Full Moon in Blue Water

Saw this on the Talking Pictures (UK) channel, for older films and TV.

Some very ill-informed reviews on here, 2 from Moonspinner and Claudio especially. Nothing wrong with this film, it's one of many reflecting small-town life in USA, with characters who are perhaps lost, or aimless, but trying to make the best of their lot.

So, sure, there were no car chases, no shootings, no spaceships, no fantasy nonsense with people riding horses that can fly, or people turning into bats and/or back again, just regular people.

Hackman (just died this year I gather, RIP) and Garr are excellent, as they invariably are, GH can play pretty much anything, and Garr could have been born for this role, plus the support cast hit the right notes.

Can the coastal bar survive, will it be saved by the intended new bridge bringing more custom? About my only criticism would be the Title, which makes it seem like some twee nature film?!

A wonderful little movie that got overlooked in the distribution mill at the time of its release, "Full Moon in Blue Water" is overdue for rediscovery. It has so many parallels to "Moonstruck" that one could mistakenly peg it as a copycat, but guess again: "Full Moon" was completed before "Moonstruck" was ready for previews; the similarities are merely coincidental; and there's no need to choose between the two, when both films are so easy to love. Gene Hackman leads as Floyd, the owner of a rambling, cozy restaurant-shack on the Gulf Coast of Alabama: he's a man emotionally stalled by the disappearance of his beloved wife. She disappeared while swimming and everyone presumes her dead, but Floyd can't accept this; he believes she was drawn away by an undertow and struck her head: that she's wandering now with amnesia but someday will return to him. Business is dwindling at the shack, but he refuses all offers to buy him out: he's keeping the place for Dorothy to come home to. In the meantime Louise (Teri Garr) keeps him company, and wants more, a real commitment from him - her frustration is touching and funny. She can argue down all of his high-flown romantic notions, and his practical objections too, but when he remembers his loss he grows wistful and drifts away where she can't reach him. Their sad-tinged love affair is played out with screwball logic. It's Jimmy (Elias Koteas), a mildly retarded young man who sweeps up around the shack and cares for Floyd's in-and-out senile father (Burgess Meredith), who twists the screw to its tightest, by doing something so ghastly - something that would be absurdly funny if it weren't too appalling for laughter - and then tops even that by springing the worst possible plan to resolve matters, at the worst possible moment. "Full Moon in Blue Water" takes a kidding approach to the "magic" of romance, but on some level believes in it too; that it's able to keep both attitudes in play at the same time may be the best of what it shares with "Moonstruck." Its special distinctions are worth discovering.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for white sands and blue water, even more of a sucker for sweet stories, but I loved this movie. Yes, I could get critical, but then I could be critical about just about every movie I've ever seen. Bottom line is, I loved this movie, I like Terri Garr, I like Gene Hackman, and I found nothing bad about this movie. I like romantic movies, and this was certainly that.

Gene made a believable everyman buried in sadness about the loss of his wife, while Terri was her usual professional self, playing a woman in love with him but unable to break through his shell. Burgess Meridith, during his life, made a career out of playing crusty characters, and this one was no exception. I only tried this film an someone else's recommendation, and it turned out to be a good one.

Lately I've been on a Gene Hackman 1980's kick. Hoosiers, many folks think is the best portrayal of a sports coach, maybe the best sports film ever made. Twice in a Lifetime is a middle-aged love story of betrayal in a blue-collar family and it ranks up there as the best of Hackman's work. Then there is a less successful film, Full Moon in Blue Water.

No one in the movies in the last thirty years portrays the middle-age everyman, the tough, and hard working, Joe like Hackman. He's certainly not a romantic idol, but he is manly enough to woe Ann Margaret in Once in a Lifetime and Teri Garr in Water. In addition, Garr is very good as a faded honky-tonk town girl with widower, Hackman in her sights. The trouble, Hack is still in love with his missing spouse. He spends most of his days watching old home movies of the lost wife while his saloon business goes to pieces. Also, he must deal with a stroke victim, the father-in-law, Burgesss Meredith, the quintessential old coot.

Somehow the viewer will not believe that a capable character like Hack would let a business go to sleazy Real Estate snakes without a bar brawl. The idea that Hack would moon about the ex for a year while busty Garr is all over him; well, it doesn't add up.

Just a few days after the news that Gene Hackman had passed away I watched this movie, strangely enough this movie was completely unknown to me, I can't remember ever seeing it in the video store.

Actually a kind of standard drama story without really getting too heavy because there is also some humor in it.

Floyd can't get over the death of his wife, his bar is a failing business and a real estate shark is after his company.

The roles are nicely filled with Burgess Meredith as his old father-in-law who is in a wheelchair and provides many comic moments, Teri Garr gets to play the new girlfriend and there are a few other characters like the sheriff and Floyd's assistant.

Nice light drama with some comic elements in it.