Songwriter

Willie Nelson turns in a surprisingly effective performance as Doc Jenkins, a travelling singer/songwriter whose dreams of greater success (primarily in financial terms) collide with his lack of business sense in Alan Rudolph's entertaining Songwriter. It's up to his friends, fellow performer, Blackie Buck (Kris Kristofferson) and rising star, Gilda (Lesley Ann Warren) to help him out of a bad deal made with Rodeo Rocky, played by Richard C. Sarafian.

I was delighted to see how effortlessly Nelson threw himself into the role of Doc. Did his inspiration come from the real life financial troubles he faced a while back? You decide. It's just a pleasure to see him using that golden voice and interacting with old pal, Kristofferson. I also enjoyed the trip that Rudolph takes us on the road and behind the stage of the country music scene.

Setbacks include the discovery of Gilda. Although possessed with a fine voice, I had trouble believing that she had enough talent to sweep Blackie and Doc off their feet. Showing a newcomer as "gifted" in film is always tough. The voice has to be right and the songs interesting. I just don't think it worked here. I also didn't agree with Rocky's character who came off as a little too slimy, although we are talking about the record industry.

I enjoyed it overall. The story keeps you watching and Nelson with his guitar is worth the price of the rental alone. Watching this songwriter was a pleasure.

Alan Rudolph always makes interesting films and this little-seen mid-80s effort is no exception. The plot involves a singer/songwriter who discovers that the record company who initially signed him up have screwed him over with a disadvantageous ironclad contract that he is unable to break. Not one to give up though, the music legend attempts to release his own songs using a female singer as a front, but will the record company eventually catch on? While this might sound very slim as far as plot lines go, 'Songwriter' is a film more about its characters than any story, with lots of memorable dialogue as lead actor Willie Nelson interacts with various associates who band together to help him out of the jam. "Everybody has to kill their own snakes," he philosophises at one point and a poolside treatment that one such associate gets from sleeping around leads to possibly the film's most memorable scene. The film takes a while to warm up though, and catchy as Kris Kristofferson's songs for the film may well be, the song performance scenes are never as interesting as the character drama, but generally speaking, this is a worthwhile experience. There is a lot of fun to be had in Nelson using the tricks of the trade that he has acquired over the years to get back at the record company and Lesley Ann Warren's internal dilemmas resonate as the young female singer fronting for Nelson. The title for the movie is really quite astute in this regard; it could apply equally to her and Nelson as the actual and fake songwriters of the film respectively.

Willie Nelson is a songwriter in the country/western genre and a very successful one -- artistically, anyway. Most of the money is taken by the producers, including Rip Torn. Eventually Wilson gets together with his old performing partner, Kris Kristofferson, Lesley Ann Warren, and Melinda Dillon to right old wrongs and get the rights to his song back.

Most of the pleasure in this movie is, of course, in the music; Kristofferson was nominated for the Best Score Oscar. There's fun, too, in watching the suits get worked over in their never-ending greed, and the Austin location shooting is excellent.

In Hollywood vernacular this would be the quintessential sleeper: a small gem straight out of left field forced to look after itself in a market geared more toward largely impersonal blockbusters. It isn't necessary to be a fan of country-western music to enjoy the film: a disarming comic fable about one man's clever attempt to buck the system, represented here by the music industry. The movie works (in part) because of its oblique, slightly skewed narrative style, courtesy of Bud Shrake's elliptical screenplay and director Alan Rudolph's eye for offhand detail. Some of the Southern accents are thick enough to almost require subtitles, but the film is a true original, with a photogenic performance by Willie Nelson as the roguish title character.

Songwriter is absolutly one of the best movies I have ever seen. Willie and Kris play there parts as though it was there lives and I somewhat believe it was pretty close. The songs , (which I've never heard any in full length) are some of the finest country songs I've ever listened to. I personally know this movie word for word and can't wait to get a new one because I wore the old one out. Due to the wife I had to dig it from the garbage more than once. I couldn't get enough of kris's "Raspy" (He's workin on that raspy) voice or willie playing that guitar. And nothing compares to Blackie Bucks band , and the harmonizing . I recommend this movie to anyone with a flair for the old days or who (like myself} played in the honky tonks for peanuts. If you haven't seen it . GET IT.