''Brenda Starr'' is a 1989 American
adventure film
An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, an ...
directed by
Robert Ellis Miller
Robert Ellis Miller (July 18, 1927 – January 27, 2017) was an American film director.
Filmography
* '' Breaking Point'' (1963) - TV Series
* ''Any Wednesday'' (1966)
* '' Sweet November'' (1968)
* ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1968)
...
based on
Dale Messick
Dalia Messick (April 11, 1906 – April 5, 2005) was an American comic strip artist who used the pseudonym Dale Messick. She was the creator of '' Brenda Starr, Reporter'', which at its peak during the 1950s ran in 250 newspapers.
Early life
Me ...
's comic strip ''
Brenda Starr, Reporter
''Brenda Starr, Reporter'' (often referred to simply as ''Brenda Starr'') is a comic strip about a glamorous, adventurous reporter. It was created in 1940 by Dale Messick for the Chicago Tribune Syndicate.
History
Although set in Chicago, ''B ...
''. It stars
Brooke Shields
Brooke Christa Shields (born May 31, 1965) is an American actress and model. She was initially a child model and gained critical acclaim at age 12 for her leading role in Louis Malle's film ''Pretty Baby'' (1978). She continued to model into ...
,
Timothy Dalton
Timothy Leonard Dalton Leggett (; born 21 March 1946) is a British actor. Beginning his career on stage, he made his film debut as Philip II of France in the 1968 historical drama ''The Lion in Winter''. He gained international prominence as ...
, and
Jeffrey Tambor
Jeffrey Michael Tambor (born July 8, 1944) is an American actor. He is known for his television roles such as Jeffrey Brookes, the uptight neighbor of Stanley and Helen Roper in the television sitcom ''The Ropers'' (1979–1980), as Hank Kings ...
.
The film was shot in 1986; however, it was not released for three years due to lengthy litigation over distribution rights. It finally was released in some international markets in 1989 and in America in 1992.
Plot
Mike is a struggling artist who draws the ''Brenda Starr''
comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...
for a newspaper. When Brenda comes to life and sees how unappreciated she is by Mike, she leaves the comic. To return her to her rightful place and keep his job, Mike draws himself into the strip.
Within her fictional world, Brenda Starr is an ace reporter for the ''New York Flash''. She is talented, fearless, and smart, and she is a very snappy dresser. The only competition she has is from Libby Lipscomb, the rival newspaper's top reporter.
Brenda heads to the
Amazon jungle
The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...
to find a scientist with a secret formula, which will create cheap and powerful fuel from ordinary water. There, she must steal the formula from her competition and foreign spies.
Cast
*
Brooke Shields
Brooke Christa Shields (born May 31, 1965) is an American actress and model. She was initially a child model and gained critical acclaim at age 12 for her leading role in Louis Malle's film ''Pretty Baby'' (1978). She continued to model into ...
as Brenda Starr
* Tony Peck as Mike Randall
*
Timothy Dalton
Timothy Leonard Dalton Leggett (; born 21 March 1946) is a British actor. Beginning his career on stage, he made his film debut as Philip II of France in the 1968 historical drama ''The Lion in Winter''. He gained international prominence as ...
as Basil St. John
*
Diana Scarwid
Diana Elizabeth Scarwid (born August 27, 1955) is a retired American actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Christina Crawford in ''Mommie Dearest (film), Mommie Dearest'' (1981). She received nominations for the Academy Award for Best ...
as Libby Lipscomb
*
Nestor Serrano
Nestor Serrano (born November 5, 1955 in The Bronx, New York) is an American film and television actor. He is known for playing Navi Araz in the fourth season of '' 24''. He also appeared as Emilio Loera in the fourth season of the Cinemax se ...
as Jose
*
Jeffrey Tambor
Jeffrey Michael Tambor (born July 8, 1944) is an American actor. He is known for his television roles such as Jeffrey Brookes, the uptight neighbor of Stanley and Helen Roper in the television sitcom ''The Ropers'' (1979–1980), as Hank Kings ...
as Vladimir
*
June Gable
June Gable (born June Golub) is an American character actress, perhaps best known for her role as Joey's agent Estelle Leonard in the NBC sitcom ''Friends''. She also played a Nurse in the delivery room in season 1 episode 23 “The One With The B ...
as Luba
*
Charles Durning
Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays.Schudel, Matt (December 26, 2012) "''In real life and on the screen, he played countless role ...
as Francis I. Livright
*
Kathleen Wilhoite
Kathleen Wilhoite (born June 29, 1964) is an American actress and musician. She made her feature film debut in ''Private School'' (1983) before having a leading role in '' Murphy's Law'' (1986), followed by supporting parts in '' Witchboard'' (a ...
as Hank O'Hare
* John Short as "Pesky" Miller
*
Eddie Albert
Edward Albert Heimberger (April 22, 1906 – May 26, 2005) was an American actor and activist. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; the first nomination came in 1954 for his performance in ''Roman Holiday'', ...
as Police Chief Maloney
* Mark von Holstein as Donovan O'Shea
*
Henry Gibson
Henry Gibson (born James Bateman; September 21, 1935 – September 14, 2009) was an American actor and poet. His best-known roles include his time as a cast member of the TV sketch-comedy series ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'' from 1968 to 19 ...
as Professor Gerhardt Von Kreutzer
*
Matthew Cowles
Matthew Cowles (September 28, 1944 – May 22, 2014) was an American actor and playwright.
Early life
The son of actor and theatre producer Chandler Cowles, he was born in New York City.
Career
In 1966 Cowles played the title role in Edward Al ...
as Captain Borg
*
Tom Aldredge
Thomas Ernest Aldredge (February 28, 1928 – July 22, 2011) was an American television, film and stage actor.
He won a Daytime Emmy Award for playing the role of Shakespeare in ''Henry Winkler Meets William Shakespeare'' (1978). His Broadway ...
as Captain Borg Impostor
*
Ed Nelson
Edwin Stafford Nelson (December 21, 1928 – August 9, 2014) was an American actor, best known for his role as Dr. Michael Rossi in the television series '' Peyton Place''.
Nelson appeared in episodes of many TV programs, more than 50 mov ...
as
President Harry S. Truman
*
Sergio Kato
Sérgio Luiz Pereira (born July 15, 1960), stagename Sergio Kato, is a Brazilian-American actor, television host, comedian and former martial artist. He found greater fame in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro, after a stage play at the Scala Rio m ...
as Jose, Cab Driver
Development
In 1981, it was reported that
Deborah Harry
Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble; July 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie. Four of her songs with the band reached on the US charts between 1979 and 1981.
Born in ...
would star in a film version of the comic with
George Hamilton as Basil St. John. In 1984, a small production company called Tomorrow Entertainment, under Myron Hyman, got the rights to make a movie about Brenda Starr. The idea was to make a low-budget film that could be a high-quality television movie. Tomorrow hired James Buchanan and Noreen Stone to write a script.
Hyman says he began getting calls from Teri Shields, mother of Brooke. "She said Brooke always wanted to be Brenda Starr," said Hyman. "I guess Brenda was something of a role model to Brooke when she was a little girl. Well, Brooke's a lovely girl and I said of course we'd consider her."
Eventually, Teri told Hyman that she also had an investor who wanted to put money into the film. This was Sheik Abdul Aziz al Ibrahim, a brother-in-law of Saudi
King Fahd
Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ( ar, فهد بن عبد العزيز آل سعود ''Fahd ibn ʿAbd al ʿAzīz Āl Suʿūd'', ; 1920, 1921 or 1923 – 1 August 2005) was a Saudi Arabian politician who was King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia fro ...
. He offered to cover the budget for the film on three conditions:
* Brooke Shields played Brenda Starr
* the film had to be a first-class production made for theaters, not television
* no advance distribution deal was negotiated.
Hyman agreed. Ibrahim's representatives created Mystery Man Productions, a New York-based company, to finance the film.
Buchanan and Stone eventually were called to the offices of Mystery Man Productions. "They were not people who had ever made a movie," Buchanan said of the representatives. "They said things like, 'On page 22, you will introduce a dream sequence.' That kind of thing."
Finance came through the
Bank of Credit and Commerce International
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was an international bank founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi, a Pakistani financier. The bank was registered in Luxembourg with head offices in Karachi and London. A decade after opening, BCC ...
. The Ibrahim family was among the bank's largest depositors.
Mystery Man hired Robert Ellis Miller to direct, and
Bob Mackie
Robert Gordon "Bob" Mackie (born March 24, 1939) is an American fashion designer and costumier, best known for his dressing of entertainment icons such as Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Diahann Carroll, Carol Channing, Cher, Doris Day, Marlene D ...
designed Shields' dresses.
Delia Ephron
Delia Ephron ( ; born July 12, 1944) is an American bestselling author, screenwriter, and playwright.
Life and career
Ephron was born in New York City, the second eldest of four daughters of screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron. Her movies i ...
came in to rewrite the movie. She subsequently removed her name from the film's credits, using the pseudonym "Jenny Wolkind" instead.
Mystery Man obtained limited rights to the Brenda Starr character from the Tribune Entertainment Co., owners of the comic strip, in April 1986. But the company failed to obtain television rights, something that proved crucial later.
[Horn, John. "Long-delayed 'Brenda Starr' finally opens to tiny audiences". AP. ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' April 19, 1992: 2F.]
Production
Filming started July 1986. Shields filmed it over her summer break from Princeton, where she was studying. The film was shot in Jacksonville, Florida, and in Puerto Rico. The budget was originally $15 million.
During filming,
Timothy Dalton
Timothy Leonard Dalton Leggett (; born 21 March 1946) is a British actor. Beginning his career on stage, he made his film debut as Philip II of France in the 1968 historical drama ''The Lion in Winter''. He gained international prominence as ...
, who had the male lead, was cast as
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
for ''
The Living Daylights
''The Living Daylights'' is a 1987 spy film, the fifteenth entry in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the first of two to star Timothy Dalton as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by John Glen, the film's ...
''.
Initial spending on the film was from the Ibrahim cash accounts at the BCCI, but midway through the project, Ibrahim began to have second thoughts about the production costs. The film ended up being financed half cash and half in loans from the BCCI.
Brooke Shields later recalled she "loved" making the film:
Director Miller said he spent about $15 million to make the movie. Producer Hyman said the budget was about $14 million. Ibrahim associates said an internal audit attributed $22.3 million to the film.
Release issues
The film was meant to be released in 1987. "It would have been a hot thing," Miller said. "(Brooke's star) was in the ascendancy. She was 21, just graduating from college and gorgeous."
By May 1987, Phil Isaacs and Hyman, representing Mystery Man, started distribution negotiations with
New World Pictures
New World Pictures (also known as New World Entertainment and New World Communications Group, Inc.) was an American independent production, distribution, and (in its final years as an autonomous entity) multimedia company. It was founded in 197 ...
, whose executive Bob Cheren later testified that Hyman said "all rights" to the film were available and a deal was arranged. New World wanted to cash in on the fact that Dalton had been cast as James Bond and the impending surge in comic-book movies such as ''Batman'' and ''Dick Tracy''. The film was meant to open theatrically in January 1988.
However, Ibrahim later decided he wanted a new deal. "They (the Ibrahim people) just didn't understand the movie business," Hyman said. "They looked at it like real estate or something." One of Ibrahim's representatives said their client was "prepared to keep the film on a shelf and watch it in the desert on Saturday nights" if he could not have the kind of distribution deal he wanted.
Mystery Man kept the film's negative locked up, claiming New World had not signed a contract.
New World then discovered that Tribune, the company that owned the comic, claimed to hold all television rights to ''Brenda Starr''. This meant they could not make money on a TV sale. On July 10, 1987, Tribune notified New World that the distribution deal was "unacceptable".
Mystery Man pulled out of the deal. In September, New World sued Tomorrow, Mystery Man and the film's sales agents, claiming fraud, breach of contract and civil conspiracy. Mystery Man sought to block New World from distributing the film.
In December 1987, Shields' mother Teri said: "I feel the film's not ready to be released. They need about $60,000 more to re-edit." She was also unhappy with the billing. "Brooke's name is not on top and it's supposed to be. That's in our contract."
New World sold the film to Zambia, Japan, Belgium, Colombia, Norway and Swaziland. In February 1989, New World was bought by Pathe for $189 million.
AM-PM Productions bought rights to ''Brenda Starr'' in January 1990. "We saw the picture as definitely a Cinderella story," said a representative. "It's sweet, cute, adorable and charming. These are not words Hollywood likes to use."
[Weatherford, Mike. "MOVIES Brenda Starr' finally reaches the big screen after years of many troubles". ''Las Vegas Review-Journal''. April 15, 1992: 1.aa.]
AM-PM cut the running time from 108 minutes to 96 minutes. A new release date was set for North America: June 7, 1991. Triumph Releasing (a division of Columbia Pictures) would distribute.
By August of that year, the film had been shown in Zambia, Norway and Colombia but not North America. "I hope it does come out because there's no point in keeping it hidden," said Dalton. "It's probably the best work (Brooke's) ever done." "I like the film," said Miller. "I'm very pleased."
Reception
Box office
When the film was released in the United States in 1992, it bombed at the box office, making $30,000 in its first week. Negative reviews were blamed, and the film was pulled from theaters shortly after its theatrical distribution.
Critical response
''Brenda Starr'' received scathing reviews. Owen Gleiberman, writing for ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'', graded the film with an F, stating that the title character "... comes off as a giggly (if spectacularly elongated) high school princess" and that the film "is so flaccid and cheap-looking, so ineptly pieced together, that it verges on the
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
. I suspect they won't even like it in France." ''Entertainment Weekly'' would later place the film on its list of "21 Worst Comic-Book Movies Ever".
Peter Travers, writing for ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'', gave the film an equally negative review, writing, "There's been so much negative insider buzz about Brooke's 'Brenda' that you might be harboring a hope that the damned thing turned out all right. Get over it. ''Brenda Starr'' is not as bad as the also-rans that Hollywood traditionally dumps on us before Labor Day... it's a heap worse."
Janet Maslin, in ''The New York Times'', commented, "This would-be comic romp is badly dated in several conspicuous ways. Its
cold war
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
villains are embarrassingly outré (even allowing for the film's 1940's look, in keeping with the peak popularity of Brenda Starr as a comic strip heroine)...most dated of all is Brenda herself, the 'girl reporter' who worries chiefly about not running her stockings or breaking her high heels, and who in one scene actually uses a black patent leather handbag as a secret weapon."
Pamela Bruce, in ''The Austin Chronicle'', was highly critical of ''Brenda Starr'': "After gathering dust for five years, some studio executive decided that there just isn't enough dreck in the world and decided to unleash ''Brenda Starr'' upon us poor, unsuspecting mortals."
Home video
The film was released on both VHS and DVD formats.
The DVD version is available for purchase in two variations; one for all
regions
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
and another for region 2. The film is presented in full frame, 1.33:1 format, with English
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital, originally synonymous with Dolby AC-3, is the name for what has now become a family of audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. Formerly named Dolby Stereo Digital until 1995, the audio compression is lossy ...
stereo sound.
The title was also made available for streaming in the digital format.
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brenda Starr (Film)
1989 films
1989 adventure films
Films scored by Johnny Mandel
Films based on comic strips
Films directed by Robert Ellis Miller
Films shot in Jacksonville, Florida
Films set in the 1940s
Live-action films based on comics
American adventure films
1980s English-language films
1980s American films