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While this good film is no masterpiece, it certainly has earned its place in Hollywood lore. First of all, the screenplay was co-written by Bobbie Gentry. She hand picked Herman Rauncher( Summer of Forty Two) and spent weeks helping him with the screenplay Belinda( the stripper in the film) is a song from Bobbie's masterpiece album, PatchWork. Benjamin( the imaginary childhood friend) started out life as a Bobbie Gentry song too. Her vision is all over this film. Her grandparents farm in Mississippi even served as the back-drop for the story.Billie Joe is the first gay character portrayal in film history without a hint of stereotying. He is full of real depth and humanity. On a production budget of 1 million dollars, this film had a box office run of 50 million. Business savy Bobbie Gentry still owns 10% of it in her deal with Warner Brothers. Because of its success,Coal Miners Daughter would receive a huge production budget in 1979.

I recall seeing this movie when it first came out - I was surprised at how empty the theater was. This is a movie based upon the beautifully charismatic song by Bobby Gentry from the 60's.

I thought the storyline was very engaging and realistic. It touches on a subject which may put some people off, but it is done in a mature way and isn't shown on-screen. A slice of life from the rural deep south. Easy on the eye and easy on the ear. I remember the acting performances being very good. For those of us who haven't experienced this type of upbringing, it was a good insight.

The song itself, is one of the great songs of 60's. For me the movie worked well. I could feel the long hot summers and the simplistic lifestyle and also showed you some of the darker side of life which was kept very quiet. It's a pity it never comes round on TV - it obviously wasn't a hit at the box office, but don't let that cloud your judgment. I think it's worth seeing. If you like Fried Green Tomatoes and The Trip To Bountiful, there's no reason to believe that you won't enjoy this.

Yes, it's the film of That Song. No movie can ever hope to to justice to the enigmatic, doom-laden 1967 Bobbie Gentry hit, or come close to capturing the stifling Southern atmosphere that the song evokes so well, but as a film in its own right, this prettily-photographed tale is not at all bad. The locations are all genuine Mississippi, and cinematographer Michel Hugo has done an excellent job of evoking the exuberance of high summer.

And talking of the 1960's, remember Jethro Bodine and his sixth-grade education? Well the actor who created Jethro (and is also the son of the heavyweight boxing champion), Max Baer Jr., produced and directed this quirky little offering.

It is Mississippi in 1953, and the pretty adolescent girl Bobby Lee is having fantasies about boys. Billy Joe McAlister begins to court her, but as their mutual affection blossoms, darker currents are swirling beneath the Tallahatchee Bridge ...

A careful, almost literal rendering of the song, the film is a commendable effort which gets stronger and more assured as it goes along. If it is somewhat heavy with Deep South cliche (plenty of "ah dew declayer" and "raaaht neighbourly"), it really couldn't have been otherwise. The song itself is overloaded with similar stuff. I personally did not like Bobby Lee's poem, which struck me as to syrupy and too slow.

Bobby Benson is adequate as the haunted Billy Joe, but the film's real success is the performance of Glynnis O'Connor as Bobby Lee. She handles the range of emotions with aplomb, and virtually demands that the viewer identify with her. The final scene on the bridge confirms that Bobby Lee has grown as a person and has emerged from the tragedy stronger than the adults around her.

Bobby Lee's huffy soliloquy on the country road is very good, with its subtle edge of self-deprecating humour, and the long courting-scene which follows it is nicely-judged. The rueful interregnum after Billy Joe's disappearance is beautifully done, dominated by the delightful Michel Legrand piano score. The rag doll floating in the water is a striking symbol, both of Billy Joe and of the abandonment of childhood.

Verdict - If a film version of the Bobbie Gentry song is going to be done, this is probably the best way to do it.

Tragic movie.

The backstory on this 1976 film is interesting. 10 years earlier the country music singer Bobbie Gentry had written a song with the same title which tells of a young man committing suicide by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge. But Gentry's lyrics never reveal why the fictional Billy Joe killed himself and in interviews about the song she was very coy and unrevealing.

So, they made a movie about it. Robbie Benton, teen idol of the 70s, plays the title character although this movie is really about the young girl who loves hm: Bobby Joe Hartley, played by Glynnis O'Connor. I thought these two young actors were incredible in their roles and they held this otherwise flawed movie together. The subject matter can feel a little strange at times (there aren't many movies these days that delve into the sexual desires of a 15 year old girl) but if you can get past that, I think you'll enjoy this movie. It's not an all time great one but just for Benton and O'Connor's acting alone, it was worth watching.

ODE TO BILLY JOE is a humerous and touching tale of events leading up to why "Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge", as related in the Bobbie Gentry hit. Director Max Baer Jr. (who would have thought "Jethro" had this kind of talent?) skillfully re-creates an atmosphere of 1950's rural Mississippi. and breathes life into characters only hinted at in the song. Scripted by Herman Raucher, with the same feeling of nostalgia he gave SUMMER OF '42, and beautifully scored by Michel Legrand, ODE TO BILLY JOE is a sweet and touching story of the awkwardness of teenage love, and the consequences of an unfortunate event, which, in today's politically correct times, would probably be scorned or laughed at. Glynnis O'Connor and Robby Benson, are re-teamed after their excellent debut in JEREMY. Another treasured film on VHS, that I hope will someday come out on DVD.

It's 1950's Mississippi. Billy Joe McAllister (Robby Benson) is courting Bobbie Lee Hartley (Glynnis O'Connor). She's 15 and too young to date according to her parents.

I don't know anything about the song although it sounds a bit familiar. I don't particularly like Billy Joe. I do understand the uncontrolled hormones. He's just very aggressive. This whole movie is a bit aggressive starting with the three Bubba rednecks. They are so broadly drawn that they are no more than cartoon characters. The whole movie is a bit broadly drawn. I do like Bobbie Lee's character. The ending is somewhat frustrating. I can't buy what everybody is selling. Everybody is assuming what happened. The movie keeps skipping over some important scenes. There are some compelling reveals and they are interesting big topics.

Glynnis O'Connor gives a very fine performance as a small town young woman in 1953 involved in a mercurial romance with an erratic young man; tragedy ensues. Herman Raucher's screenplay, based on the evocative 1967 song by Bobbie Gentry, begins promisingly, and director Max Baer (Jr.) goes for a romantically rural look and feel that seems right on-target. Unfortunately, the story takes an uncomfortable turn in the second-half that, when viewed today, is terribly clichéd, if not downright offensive. O'Connor re-teams with her 1973 "Jeremy" co-star Robby Benson, and they match up well on-screen together; O'Connor's family is highly amusing while into the new inventions like in-door plumbing, but everyone here is at the mercy of the hoary, disappointing script. ** from ****

Bobbie Gentry's artful haunting ballad "Ode to Billy Joe", centering on a family's dinnertable discussion of a local tragedy amid accounts of everyday happenings, is the inspiration for this film. At the time of it's release, the song inspired much speculation about the events and characters, so it was inevitable that a film version would eventually be released. The film casts Glynnis O'Conner and Robby Benson as the narrator and the subject of the song. The two talented young actors very authentically portray the intensity and passion of the modern-day Romeo and Juliet. The failing of the movie is its failure to capture the raw simplicity of the ballad, and the plot comes off as contrived or even sensationalistic. The screenwriters miss the opportunity to develop a central theme in the ballad - the irony of isolation and loneliness in a context of seeming closeness and intimacy.

If this film had been directed by Truffaut or Bergman it would have swept Cannes. The fact that many viewers find it almost impossible to understand is testimony to the film's authenticity. As a life-long Southerner I feel compelled to state that anyone from the South over the age of 35 either knows or is one of these characters. The time period represented is one which lives in the memories of those alive today. Mississippi is particularly well drawn. I lived in Mississippi for four years and this film captures that distinct Mississippi flavor of charm,vindictiveness,religious observance,and sin. The bridge scene is what Southern pride and "redneck" are all about. Daddy just WON'T back up. One of the main themes of Southern art is the fact that many of the characters are so far from introspection and so close to instinctive, impulsive, animalistic behavior. When someone is "different" tragedy and/or myth tends to happen. Tennessee Williams mined that vein. Like the characters in this film, his people often dimly understood that they needed to either leave home or accept self-revelation in the confines of their environment. Most couldn't do either. The result is usually some sort of denial,death, or sacrifice. Great films/novels/short stories about the South have a sense of yearning and fatalism which I find very honest and moving. If you are into Russian literature, you are probably into Southern literature too! My thanks to Max for this beautiful film.

With a script by the author of SUMMER OF '42 and direction by Jethro Clampett and released in a rush after SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, near BUSTER AND BILLIE but before HOOPER, the 'Deep South' and it's boy-germ emotions get fried like green tomatoes on the hot planks of the Tallahatche bridge.... as the song goes, anyway. Interestingly, we are actually in pre-Brokeback Mountain territory here with Billy Joe's haystack roll becoming his unraveling. Robby Benson was an interesting and sensitive teen actor who made slight roles about nervous and realistic emotions in youths acceptable. This film is one that works well, and is particularly effective and evocative of the time and place and of clearly hothouse emotional conflict. Part of a mid 70s series of 'South' dramas and fights within.....films like those mentioned above and other Jan Michael Vincent tearjerkers (with biff) eg: BABY BLUE MARINE. He seems to have passed his Burt Reynolds years with silent aplomb and entered the world of cartoon voice-overs with greater success. He was widely liked at the time of this film (see ONE ON ONE) and well remembered. Then he met Burt, mentoring followed and disappeared. He would be 50 this year 2006. The Brokeback Mountain theme of this film is a 30 year old preview of all this year's fuss. However, nobody minded in '76.

The title says it all.

The story was great....a plot, a love story, a struggle, etc....

The acting wasn't great, but it was good. I think all the actors did a fair job.

The only real problem with the movie was its dialogue. It was so verbose that it was unrealistic that, even in the 50s they would speak that way.

It's like every sentence had to be stated in absolute verbose perfection as if it was being read from a book. Real dialogue needs to sound like people would actually talk.

An exceptional performance by Robbie Benson, btw.

An excellent movie my today's standards. There are no "F" words, no visual sex, & the only nudity is a brief shot of the top portion of a woman's breasts (no nipples shown) before the camera cuts away to another scene. I would recommend this to any parent wanting a movie that they can show in a mixed audience of teens/pre-teens. If it were made today, it would probably receive a PG rating.

Robby Benson & Glynnis O'Connor play their parts well. The movie manages to capture the haunting atmosphere of the song by Bobbie Gentry. I saw it for the first time when I was 15 in 1976 and I still love to watch it.

A movie based on a popular song from 1976 starring Robby Benson & Glynnis O'Connor. In 1967 Bobbie Gentry released the song & it became a staple on the radio for many years (I vaguely remember it growing up) so a movie being extrapolated from a song may've sounded weird but then again the Beatles did milk an animated feature from their song Yellow Submarine back in the 60's (not to mention the song Convoy inspired a movie 2 years later). A young man & woman growing up in Mississippi in the 50's are on the verge of taking their friendship to the next level but fate intervenes when their town's annual fair (where copious amounts of alcohol are imbibed) is in full swing but Benson, in a drunken state, hooks up w/someone else & not someone you'd come to expect given the social mores prevalent at the time which leads to a tragic turn. Watching the film 40 plus years after its release made the twisty reveal feel unwarranted especially given the characters almost welcoming acceptance of it but maybe in today's environment the subject matter could be revisited but that still would leave the ending problematic if it wanted to have any air of verisimilitude but as it is, the film does capture a time & place that doesn't exist anymore which is always an eye opener. Directed by Max Baer Jr. (Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies) w/a fine eye for period detail, this effort is a dated piece of how it was.

I recently rewatched this film. A bit dated, but the simple dialogue and the innocence of young love and lust is captured so beautifully on screen. Rewatching it gave me immense nostalgia for how I felt as a young woman wanting to kiss that first boy I was in love with. I got goosebumps and tears. They did so well. I didn't think I would be as moved as I was all these years later. But something about the south. Something about the simplicity, the age of innocence, and the actress being the girl next door. No Hollywood beauty and no cleavage necessary to depict a palpable sexual attraction between two young want to be lovers.

i remember it being kind of looked forward to those who mentioned during the day at school ... i remember the song used to creep me out listening to my radio when younger at night after lights out of course ... it was just so strange and southern Gothic, now a genre and feel i have such a love for ... (riders on the storms" creeped me out to but i think that was justified :P) but the movie had Robbie Benson, sensitive 70s boy of the moment so of girls were going to watch. my parents gave me weird looks when i'd ask about watching things like this ... so i got a strange look that night and a couple of low-breathed 'asshole' or 'fagggot' responses from my two older brothers ... but they let me which was cool ... really what i wanted to know was all that wasn't talked about in the song ... billy joe is just a kid who jumped off a bridge basically ... now we can look at the lyrics and into them and say, OK the girl narrating or we are using her eyes as she shows us various clues and feelings to where by the end of the song we can know she is the girl missing the dead boy the most ...

but there still a lot more and that is certainly a part of a great song ... 'where's the rest of it? what happens to joe and blow?" ... but it's part of the continued allures of a song is this also ... maybe if i listen to it again, one more time, it will all click into place ...

well the movie wasn't what i expecting tho i don't what that was any longer ... but having just started high school and seeing how the weak are corralled and abused by the strong, that was a startling aspect really ... i thought it was very real how they presented it ..

all in all, the feeling of the movie remains so i gave it 7 because it seemed to be a seven :)

Hollywood. They take something that's pretty straightforward and assign it to a committee to turn it into something needlessly convoluted and working against itself.

No, Bobbie Gentry never confirmed what her song was about, but Occam's Razor, a boy tosses something into the river and then, despondent, kills himself. His only mourner is the girl who seems to know more than she's able to reveal to her obtuse family. Oh, what could it be?

Anyone with a lick of common sense would say it's obviously their baby, born premature or aborted before anyone figures out she's pregnant.

This movie takes that simple, tragically elegant idea and turns it into some ridiculous soap opera with a gay subtext that is just a completely different story. I get it. The writers, director, and producer had to get paid, so they couldn't just faithfully tell a poignant story because they didn't have the guts or imagination. But this replacement is just so uninspired.

Okay, making a film of the Bobbie Gentry song was a dubious idea to begin with; but it's hard to imagine a more boorish attempt. I lost count of the references to the Chattahoochie Bridge ("nothing good ever happened on that bridge") and the repetitions of the name Billy Joe McAllister. Forgivable, perhaps. What's less so is Herman Raucher's painfully expository dialogue ("Bobbie Lee, you know the Rural Electrification Project doesn't provide power to remote areas!"), the cast's excruciating Southern accents (all bad, but not even uniformly so)and the teenagers' Gone With the Wind diction. Though Jethro's intent was apparently serious, this film is high camp and can be enjoyed thus: Treat it as a frat boy drinking game. Watch the film with a bottle of tequila, and take a long swig every time someone says the word "bridge".

I remember seeing 'Ode to Billy Joe' when I was about twelve, and just starting to deal with the fact that I was gay. Growing up in rural Wisconsin I could relate very well to the negative attitudes towards gays, and find it very believable that a young gay person in that situation would consider killing themself. I also find it very believable that a young gay person would date a person of the opposite sex, just think about how many gay people do get married. Even though Billy Joe is a tragic figure I found the movie to be comforting, I think I took comfort in the fact that at least someone was talking about homosexuality, being Catholic my family never spoke about sex much less homosexuality and I think that is the way it was in most families in the seventies. Over the years I have thought of that movie often and I think at times it helped me keep my sanity, I would love to see it again!