What has six bizarre murders and four full seasons? The next installment of our May 1981 newsletter!
Plus the heartwarming story of Charles Bronson and a dog
Breaking things up like this, you notice how there are horror movies every single weekend of the month, and just how big the slasher market really was at this point. It was inescapable. We’ve also got a lot of redneck movies and we’re still seeing films that have been on the shelf for a while getting released. Even though there are a ton of movies, it definitely feels like a lot of things we’re seeing are already becoming familiar fare.
That’s why it can be fun when you get some weirdo big swing from left field. It breaks up the familiar in an exciting way. As always, if you’re enjoying this, feel free to share an issue with someone to convince them that they’re missing out. And if you’re just reading this for the first time and you are indeed digging it, then please, feel free to use this button to subscribe.
Let’s jump back in with the next weekend of the month and a film that isn’t really a slasher film although it often gets lumped in with them…
MAY 15
The Fan
Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Maureen Stapleton, Hector Elizando, Michael Biehn, Anna Maria Horsford, Kurt Johnson, Feiga Martinez, Reed Jones, Kaiulani Lee, Charles Blackwell, Dwight Schultz, Dana Delany, Terence Marinan, Lesley Rogers, Parker McCormick, Robert Weil, Ed Crowley, Gail Benedict, D. David Lewis, Griffin Dunne, Themi Sapountzakis, Jean De Baer, Liz Smith, Haru Aki, Robin Albert, Rene Ceballos, Clif De Raita, Edyie Fleming, Linda Haberman, Sergio López-Cal, Jamie Patterson, Justin Ross, Stephanie Williams, Jim Wolfe, Thomas Saccio, Victoria Vanderkloot, James Ogden, Terri DuHaime, Donna Mitchell, Hector Osorio, Lionel Pina, Miriam Phillips, Jack R. Marks, George Peters, Esther Benson, Eric Van Valkenburg, Ann Pearl Gary, Madeline Moroff, Leo Schaff, James Bryson, J. Nesbit Clark, Tim Elliott, Paul Hummel, Jacob Laufer
cinematography by Dick Bush
music by Pino Donaggio
screenplay by Priscilla Chapman and John Hartwell
based on the novel by Bob Randall
produced by Robert Stigwood
directed by Edward Bianchi
Rated R
1 hr 35 mins
A dangerous young man grows more and more disturbed when his fan letters to a famous actress go unanswered.
From the director of every opening titles dance sequence from The Cosby Show comes this nasty little bit of business that is single-minded but oddly half-hearted. Ed Bianchi is a television legend. In addition to giving The Cosby Show one of its most recognizable signatures, he directed hundreds if not thousands of commercials before directing Homicide: Life on the Streets, The Wire, and Deadwood. He’s directed episodes of Mad Men, Heroes, Damages, Boardwalk Empire, Bates Motel, and more. He is, by any definition, remarkably accomplished. But this first feature of his (he didn’t direct another film until a decade later) feels curiously undercooked in ways that keep it from working completely.
The opening titles set the tone for the film with the writing of a fan letter, all done in extreme close-ups. Michael Biehn plays Douglas Breen, a guy who works at a record store. He definitely puts the “fanatic” in “fan,” writing letter after letter after letter to Sally Ross, played by Lauren Bacall. She was in her mid-50s at the time this was made but she looks older. People just aged differently. Bacall was on the verge of a real-life career comeback onstage in Woman of the Year, a musical that ran for almost 800 performances and that won Tonys for Best Book, Best Score, and Bacall’s starring role. That makes the musical-within-a-movie that Sally Ross is starring in even more insane, because it is flat-out terrible. It makes me wonder if part of the draw for Robert Stigwood as a producer was staging those big musical numbers with an eye on a possible soundtrack release. If so, it must have been a bitter disappointment. I can’t imagine even the staunchest Bacall fan wanting to own this soundtrack or listening to these songs removed from the movie.af
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