Starstruck (1982) – DVD

***/**** Image A Sound A (DD)/A+ (DTS) Extras B
starring Jo Kennedy, Ross O'Donovan, Margo Lee, Max Cullen
screenplay by Stephen MacLean
directed by Gillian Armstrong

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover By all rights, Starstruck shouldn't be as much fun as it turns out to be. Chief amongst the film's faults is its insistence on laying a '70s template over an '80s milieu: the harsh straight lines of new wave get rounded off, making for a completely incongruous let-it-all-hang-out attitude. Things are not improved by the tentative approach of director Gillian Armstrong, not known for extroverted behaviour in the past and seemingly unsure of herself here. Yet although it's rather like watching Meat Loaf belt out Gary Numan's "Cars" at the top of his lungs, the combination of bright happy colours and an aw-shucks demeanour is undeniably infectious. You wind up grinning uncontrollably despite Starstruck's decidedly uncool approach to being cool.

It's a musical, damnit, and so there's a wannabe named Jackie (Jo Kennedy) dying to break into show business. She's a wacky, flame-haired eccentric who lives in the family pub and has an equally bent 14-year-old cousin, Angus (Ross O'Donovan), thinking big on her behalf. One cheesy tightrope-walking stunt later, she's got the publicity to land a spot on a teenybopper music program. But the path to stardom is strewn with disappointments: not only does her act wind up tampered with for TV viewing, but her father absconds with the pub's cash, too, threatening her very livelihood. Under the circumstances, can you blame a girl for pursuing a chance to win $25,000 performing at the Sydney Opera House?

The trajectory is pretty obvious, but a musical has no need for plot if it can pull off the general atmosphere of fun. This it achieves at the expense of the scene it tries to crash: Like it or not, the let's-put-on-a-show atmosphere is at odds with the robotic austerity and scene-maker's desperation that marks genuinely good new wave. The same year's Smithereens and the following year's Liquid Sky each put the lie to Starstruck's Pollyanna showbiz sentiment, in which everybody has good intentions and nobody means any harm. And it fits with Armstrong's oeuvre in giving a bold and brassy female heroine a totally unassuming support system, further watering down the frisson with a general inability to be offensive.

But like The Rocky Horror Picture Show (with whose stage version the film shares a production designer, Brian Thompson), Starstruck makes up for in enthusiasm what it lacks in conceptualism. You know the club is goofy when it should be snooty, but the goof is a good one; you know the songs aren't the real thing, but they're fun to hear when rendered by wildly-grinning singers and dancers. It's sort of a professionally-mounted amateur theatrical, and I don't mean that as an entirely backhanded compliment: though it's not a perfect film, it's a sincere one whose genuine desire to make you feel good compensates for all manner of aesthetic sins. You don't go to a movie like this for art appreciation, you go to remember the 13-year-old daydreamer you once were. And like those daydreams, you may regret them later, but oh, do they feel good at the time.

THE DVD
Blue Underground once again comes through with stellar picture and sound for a movie that would otherwise have received the bum's rush. The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is as sharp and lustrous as any of their titles, with gorgeous colours and absurdly minute fine detail; some patchy grain in fields of black costs the image top marks, but it nevertheless looks absolutely superb. Audio options include Dolby Digital 5.1 EX and DTS 6.1 remixes, both of which are highly worthy of the soundtrack and its songs. That said, while the two listening modes are lean, sharp, and brilliantly articulated in equal measure, ambient effects are more transparently distributed throughout the rear discretes in DTS. I haven't got that sixth speaker to get the full effect of the additional surround channel, but if you do you're probably in for the time of your life. Extras are as follows:

Commentary with Producer Richard Brennan
Brennan is, alas, not an animated guy–so much so that he manages to drone on for six minutes about Australian tax-shelter film-backing law without exactly tying it into Starstruck itself. (For comedy, nothing beats watching Jo Kennedy knock herself out in a musical number whilst Brennan dryly expounds on facts and figures as they relate to the financing.) He eventually gets going on things creative, but he just can't bring them alive.

Also aboard disc one: the film's American and Australian trailers; an extensive poster and stills gallery; and a menu for jumping directly to the film's musical numbers.

"Puttin' on the Show: Interviews with Director Gilliam Armstrong, Producer David Elfick, and Cinematographer Russell Boyd" (43 mins.)
The whole Starstruck saga, soup to nuts. Elfick begins by relating writer Stephen MacLean's personal connection to the story and how he narrowly missed having editor Graeme Clifford direct it until Armstrong signed on. Armstrong remembers that alternatively-schooled, punk-inclined Kennedy was unimpressed with the choice of music, while O'Donovan is revealed to have been 17 at the time of filming. Much attention is paid to the surprise challenges of directing musical numbers as well as to the fact that the film was released six months before Australian pop music (e.g. Men at Work) hit it big in America.

Screenwriter Reflects: Interview with Writer Stephen MacLean (19 mins.)
MacLean, ensconced on a Thai beach (and having his leg rubbed down by a furrow-browed woman), offers his own account of the production, from more precise personal coordinates of the story to vaguer recollections of Armstrong's involvement. He also remembers wanting friend "Little Nell" Carter (of The Rocky Horror Picture Show) in the role of Jackie, and gives much (if questionable) thought to the reason Americans were more receptive to the picture than Australians were and the annoyance of "dry, academic" critical writing. The man seems a bit of a showbiz blowhard, but he at least relates a great story about viewing the film with an audience.

Alternate, Extended and Deleted Scenes
Not much here for the secret-minded–two deleted scenes offer two minutes or so of new footage. The first features Angus looking dreamy in the back of a car after a highwire stunt, the second chaos in the kitchen after the same character has been told to go to school. Alternate and extended versions of "Gimme Love," "Body and Soul," and the "Starstruck" finale constitute the remaining elisions, which would be a bigger boon if they were presented in something other than the dark and grainy video on display.

95 minutes; PG; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1 EX, English DTS-ES 6.1, English Dolby Surround; CC; 2 DVD-9s; Region One; Blue Underground