince creation), whose comical leader, Morris Day would love to push out The Revolution in favor of his new girl group, Apollonia 6, featuring The Kid’s new love interest Apollonia (Patricia Kotero) a beautiful, young singer/dancer who has just rolled into town to try her luck at First Avenue.
The Kid has a choice. He can either follow the path of his father, beat his girlfriend and ruin his career, or he can mellow out, trust his bandmates to write good songs and stop being a dick to women. The whole thing comes to a head when he plays the now legendary title song, composed in the film by Wendy and Lisa.
In real life, Prince brought the basic chords of “Purple Rain” to the band at their warehouse rehearsal space in 1983. While Wendy and Lisa did not compose the song, they certainly helped. Wendy reworked the simple chords Prince had brought into the iconic opening chords as we know them today. Nobody plays those chords the same way Wendy does, and it never sounds as good. She took Prince’s original, basic chords, inverted them, stretched out that third chord like a boss, and made history.
The entire band spent the next few days working the song out together as a group. At one point, during a break, Lisa Coleman saw a homeless man, who had been outside listening to the song, crying because it was so beautiful. She knew them; they had something special.
The success of the film and the album wasn’t because of the storyline or the romance, although it should be noted that it was the first film in history to land in the Box Office Top 10 whose leads were people of color. The film succeeds because of the musical sequences. It’s basically one long music video with a dramatic storyline woven throughout, and it still works after all these years.
The opening sequence of “Let’s Go Crazy” is visual storytelling at its finest. It introduces the setting and all the major characters strictly through editing with minimal dialogue.
During the scene where The Kid sings “The Beautiful Ones “to Apollonia, who is on a date with Morris at First Avenue, I turned briefly to observe the audience’s reaction. Some were shaking their heads in disbelief, mouths agape at the genius screaming into the mic on screen. Others were smiling from ear to ear. I leaned over and whispered to my friend, “Imagine being that good at anything at the age of 24.”
Is anyone in this film a great actor? No. But the cast is charismatic, and they all hold their own in the dramatic scenes. Morris’s “What’s the password?” comedy scene, a re-creation of the Abbott & Costello “Who’s on First” skit with counterpart Jerome Benton, still elicits chuckles.
One person walked out of the special screening during a scene depicting a violent fight under a railroad bridge between Apollonia and The Kid. There’s no point in sugar-coating it. The film is filled with misogyny. People like this existed in 1984, and they still exist today. The point was and is that The Kid had a choice.
Following the attempted suicide of Francis L., The Kid finds redemption through musical collaboration with the female members of his band. He saves his regular gig at the club and announces his forthcoming stardom by ending the film with Baby, I’m a Star. If you didn’t know it before seeing the movie, you knew it when the credits rolled.
Given that this was Prince’s most productive period musically, it’s safe to say that in real life, he found redemption through The Revolution as a band more than any other lineup of the New Power Generation who came after them. This was the last true band he was ever in. The rest were simply hired hands. Great musicians, all of them, but not collaborative in the truest sense of the word. If you don’t believe me, listen to the track below:
It must be noted that the song “Purple Rain,” as well as the tracks “I Would Die 4 U” and “Baby, I’m a Star,” were recorded live at First Avenue in August 1983, before the film was shot. It was the debut gig of Wendy Melvoin, who was just 19.
Engineer Susan Rogers, who manned the van on the day of the recoding, added a few overdubs for these tracks in the studio, but otherwise, what you’re hearing in the film and on the album is one of the tightest live bands to ever exist. Prince’s sound during this period was informed by this group of people, all hand-picked by to bring his vision to life.
Yes, the dialogue can be corny at times, and yes, Jerome does throw a girl into a dumpster under Morris Day’s instruction, but the musical sequences are the reason Purple Rain the movie stands the test of time. And it’s the reason it will endure into the future.
Note 1. – I still have hair envy for Apollonia’s do after 31 years.
Note 2. – Wendy Melvoin’s father was musician Mike Melvoin, who composed the funky theme for the TV series Bigfoot and Wildboy. The kind of trivia I live for.
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