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STAR 80
Rating:  ½
USA. 1983.
Director/Screenplay – Bob Fosse, Based on the Village Voice Article Death of a Playmate by Teresa Carpenter, Producers – Wolfgang Glattes & Kenneth Utt, Photography – Sven Nykvist, Music – Ralph Burns, Special Effects Supervisors – Henry Millar Jr & John Thomas, Makeup – Ken Chase, Art Direction – Michael Bolton & Jack G. Taylor Jr. Production Company – The Ladd Co.
Cast:
Eric Roberts (Paul Snider), Mariel Hemingway (Dorothy Stratten), Cliff Robertson (Hugh Hefner), Roger Rees (Aram Nicholas), David Clennon (Geb), Carroll Baker (Dorothy’s Mother), Josh Mostel (Private Detective)
Plot: The true story of the tragedy of Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten. She was discovered as a teenager in Vancouver by Paul Snider, who became her boyfriend and mailed photos he had taken of her to Playboy, resulting in her being offered to pose as a Playmate and eventually becoming the 1980 Playmate of the Year. But as Dorothy’s star started to rise and she was offered film parts, Snider’s various business ventures started to go under and he became increasingly more controlling and jealous of her, culminating in her murder and his suicide.
Hollywood has always had a fascination with its own horror stories and tragedies. This film is based on the short and tragic life of Playmate Dorothy Stratten, who was shot by her husband/manager Paul Snider in 1980 aged only 20. (The title incidentally refers to the personalized number-plate Snider had made for his Mercedes). There is a certain irony to Stratten’s notoriety – that had she not been shot, she would probably never have even been noticed, never have been anything more than another centerfold turned B movie actress like Monique Gabrielle or Brinke Stevens. Certainly her total of four film appearances – and even there her only real starring role was in the sf film Galaxina (1980) – betray little in the way of acting talent. But since her death there have been two filmic biographies based on her life – this and the tv movie Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story (1981), as well as a documentary Dorothy Stratten: The Untold Story (1985).
The film was made by former top Broadway dance choreographer turned director Bob Fosse, who also directed films such as Cabaret (1972), Lenny (1974) and the autobiographical All That Jazz (1979). It is a strong and disturbing portrait of the underside of fame, of the hunger for glamour and the ugliness and desperation among those who don’t make it. Fosse adopts an interesting pseudo-documentary style – conducting faked interviews with actors playing real-life people who are connected to Dorothy. The most powerful and disturbing part of the film is its portrait of Snider’s descent into obsession. It’s a rivetting performance from Eric Roberts. Roberts being someone who never seems to leave his Texan twang and slow-witted Southern hick roles behind, this is probably the best performance he has ever be given. Both he and Fosse tread the fine line of showing Snider’s emotional smoothness and his total transparency at the same time. The story is a dark Pygmalion of sorts, powerfully written in its turning around of the dream of exploiting Dorothy that Snider creates for himself to showing Snider’s world crumbling into macho paranoia as she gains self-confidence under the director played by Roger Rees (who was in real life director Peter Bogdanovich). The last twenty minutes or so of the film which slowly build through Snider’s increased financial desperation, his paranoia, to finally the shooting are intense and disturbing. Everyone knows where the film is heading – the telling of the story as a flashback from the killing at the start reinforces this – but Fosse draws it out, leading one to think it will occur next, but then suddenly pulling away from it. The scenes leading up to this are emotionally raw.
The character of Dorothy comes across less vividly than Snider – hers is simply a journey of self-recognition – and Fosse wisely concentrates the film on Snider rather than her. But Mariel Hemingway comes across well when she gets to play the star part during some of Fosse’s faked interviews. And her playing of the dim-wittedness of the character is good too – “He has the personality of a pimp,” Hefner tells her, to which her reply is ”Oh no, he doesn’t dress that way now.” The film is oddly dedicated to screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2011
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