There's magic in the mirror, literally in the case of Robert Altman's "Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean", as a dime store mirror separates 1955 from 1975. As a flashback device this is as close to perfection as you are likely to get. Ed Graczyk adapted his own play, which isn't particularly subtle or profound, (it's sub-Tennessee Williams and sub-William Inge), but which, like the cheap music of the McGuire Sisters that radiates from the jukebox and the radio, still delivers quite an emotional wallop. Of course, taking James Dean as the iconic off-screen character whose life and death affects the lives of the on-screen characters is a major theatrical coup in itself. Few people in the history of the movies has had such an impact.
Altman never leaves the interior of the store, pointing up the theatricality of the piece and his small cast are superb. It's set on the anniversary of Dean's death as the members of his small-town fan club gather in the 5 & Dime of the title to remember him and celebrate the birth of his supposed son, an apparent mentally challenged boy, never seen. He's one of the two male characters in the film; the other is Joe, the effeminate boy who worked in the store in 1955 and who we see only in the flashbacks.
The central characters are Mona, (a superb Sandy Dennis), the mother of the boy she has named after his famous father; Cissy, (a never better Cher), and Joanne, (a magnificent Karen Black), the beautifully turned out stranger who descends on the celebrations and is the catalyst for all that happens. You don't have to be a top detective to figure out the punchlines long before they happen but that doesn't spoil the fun. This movie is proof that a great director can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear; indeed that it's possible to make a masterpiece from material that is basically second-rate.
Altman never leaves the interior of the store, pointing up the theatricality of the piece and his small cast are superb. It's set on the anniversary of Dean's death as the members of his small-town fan club gather in the 5 & Dime of the title to remember him and celebrate the birth of his supposed son, an apparent mentally challenged boy, never seen. He's one of the two male characters in the film; the other is Joe, the effeminate boy who worked in the store in 1955 and who we see only in the flashbacks.
The central characters are Mona, (a superb Sandy Dennis), the mother of the boy she has named after his famous father; Cissy, (a never better Cher), and Joanne, (a magnificent Karen Black), the beautifully turned out stranger who descends on the celebrations and is the catalyst for all that happens. You don't have to be a top detective to figure out the punchlines long before they happen but that doesn't spoil the fun. This movie is proof that a great director can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear; indeed that it's possible to make a masterpiece from material that is basically second-rate.