Reviens Jimmy Dean, reviens

Although I saw this film many years ago, and I have seen it only once, the memories are still strong and I often think back to the feelings and thoughts it thrust upon me. Too few movies I have seen in my life stay with me very long...this on one that has.

I am not sure if this was written a stage play. The fact that it only has one location suggests that it was. The characters are complex and have so much depth that I am almost sure it was. They have not been written as characters to be placed over a story, they are the story.

I saw this movie late one night. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I was on a low. Maybe I was open to suggestion. Who knows? But. When I saw this movie, it stirred so many feelings within me, opened up my mind to so many thoughts and questioned so many things not only in my life but in the world in general that it could not have just passed without making it's mark.

If you like to watch movies that make you truly 'think' and which take you inside them...sometime to places you do not wish to go, then I whole heartedly recommend this one.

Take something away with you from this one and the world will be a better place....and you will be a better person.

I remember when this film came out... I was an Altman fan then but I could never convince any of my friends to go see this with me (I was in high school at the time). Twenty years later I finally catch it on Bravo, and found it well worth the wait (and boy am I glad I popped a tape in to record it).

The acting in this film is superb, as is the direction (as you'd expect). Altman has taken a stage play that takes place on a single set and brought it to the screen in a way that manages to preserve the theatrical ideosyncracies (e.g., the actresses don't change their appearance, or even their outfits in some cases, in flashbacks to twenty years earlier) while still being masterfully "cinematic" in the way Altman composes his images.

If anything, the Achilles' heel of this movie is its script, which appears to be taken verbatim from the original stage play. There were times, especially towards the beginning of the movie, when it seemed somewhat awkward, but in a way that probably wouldn't seem as out-of-place in a play. I guess that's why they call it "stagy". But still, it's a minor complaint, and the great acting and compelling story more than make up for it. Overall I give this movie an 8/10.

I see something different every time I see this movie. What starts out seeming to be a very simplistic movie about James Dean fans is really more about what we believe in and how difficult it sometimes is to get beyond "false fronts".

Cher is excellent and the rest of the cast do a credible job of allowing us to see different viewpoints through different characters. Marta Heflin as Edna Louise probably has the most to offer in the way of "the moral to the story". Sudie Bond as Juanita has some of the best lines delivered in an excellent "why me" voice.

Things are not the way they seem in any of the characters lives with one exception.

Don't just watch this movie once. Watch it again and again and pick up something more each time.

One of Robert Altman's lesser known movies looks at a group of James Dean disciples getting back together on the twentieth anniversary of Dean's death. "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" very much has the feeling of a play, as the whole thing takes place in one enclosed location (a Woolworth's five & dime store). I notice that a major theme is gender roles in the small Texas town where they live: the women are have always been forced to suppress their emotions, while the effeminate man is not accepted at all.

A common trait of Altman's movies is that many people are talking at once. That's the case here, but it's accentuated by the mirrors, which show what happened twenty years earlier while "Giant" was getting filmed not far from the town. I guess that in the end, the movie deals with nostalgia and how realistically we view the past. I was born long after the '50s, so even though I can watch the movies and listen to the music, I can never fully understand what it was like to experience these things for the first time. Does this count as authentic nostalgia?

I'd say that the movie is worth seeing. It's not Altman's best movie by any stretch, but I think that it had very good character development. Starring Sandy Dennis, Cher, Karen Black and Kathy Bates.

This film isn't mentioned very much today, nor was it talked about very much when it was first released, but the picture has been christened a classic among Robert Altman fans, and it's easy to see why. This is one of the director's most stunning achievements. It's not that Ed Graczyk's script is anything special. It isn't. But Altman is a master of storytelling. It doesn't matter how derivative the project he's given is. When he gives a project everything he's got, it results in something very special. That is the case with Five and Dime. Graczyk's story takes place in a five and dime store located in a small Texas town where a group of women reunite for the twentieth anniversary of James Dean's death. The event turns out to be a very painful one, as each woman is forced to reveal the skeletons in her closet. The film was originally a stage play, and was also directed by Altman. As a play, it just didn't wash, but as a film, it is a masterpiece. Again, this has much to do with Altman's mastery of storytelling. His amazing ability to make something out of virtually nothing. But much of the credit also must go to the solid female ensemble which includes Sandy Dennis, Karen Black, Kathy Bates, Marta Heflin, Sudie Bond and Cher. In her first real crack at serious acting, Cher is thoroughly impressive. She has several strongly emotional scenes with Sandy Dennis and Karen Black(two of the most remarkable actresses to grace the New York Stage and Hollywood screen), and Miss Cher holds her own in every last one of them. A classic or not, this is an unforgettable, often moving motion picture experience. It's almost impossible to walk away from this film without feeling something. Highly recommended.