Eddie and the Cruisers (1983)

Director: Martin Davidson                        Writers: Martin & Arlene Davidson
Music: John Cafferty                               Cinematography: Fred Murphy
Starring: Michael Paré, Tom Berenger, Ellen Barkin and Joe Pantoliano

Almost from the moment, it seems, that The Buddy Holly Story hit the screens, rock ‘n’ roll movies and biopics flooded into production. Eddie and the Cruisers is definitely one of the more successful, though not at the time of its release. One of the reasons its ultimate success is that the screenplay, based on a novel by P.F. Kluge, draws on dozens of threads in rock history to come up with a pastiche of a band and a music that seems timeless. There’s an element of The Beatles with the transition from a teen music to something more sophisticated, The Doors with the poetic lyrics and the demise of the lead singer, Elvis with the hope that fans had he was still alive, and of course the most obvious being Bruce Springsteen with the black saxophonist, the singing of John Cafferty, and the whole New Jersey milieu.

The story centers on the search for the missing tapes of the Season in Hell sessions, named after the poem by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud. In the novel it was the more prosaic, but probably more appropriate given the American genesis of rock ‘n’ roll, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Ellen Barkin is a TV reporter looking into the death of Eddie Wilson, lead singer of Eddie and the Cruisers, after the renewed popularity of his music from the one album the band produced. Tom Berenger is the focal point of the narrative, as it is his remembrances that constitute the flashback sequences to the early sixties and his adoption into the band once the lead singer discovered his proclivity for lyrics and ability to play the piano. Berenger is currently an English teacher who found his home ransacked, the culprits apparently looking for the lost tapes.

Michael Paré plays the lead singer and does a credible job, putting the appropriate level of energy into his performance--something Elvis never did on film. Of course director Martin Davidson had the good sense to avoid filming him playing the guitar, which Paré was not very credible doing. But the film isn’t about the musical performance in the same way as something like That Thing You Do. Joe Pantoliano makes yet another appearance in a rock ‘n’ roll film, along with turns in both The Idolmaker and La Bamba, this time playing the manager of the group and the impetus for getting the band back together in the present. But Berenger isn’t having any of it and wants to let the past remain the past. But events seems to be heading in a different direction, which parallels the disintegration of the group in the flashbacks.

A very young Tom Berenger does a nice job of playing both the young “Word Man” and well as the disillusioned public school teacher. The plot, however, doesn’t really go anywhere, but it wasn’t meant to. The novel is a bit of a confessional, first person from the point of view of Berenger’s character. But the film is told more as an exposé with Barkin interviewing all of the surviving members and presenting it all as a history of the group. The music is good, with John Cafferty and Beaver Brown Band providing originals, obvious influenced by Springsteen, that are fairly timeless tunes. One or two have a bit much of an eighties sensibility, but overall it really works for the film. Eddie and the Cruisers, though not a hit at the time, has become a cult classic, a fictional rock film that delivers great music and an engaging story.