Brenda Starr

I am one of perhaps a couple thousand people to actually view this film in a theater and not on video-tape. I attended the premiere in the Florida Theater in Jacksonville, Florida. From the cast and crew, only the director, Robert Ellis Miller, managed to attend, introducing his film that was made in the Jacksonville area a few years before.

Overall, it's a fairly good film. The tongue-in-cheek acting is right on, with Brooke Shields and a pre-007 Timothy Dalton having a lot of fun with the material. Unfortunately, a couple of scenes were really hard to believe... especially when our heroine Brenda Starr waterskis on the backs of a pair of alligators!!!

The other effects in the film were nicely handled, including the animation and the scene showing an older New York City behind the historic Ritz Theater which played host to a scene early in the picture.

It's not a great film, but deserving of a viewing if you'd like an adventure flick without much seriousness. 7 out of 10 stars.

Totally enjoyed this. Was it ahead of its time or behind? I think it would have been great in the pop art '60s.

Brooke Shields was something like 21 when she filmed this - it wasn't released right away. She is so gorgeous she's all you can look at. And those Bob Mackie outfits! Totally worth the entire film.

Seeking a hot story, journalist Brenda travels to the Amazon to find a crazed scientist who supposedly plans to destroy the planet.

Brooke does a great job. She's always been more than a fabulous face, as she's proven on Broadway and in her own series. I saw her in person one Thanksgiving- unbelievably tall!

Really fun. Too bad it only made $67,000.

The most that people know about this movie was that it was filmed in 1986, then spent six years on the shelf before being (barely) released to theaters. Was it deserving of its fate? For that most part, yes. Though obviously not a big budget exercise, the movie does boast (for the most part) passable production values. However, the rest of the movie falls flat. Brooke Shields looks the part of Brenda Starr, but her performance simply isn't very good. In fairness to Shields, her role is strangely not written to be a smart and resourceful woman, but kind of a bubblehead - such a demeaning role would make anyone reluctant to give a good performance. In fact, just about every character is written to be kind of stupid. The movie seems to think that the whole thing should be some kind of joke, when in fact this kind of movie needs a SERIOUS treatment. It doesn't help that there are several instances where key linking footage or entire scenes seem to be missing, leading to some very confusing moments. I'm willing to be that Dale Messick, the original cartoonist of the "Brenda Starr" comic strip, wasn't very pleased by this cinematic adaptation of her work.

I thought it was really good, for what it is, I mean objectively it is a terrible movie, but as far as terrible movies go Brenda Starr is on the high end of that spectrum. To be fair I was high on drugs when I watched it and I'm going to watch it again and again and possibly be high on drugs during like half of those viewings, but the effects of those drugs aren't the only reasons why I will watch this movie again. See, our lives are a mystery, each day exists outside of our control and while we live we lie to ourselves when we say we've got this thing figured out.

I searched for this for years, sniffing after it's bad reputation. Surprize-it's not that bad. The scenes with the comic strip artist are painful but brief. Most of the action is period 40's and the costumes are fun (Bob Mackie?). Brooke is just gorgeous, of course, and makes a plucky Brenda. Diana Scarwid is her nasty rival and Timothy Dalton her sexy love interest. If this had been done for TV (which it looks like) I think the critics would have been far kinder. If I recall, no one crucified Jill St. John for the 1976 version. This movie is strictly for comic book buffs or Brooke Sheilds fans.

CC