Out of the Blue movie storyline. Don (Dennis Hopper) has just been released from prison and attempts to piece his life together while batteling the bottle and the repercussions of a tragedy, which still festers lika an open wound. His wife Kathy (Sharon Farrell) is scraping by as a waitress at a local diner, shooting smack and fooling around with the owner.
Their daughter CeBe is a rebelious teenager experiencing the frustrations of living in a small town and the difficulties of adolescence. She is mourning the loss of Sid Vicious, but finds another kind of hero in her struggling dad. But when that last hero is destroyed she lashes out in one final and shocking act of revenge.
Out of the Blue (released in Canada as No Looking Back) is a 1980 Canadian drama film directed by and starring Dennis Hopper. The film was Produced by Leonard Yakir and written by Leonard Yakir and Brenda Nielson. The title is taken from the Neil Young song “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)”. It competed for the Palme d’Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.
This was the first film Hopper directed since 1971’s The Last Movie; he stepped in at the last minute to replace the original director (screenwriter Leonard Yakir. The film was made in Vancouver, and various icons of Vancouver in that era are featured in the film, including the Pointed Sticks, one of the leading bands of Vancouver’s punk era. Out of the Blue was released in competition at the Cannes Film Festival on May 5, 1980.[1] It was later released in Paris on April 15, 1981, New York on April 8, 1983 and in Vancouver.
Film Review for Out of the Blue
After the enormous international success of “Easy Rider” (1969) and the resounding thud of his next directorial effort, “The Last Movie / Chinchero” (1971), he didn’t direct again until this movie (he acted, in such films as “The American Friend” and “Apocalypse Now”). Originally hired just to act in “Out of the Blue,” he took over two weeks into production, rewrote the screenplay, found new locations and made this movie into a bitter, unforgettable poem about alienation.
Hopper is one of the movie’s stars, playing an alcoholic truck driver whose semi-rig crashes into a school bus, kills children, and sends him to jail for six years. Manz plays his daughter, a leather-jacketed, punk teen-ager who combs her hair with shoe polish and does Elvis imitations. Her mother is played by Sharon Farrell as a small-town waitress who tries a reconciliation with Hopper when he gets out of prison but is undercut by her drug addiction.
Manz is the centerpiece of the film. As she demonstrated in the magnificent pastoral romance “Days of Heaven,” she has a presence all her own. She’s tough and hard-edged and yet vulnerable, and in this movie we can sometimes see the scared little kid beneath the punk bravado. She lives in a world of fantasy.
All but barricaded into her room, surrounded by posters of Elvis and other teen heroes, she practices her guitar (she isn’t very good) and dresses up in her dad’s leather jacket. He’s a hero to her. She doesn’t buy the story that he was responsible for the deaths of those kids. And when he finally gets out of prison, she has a father at last — but only for a few days.
Hopper’s touch as a director is especially strong in a pathetic scene of reunion, including the family’s day at the overcast, gloomy beach, and a “party” that turns into a violent brawl dominated by the Hopper character’s drunken friend (Don Gordon). The movie escalates so relentlessly toward its violent, nihilistic conclusion that when it comes, we believe it.
This is a very good movie that simply got overlooked. When it premiered at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival, it caused a considerable sensation, and Manz was mentioned as a front-runner for the best actress award. But back in North America, the film’s Canadian backers had difficulties in making a distribution deal, and the film slipped through the cracks.
Out of the Blue (1980)
Directed by: Dennis Hopper
Starring: Linda Manz, Dennis Hopper, Sharon Farrell, Don Gordon, Raymond Burr, Eric Allen, Fiona Brody, David L. Crowley, Joan Hoffman, Carl Nelson, Francis Ann Pettit, Glen Pfeifer
Screenplay by: Leonard Yakir, Gary Jules Juvenat
Production Design by: Leon Ericksen
Cinematography by: Marc Champion
Film Editing by: Doris Dyck
Set Decoration by: Peter Young
Art Direction by: David Hiscox
Music by: Tom Lavin
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Les Productions Karim (Canada)
Release Date: May 5, 1980 (Cannes)
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