{"id":4278,"date":"2024-10-05T02:48:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T02:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4278"},"modified":"2024-10-12T21:09:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T21:09:15","slug":"the-buddy-holly-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/05\/the-buddy-holly-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Buddy Holly Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Buddy Holly Story <\/strong>(1978)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Drama-Musical\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 114 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, some sexual content, brief violence, drinking, mature themes)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Steve Rash\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Robert Gittler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joe Renzetti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Stevan Larner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 18, 1978 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Gary Busey, Don Stroud, Charles Martin Smith, Conrad Janis, William Jordan, Maria Richwine, Amy Johnston, Dick O\u2019Neill, Fred Travalena, Neva Patterson, Arch Johnson, John F. Goff, Gloria Irizarry, Gailard Sartain, Gilbert Melgar, Albert Popwell, Paul Mooney, Jody Berry, Richard Kennedy, Jim Beach.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $14.3M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0A plane crash in the early hours of February 3, 1959 cut short the lives of rockers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. This tragedy, known as \u201cThe Day the Music Died\u201d, is immortalized in Don McLean\u2019s hit song \u201cAmerican Pie\u201d. The life of Buddy Holly, famous for hit songs like \u201cThat\u2019ll Be the Day\u201d, \u201cOh, Boy!\u201d, \u201cWords of Love\u201d and \u201cPeggy Sue\u201d, is celebrated in The Buddy Holly Story<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Gary Busey, in his first starring role, plays the Texas-born singer and guitarist in a performance that netted him his one and only Academy Award nomination. It\u2019s hard to believe Busey was once considered a promising young actor given his reputation now as a crazy old man. Looking at his performance in The Buddy Holly Story<\/strong>, it\u2019s hard to believe he didn\u2019t go on to greater success in the industry. He is positively electric as Holly. It isn\u2019t just an imitation; he becomes Holly. He even does his own singing. It is an amazing transformation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The movie follows Holly over the course of his tragically short career starting when he was a teen in Lubbock, TX with dreams of making it to the big time. Not everybody shares this dream. His parents urge him to go to school so he has something to fall back on when music doesn\u2019t work out for him. His steady girlfriend (Johnston, Jennifer) wants him to enroll in college with her. The local fuddy-duddies don\u2019t appreciate him exposing their children to the \u201cDevil\u2019s music\u201d when he plays the roller rink with his band on Saturday nights. He loses his weekly radio show because the sponsors threaten to pull out if he keeps playing rock & roll. A trip to Nashville to cut a record yields no results after Holly refuses to rework \u201cThat\u2019ll Be the Day\u201d as a country song.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He\u2019s about to give up on his dream altogether when he gets a phone call from New York City inviting him to a meeting with record producer Ross Turner (Janis, Mork & Mindy). It seems that a local DJ sent a demo of Holly to his label which accidentally released it to great success on the airwaves. He heads to the Big Apple with his two bandmates\/best friends (aka The Crickets), drummer Jesse Charles (Stroud, Coogan\u2019s Bluff) and bass player Ray Bob Simmons (Smith, American Graffiti). After some negotiation over doing it his own way, Holly signs on with Turner.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Buddy Holly Story<\/strong> takes us through Holly\u2019s two years of fame and success. It includes humorous episodes like being hired to play Harlem\u2019s Apollo Theater, a venue that traditionally features black performers. The owner, Sol Gittler (O\u2019Neill, House Calls), has no idea they\u2019re a white band. He thought they were black based on their sound. His double-take upon seeing them in person for the first time is priceless. He initially refuses to let them play fearing a riot. Much to his surprise, the audience loves them. It\u2019s one of the movie\u2019s best scenes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The movie also depicts the love story between Holly and future wife Maria Elena (Richwine in a phenomenal debut), Turner\u2019s secretary. He digs her but she won\u2019t go out with him because her aunt (Irizarry, Jacob\u2019s Ladder) forbids her to date musicians or non-Puerto Ricans. A visit to the aunt to get her to change her mind ends in his favor along with a humorous punchline. It\u2019s her one scene and she easily steals it right from under Busey. The two are married shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I saw the Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba many, many years before I saw The Buddy Holly Story<\/strong> in its entirety. I tried watching it on cable in \u201984 but couldn\u2019t get into it. I\u2019m not sure where my mind was at that night, but it couldn\u2019t have been anyplace good. Otherwise, I would have watched the whole thing. The Buddy Holly Story<\/strong> is an outstanding film highlighted by Busey\u2019s dynamic performance as the singer who was only 22 when he died. Knowing that his life ends prematurely casts a dark cloud over the proceedings, but not once does the movie come off as a cinematic funeral dirge. Rather, it celebrates the life of a rocker who I\u2019m sure would have gone onto to even greater things had he lived. He also produced music. He was innovative. He had ideas- e.g. overdubbing his own voice- that sounded crazy but nonetheless worked. In one scene, an orchestra violinist he invites to play on one of his tracks compares him favorably to Beethoven. He\u2019s not wrong.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Steve Rash (Can\u2019t Buy Me Love), The Buddy Holly Story<\/strong> is also an incredible showcase for Holly\u2019s music. Watching Busey perform it is almost like you\u2019re seeing the real thing. The best part is the final scene, at the Iowa leg of the Winter Party tour, when Holly performs a medley of his hits and is joined on stage by Valens and the Bopper (Sartain, The Hollywood Knights) at the very end. The final freeze frame shot is haunting and far more effective than showing the actual crash. The bottom line is that The Buddy Holly Story<\/strong> is an excellent film. It\u2019s well-acted and well-told. It\u2019s moving, it\u2019s joyous and it has a beat that you can dance to. Watch it on a double feature with La Bamba.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Buddy Holly Story (1978)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Drama-Musical\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 114 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, some sexual content, brief violence, drinking, mature themes)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Steve Rash\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Robert Gittler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joe Renzetti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Stevan Larner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 18, 1978 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Gary Busey, Don Stroud, Charles Martin Smith, Conrad Janis, William Jordan, Maria Richwine, Amy Johnston, Dick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/The-Buddy-Holly-Story-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4278"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5389,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4278\/revisions\/5389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}