Un petit mélo dans la tête

I missed an opportunity to see this movie, way back in 1978. Recently I got to see it. The first thing that surprised me - there was no Debby Boone. I always associated her with the movie. That apart, the movie is light weight, enjoyable entertainment. Basically it is the story of a young woman finding her dependence and breaking out of her fathers shadow. It reminded me of the movie "Valdez horses" aka as "Chino", with Charles Bronson. Nothing dramatic happens and it does not build up to any crescendo. Overall, it is recommendable and pleasant to watch and suitable for all ages. Robert

When you come right down to it You Light Up My Life has one silly plot premise. Young Didi Conn is the daughter of second rate comedian Joe Silver who after living with this girl into her adulthood can't get it into his head that the young woman is not a second banana comedian. But he makes her wear a clown outfit, gives her a ventriloquist dummy and says with his tutelage she'll be funny.

Now he has to have heard her sing and heard her sing the songs she herself composed. Conn decides to spread her wings and fly, but in the process she loses Stephen Nathan the guy she was going to marry and finds out that producer Michael Zaslow whom she had a fling with is a rat. What the story is about is how Conn decides to deal with all those heartaches. And you're not sure she can because she is a fragile thing.

One of those songs that she wrote is the title song which was a mega-hit for Debbie Boone in 1977 and responsible for the film getting an Oscar for Best Song. The song really makes the film even though Conn only lipsynches the part.

Try as I might I could not wrap my mind around the fact the Silver legacy in show business had to be perpetuated by Conn the Clown and that a professional couldn't recognize talent. In the same situation in Ziegfeld Girl, Judy Garland was a second banana to her father Charles Winninger, but he saw what he was holding back. You're not sure that Silver ever does.

On the plus side Didi Conn is a touching figure and gives a wonderful performance as an eager show business hopeful. For her and for the song you should see the movie.

After I watched the movie "You Light Up My Life," I sort of have mixed feelings about it. I can't decide if it's awful or terrible. I'm leaning more towards "awful," but there are parts of the movie that are "terrible" as well.

In "You Light Up My Life," Didi Conn plays Laurie Robinson, a young woman trying to make it in show business. She spends her days driving around Los Angeles in a 1960s convertible, acting in various odd TV commercials, and appearing in her father's TV show for kids. Her father, Sy Robinson (Joe Silver), is a Z-grade borscht-belt comedian who is totally clueless about the fact that he just isn't funny!

At the beginning of the movie, we see Laurie as a child, doing a stage act where she sits on a stool, holding a ventriloquist dummy, making unfunny jokes to a barely-laughing audience. (It's NOT a ventriloquist act - Laurie isn't "throwing her voice." She's just sitting there HOLDING the ventriloquist dummy, for some unexplained reason!)

As an adult, Laurie is STILL doing this lame comedy act, except now she's doing it before an audience of little kids, who only sit and stare at her in total confusion, not laughing at all! (These scenes are painful to watch!) Laurie tries to tell her father that the act isn't funny, but he refuses to listen to her, stupidly insisting, "It's all about timing."

One night at a bar, Laurie is almost literally "picked up" by Chris Nolan (Michael Zaslow), a curly-haired Lothario in a loud 1970's shirt with a wide collar. (He puts his arm around her and refuses to let her go while he's talking on a pay phone. If you know the history of the director, Joseph Brooks, you know how creepy this is.)

Chris takes her back to his apartment. The next morning, when he asks her to stay, she tells him she has to go to a wedding rehearsal.

"Whose wedding is it?" Chris asks.

"Mine," says Laurie.

Yes, Laurie just had a one-night stand, right before her own wedding! This is a shock not only to Chris, but to the audience as well. At this point, we're 20 minutes into the movie, and this is the first time that Laurie has even mentioned that she's engaged!

We meet her fiancé, Ken Rothenberg (Stephen Nathan), a self-absorbed tennis pro, who doesn't support Laurie's show business dreams, and peppers her with put-downs. It's never made clear why Laurie hooked up with this jerk, or why she is marrying him.

The wedding rehearsal scene is one of the few good scenes in the movie. At the wedding chapel, an idiotic wedding planner has two rows of bridesmaids and groom attendants pull a giant white clam shell on wheels down the aisle. The giant clam shell opens up - and Laurie and Ken emerge from inside it. Ken is humiliated by the whole thing, but Laurie's father, Sy Robinson, insists that everything at the wedding is going to be great!

I thought the wedding rehearsal scene was funny - but it didn't go far enough! If Laurie and Ken had gotten STUCK inside the giant clam shell, now THAT would have been HILARIOUS! ("Press the button, Ken! It opens the clam shell." "I AM pressing it, Laurie, but it's not working! Somebody get us out of here!")

Another funny scene worth mentioning is when Laurie and two other actresses are filming a commercial for frozen waffles, dressed in old-fashioned "farm housewife" outfits. The three actresses are placed in front of an American flag, and told by an oafish director how to sing the waffles jingle. "Sing it down on your knees, like Al Jolson." (I've heard actors like Morgan Freeman complain that they actually had to do silly commercials like this one when they were just starting out!)

A few days later, Laurie goes to audition for a musical film - and wouldn't you know it, her one-night stand Chris Nolan is the director! (A director named Chris Nolan? Yeah, right! Like that would ever happen!)

Laurie decides to sing him a song that she's written, "You Light Up My Life." As soon as she starts to "sing," you know right away that Didi Conn is just lip-synching the words, and her singing voice is being dubbed. Laurie's "highly-trained Broadway-caliber singing voice" does not match with Didi Conn's mousy, barely-audible, Brooklyn-accented speaking voice. (Ukrainian singer Kasey Cisyk did the dubbing, and sued Joseph Brooks when she wasn't credited in the movie.)

Throughout the movie, Laurie is so shy and soft-spoken and apologetic that even when she's being handed her "Golden Opportunity on a Silver Platter," she's still begging off! At the audition where she sings her song, when Chris is insisting that she sing, she keeps telling the orchestra conductor, "Oh, we don't have to do this now, if you don't want to!" (I was almost shouting at her, "Shut up and SING, you idiot!")

Laurie is such a major wimpette that you get the feeling a girl like this would never make it in cut-throat Hollywood! And if she did make it, she wouldn't be very happy. She seems to stay in show business because it's the only life she's ever known.

In "Grease," Frankie Avalon told Didi Conn, "You've got the dream, but not the drive." In "You Light Up My Life," Laurie has the opposite problem. She's got the drive, but not the dream. And that makes this movie awful and terrible to sit through!

Was just a little kid back in the 70s, but, boy, compared to the depressive and limited doldrums of this year, 2020, what a free spirited and special time it was.

Even I remember this song being played EVERYWHERE and anywhere: radios, cars, family gatherings, TV spots etc. So much so that I find it strange that we hardly hear it today unless we are playing it from our personal collection or looking for it online etc. I mean this was literally THE biggest hit of 1977, and definitely in the top ten for the entire decade. If we are constantly hearing The BeeGees or Donna Summer, why not this?

That very question is what prompted me to watch the film on YouTube. I do remember seeing it on TV in the 80s sometime. I wasn't expecting much and that's probably why I really enjoyed it! The song-and the album if the same name that exploded for Debbie Boone-is special to me as it makes me remember my late mother and aunts and the late 70s childhood I had. But...however cliche, the film is more than a movie capitalizing on a monster hit song, which I assumed it would be. It is really moving at times and Didi Conn does a fabulous job of getting us to feel her experiences which range from frustrating to hilarious. The relationship with her dad also feels very genuine. It really takes us back to a time that most took for granted how good of a life it was. It you are in the mood for some nostalgia escapism--this is a perfect fix.

When we ask ourselves, what came first, the chicken or the egg, we look at the other question, what came first, this movie or it's hit song? Didi Conn is a good actress but far from an great actress. More like a field goal kicker, Didi can not run the ball into the end zone for a touch down. She is not a star player. Then again, she is worth a good three points and can add her talent to the (team) cast. For a lead actress, she does not have it. Although this is a movie focused on independent women, Didi can only do so much. The movie shows the 3 men in her life and how all three want something from her as oppose to offering something to her. For her "lip" singing, this adds nothing to her quality of acting. If Didi co-starred in this movie, she would have been nominated for an academy award. Instead, the only thing this movie is remembered for is the academy award for the best song. Nothing more.