'The Buddy Holly Story'
A retrospective movie review by Walter Frith
Chuck Berry. Born 1926. Elvis Presley. Born 1935. Buddy Holly. Born 1936. Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977 at his Graceland Mansion in Memphis, Tennessee and Buddy Holly died way back in 1959 in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. That plane crash also took the lives of Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper and was the subject of a musical masterpiece by Don McLean in 1972 entitled 'American Pie' in which he proclaims "the day the music died". It almost did. The three men mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph, represented the total package in the pioneering of rock and roll and of course many others contributed after that.
Almost 30 years old when this new form of music debuted world wide, Chuck Berry wrote and performed his own music which had a mature sound to it. Buddy Holly was the first artist to produce his own artful contributions and of course there was Elvis Presley's showmanship which was the selling point of it all. In fact, Buddy Holly once said "Without Elvis we might never have made it." Aside from rock and roll, Elvis' diversity stemming from his roots in old country music allowed him to perform ballads and the most beautiful gospel compositions. Presley won three Grammy awards in his lifetime, all for gospel recordings. It's hard to imagine that he never won one for his rock and roll proving just how ahead of his time he really was. Chuck Berry was the very first man inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. and Elvis Presley was second and Buddy Holly was also one of the first inductees that same year.
As I write this review, the date is August 17, 1997. It is exactly one day after the 20th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. But let us not forget the other pioneers of rock and roll itself including the Cleveland DJ, Alan Freed who coined the phrase 'rock and roll'. The 1978 movie 'The Buddy Holly Story' was a success largely in part because of Presley. In the twenty years since his death have you noticed that there hasn't been a big screen movie about his life? In 1979 there was a television movie called 'Elvis' in which Kurt Russell played the King of rock and roll quite well and surprised many critics and received an Emmy award nomination for his work. I supect that if there ever was a big screen Hollywood movie about Elvis that it would be controversial to say the least. Besides, who would play Elvis? Is Kurt Russell too old? Any casting agent handed that assignment would certainly have their work cut out for them.
It took Sir Richard Attenborough 20 years to bring the story of Mohandas K. Gandhi to the screen with 1982's 'Gandhi' and it had astonishingly successful results. The most famous baseball player of all time, Babe Ruth has had two movies made about him, 'The Babe Ruth Story' in 1948 (the year the real Babe Ruth died) starring William Bendix and 'The Babe' in 1992 starring John Goodman. Both were disappointing and sometimes a historical figure is too monumental for any motion picture to be made successfully about their life. Given the fact that Elvis Presley is the 20th century's largest cultural icon, it is perhaps wise that no movie has been made. Buddy Holly was just as important in the development of rock and roll as Elvis was but because he a lesser known figure, the 1978 movie about the final two years of his life succeeded quite well.
'The Buddy Holly Story' opens at a roller skating rink in Lubbock, Texas in 1956 in which Buddy Holly and his band 'The Crickets' are about to perform. Gary Busey is Buddy Holly and 'The Crickets' are played by Charles Martin Smith and Don Stroud. Astonishingly, the three of them played all their pieces live in the movie and Busey is electrifying in looking and sounding just like Holly in a role that brought him and Academy Award nomination as Best Actor and the film won the Oscar for Best Adaptation Score by Joe Renzetti.
Their show at the roller rink is picked up live by the local radio station and after starting out with a soft country and western piece, Holly then switches to rock and roll which has yet to receive its name and the sponsors of the radio station begin calling in to express anger at what they're hearing and one sponsor quips that he is not buying 'be-bop'. Holly gains recognition and is given his first record deal in Nashville which falls through after a run in with the producer when they try and make one of Holly's biggest hits, "That'll Be the Day", into a country recording. The next meeting Holly has is with a record company executive in New York City who at first resists the idea of Holly producing his own music but gives in at the end after a convincing speech by Buddy about the artistic preservation of an artist's unique and individual sound thriving around inside his head. He and 'The Crickets' earn $75,000 for their single, Buddy gets married and goes on tour but things start falling apart within the band as jealousy and resentment over where the band will live take issue. Holly continues his career apart from the band and the movie builds a sentimental conclusion without ever becoming weepy or pretentious.
Director Steve Rash and screenwriter Robert Gittler have cleverly made a motion picture classic that is one of the strongest biographies ever made about an entertainment personality. Everyone knows how Buddy Holly's life came to an end but the movie treats that issue by reflecting in a unique visual style the way Holly lived instead of the way he died and it is to be admired for that first above anything else.
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