Fame (1980)

Director:

Alan Parker

Writer:

Christopher Gore (written by)

Release Date:

16 May 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Music

Tagline:

If they've really got what it takes, it's going to take everything they've got.

Plot:

A chronicle of the lives of several teenagers who attend a New York high school for students gifted in the performing arts.

Plot Keywords:

Performing Arts | Singer | Graduation | New York City | Audition

Awards:

Won 2 Oscars. Another 3 wins & 16 nominations

Cast

Eddie Barth	...	Angelo
Irene Cara	...	Coco
Lee Curreri	...	Bruno
Laura Dean	...	Lisa
Antonia Franceschi	...	Hilary
Boyd Gaines	...	Michael
Albert Hague	...	Shorofsky
Tresa Hughes	...	Mrs. Finsecker
Steve Inwood	...	François Lafete
Paul McCrane	...	Montgomery
Anne Meara	...	Mrs. Sherwood
Joanna Merlin	...	Miss Berg
Barry Miller	...	Ralph
Jim Moody	...	Farrell
Gene Anthony Ray	...	Leroy

Also Known As:

Fame: The Original Movie (Australia) (DVD title)
Hot Lunch (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

134 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish | French

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby | 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)

Certification:

Portugal:M/12 | Canada:14A | South Korea:15 | New Zealand:M | Canada:G (Quebec) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | Finland:K-12 | France:U | Iceland:L | Singapore:NC-16 (cut) | Sweden:11 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Haaren High School, 10th Avenue 59th Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

One of the first films to employ digital audio in the soundtrack. Much of the music was recorded in New York on a digital system that digitally encoded two channels onto a video signal, then recorded it to 3/4 inch video tape. The final mix was analog on the standard six channel 70mm Dolby Stereo. The dub began on 3 March 1980.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When relating a painful personal memory, Montgomery tells Doris that his mother was so upset the last time his father split that she took a red-eye from New York to the Coast and wasn't heard from for two weeks. Red-eye flights operate from west to east to take advantage of time zone changes in that direction. Red-eyes don't go westward.

Quotes:

Montgomery McNeil: Never being happy isn't the same as being unhappy. Is it?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Robot Holocaust (#2.9)" (1990)

Soundtrack:

The Way We Were

It builds up--and then insults--its own characters

"Fame", about teenage kids in Manhattan's School for the Performing Arts, looks right, feels right, and it sometimes sounds right--but too soon the film becomes a muddled soap opera about wiseass children reaching too far for their stars. The large cast does good work, and director Alan Parker has alert eyes, but better editing might've left some of Parker's pretensions out of the mix. After one student admits to being homosexual (not just once, to a girl student, but twice, to his entire class and teacher), he is seen in tight close-up putting on lipstick; this is done for a sniggering effect, which is stupefying once you realize the ENTIRE CLASS is dolled up to look like characters from "Rocky Horror". The gay kid is the only one we see humiliated, by the class bully and the camera. This manufactured slapping-down is then used several more times: against the promising disco queen, the wealthy white ballerina, the talkative dancer, the stand-up comedian, and the illiterate who can't move on to better things because of his failing grades. It's a big, smelly cart full of aged clichés. If people respond, it's due to the cinematography (which captures some of New York's squalor and dusty classrooms with a bracing realism), the propulsive soundtrack, and the cynical-funny talk. These characters are quite a different matter; probably resembling no real student at the actual school, they are plot-mechanisms, and their pitfalls are punctuated by a director who can almost be heard saying, "Look! See!" ** from ****