The world, it seemed, was not ready for Hollywood's reinvention of the movie musical in 1981/1982---Steve Martin's Pennies from Heaven was a huge flop and a few months later, Francis Coppola brought One from the Heart out despite supposed urges from friends and business partners to shelve it. The film is not a musical in that its stars break out into song (and they don't, except of course for Frederick Forest's brief attempt at song during the airport scene). Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle-two voices that should not work together in song, but do-supply the soundtrack and their singing can be heard during a good portion of the running time. Coppola's decision to shoot the movie entirely on his studio instead of going to Vegas, I thought, paid off. Vegas does have a dream-like, surreal quality and he ups the ante by recreating it on his lot, thereby allowing characters to have scenes intimately close to some of the neon signs. Forest's "escape" to the desert with Natassja Kinski has an even dreamier quality, with the remnants of old neon signs buried in the desert. I thought the set direction was incredible and should have won an Academy Award. This is one of those movies that's "one time is enough" for me. The actors were okay, but only Raul Julia had fireworks. Teri Garr was adorable in her late '70s and early '80s films, but I always found her to be almost "too cute" for serious roles. She had (and still has, to a degree) a Goldie Hawn quality that's great in movies like Tootsie and Young Frankenstein, but a little unbelievable in serious movies like this and the underrated First Born. I thought Forest was not that credible either as a "ladies man" who could seduce Kinski like that. But maybe that was the whole point--the leads are "everyday people," not the beautiful people of the classic MGM musicals. But this movie's influence on later films, Moulin Rouge and Chicago in particular, cannot be denied. It is worth a look, if only to see what the "fuss" was about back in 1982.
