Cover Me Babe

I saw "Cover Me Babe" in its brief first run in New York City. The film was rated "R" due to scenes of sexuality. To the best of my knowledge, if there was a "PG" rated version, it would have be the version edited for television. I interviewed Noel Black, and he told me that "Cover Me Babe" was televised although I did not pursue further information on the broadcast. This would have been in the late 70s. I wrote an article on Noel Black's films in the magazine, Velvet Light Trap, in 1973. The main problem Black had with this film was that he was contractually unable to change the screenplay to more accurately reflect the attitude and film-making style of a student film-maker in the early 70s. Black also noted that his original choice in the lead role was a then unknown Al Pacino. The box office performance of this film was so poor that it is unlikely to be seen again, except, possibly on the Fox Movie Channel.

My recollection is that when I first saw this film (maybe at a drive-in) it was rated X, had a scene of male frontal nudity (Forster) and was actually first shown in theaters (some theaters anyway) under the title of Run, Shadow, Run. Can anyone verify this? I too saw the PG version once on TV years ago but last night saw the TV-MA (R?) version on Fox Movie Channel. This version seemed to have some scenes cut though I cannot be sure. A friend also told me at the time (he later became a film editor for Variety) that there was a trailer for the film that was a vicious diatribe against the studio for restricting the directorial control of Black. I was quite taken with the version I saw then, in part because I thought Black, the director of Pretty Poison, was an outstanding new director. Unfortunately his films after Pretty Poison have never lived up to it on subsequent viewings.

This is film school garbage.

Check out the scene about 12 minutes in where the lifeguard is reviving the small boy. Isn't that Harrison Ford?...uh, no...if that's Harrison Ford I'm Brad Pitt. In fact, it looks more like Rene Auberjonois with a man-perm.

But wait, the scene where Forster is shooting the lovebirds in the tree, and then the car...is that Bruce Springsteen?

And the woman in the background at the outdoor eating area? Is that Oprah?

That's definitely Sondra Locke, though. How did she get stuck in this mess after being Oscar-nominated for The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter.

Did you see Harrison Ford in this movie?

Oh he is not in the credits, however...

I believe that most extras and some "under-fives", meaning actors are just background or who have under five lines, rarely get credit on-screen.

Look about 15 to 17 minutes into the movie.

Check out the lifeguard giving mouth to mouth to the drowned child.

All you see is a profile for just a second or so.

Looks like Harrison Ford, huh?

Cover Me Babe is a good mirror of how "deep" and pretentious many "creative" young people were in the late sixties, early 70's in America. (I was one of them and oh boy does it smart to see myself so well limned on-screen.)

Also, great to see so many (now) well-known actors knocking out those lines with such flat lighting and coming off with less than star-quality. Reember Deniro in his b-movie, and how much better an actor he "became" with a great cameraman? Same here.

Pretentious slop about a student filmmaker who is so hip that no one "gets" him. Robert Forster plays the student and his performance is limited to smug expressions and wooden stares. I don't blame him, though, since the script is so godawful. The gist of the plot is that Forster's character wants to push the boundaries of realism in films, and while making a new film manipulates his cast and crew to perform unknowingly to his master plan. Actually, it's not a bad idea and anticipates the JERRY SPRINGER SHOW to some degree, but as put together the film plays like a very, very bad student film. This was shown on FXM recently, apparently in an R-rated form. The film was released to theaters as a PG film.