Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
Recently Restored
With Sandy Dennis, Cher, Karen Black.
US, 1982, 35mm, color, 109 min.
Print source: UCLA
After disappointing and disappearing studio relationships following the troubled HealtH and flopped Popeye, Altman left Hollywood for Broadway. His production of Ed Graczyk’s play led to a cable movie offer, which Altman eventually wrangled into limited theatrical release and, consequently, a more concise, poetic vision. Rather than the separate sets of the stage version, two identical Woolworth shops were constructed in front of one another, separated by a two-way mirror. Thus, the reuniting Disciples of James Dean seamlessly drift back-and-forth from the Fifties to the Seventies; yet for these lost dreamers stuck in a remote Texan town, the changes between eras are often imperceptible. An extra on Giant, Mona achieves minor celebrity as the supposed mother of James Dean’s son, and her static fantasy has for years been reluctantly maintained by a small group of friends who each have their own delusions to dissolve. The increasingly complex reflections bouncing between the spectrum of girlish personas exposes the restricting feminine—and masculine—ideals both maintained by and displaced onto the silver screen, an escapism Altman’s viewers are tenderly denied.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
Vincent & Theo
Fool for Love
Prêt-à-porter
California Split
Thieves Like Us
A Perfect Couple
A Prairie Home Companion
O.C. and Stiggs
That Cold Day in the Park
Corn's-A-Poppin'
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Gingerbread Man
Dr. T and the Women
Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
