Эдди и Крузеры: Тайна исчезновения рок-звезды

1983 film by Martin Davidson

Eddie and the Cruisers is a 1983 American musical drama film directed by Martin Davidson with the screenplay written by the director and Arlene Davidson, based on the novel by P. F. Kluge. The sequel Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! followed in 1989.

Television news reporter Maggie Foley investigates the mysterious disappearance of cult rock star Eddie Wilson. Flashbacks dramatize Eddie's life and the rise and fall of his band, the Cruisers. The band gets its start at a club in Somers Point, New Jersey named Tony Mart's. Not adept at writing lyrics, Eddie hires Frank Ridgeway aka "Wordman" to be the band's keyboard player and lyricist, over the protests of band manager Doc Robbins and bassist Sal Amato. Rounding out the Cruisers are saxophonist Wendell Newton, background singer and Eddie's girlfriend Joann Carlino, and drummer Kenny Hopkins. The band's first album, Tender Years, becomes a major hit, but recording their next album, A Season in Hell, turns out to be a nightmare. Inspired by the bleak, fatalistic poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, Eddie wants something far more ambitious than their previous pop songs and he pushes his bandmates beyond their limits, musically and personally. Eddie wants to be great, but bassist Sal replies, "We ain't great. We're just some guys from Jersey." Eddie makes it clear that if the band can't be great, there is no reason to ever play music again. A Season in Hell is rejected by Satin Records on the grounds that it's "dark and strange". In the early morning hours, Eddie's car crashes through the railing and over the Stainton Memorial Causeway. Eddie vanishes without a trace, his body never found. Eighteen years later, Satin re releases the band's first album, which charts even higher than it did originally. A TV documentary is soon in the works, exploring the mystery of the band's second album, which had disappeared from the vaults of Satin Records the day after Eddie's disappearance. All of the original Cruisers are set to participate in the documentary except Eddie and Wendell Newton, who had died of an overdose (reported as a heart attack) in August 1963 at age 37. The others are now living ordinary lives: Sal Amato fronts a Cruisers tribute band. Ridgeway is a high school English teacher in Vineland. Doc works as a radio DJ in Asbury Park. Joann is a stage choreographer in Wildwood and Hopkins works in a casino in Atlantic City. During the documentary interviews, the band expresses a desire to relive the past, but many of their memories are humiliating. For example, during a concert at Benton College, where Frank was once a student, Eddie ridicules Frank repeatedly by referring to him as "Toby Tyler" after seeing him and Joann kissing before the concert. The other Cruisers members share similar stories. Joann is able to complete the one piece of the puzzle that Frank couldn't: revealing what had happened to the band's second album. After storming from the studio, Eddie brought her to the Palace of Depression, a makeshift castle made of garbage that he visited often as a child. She reveals that she took the master tapes for the album from Satin Records, hiding them in the Palace of Depression, where she felt that they belonged. Frank and Joann go back to the Palace of Depression to retrieve the tapes. A mystery man driving a blue 1957 Chevy Bel Air convertible identical to Eddie's arrives at the house and calls to Joann. But before she can reach the car, Frank unmasks the impostor, revealing him to be Doc, who was after the master tapes all these years. Moved by his story, Frank and Joann give him the master tapes. Doc drives off into the night vowing that the Cruisers will conquer the world this time, and Joann invites Frank into her house. In a surprise reveal at the ending, a bearded, much older looking Eddie is shown alive, watching multiple televisions in the window of an appliance store, where the ending credits of Foley's documentary tribute to him and the band roll. He smiles serenely, proud to know that his work is finally being heard, and then disappears into the night.

Vance asked Davidson to describe his fictitious band and their music. Initially, Davidson said that the Cruisers sounded like Dion and the Belmonts, but when they meet Frank, they have elements of Jim Morrison and The Doors. Initially, Cafferty was only hired to write a few songs for the film, but he did such a good job of capturing the feeling of the 1960s and 1980s that Davidson asked him to score the entire film. Nine months after the film was released in theaters, the main song in the film, "On the Dark Side", was the number one song in the country on Billboards Mainstream, Rock, and Heatseeker charts; and #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Another single from the film, "Tender Years," peaked at #31 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Eddie and the Cruisers was originally intended to open during the summer, but a scheduling error resulted in a September release, when its target audience teenagers were back in school. Embassy Pictures threw a promotional party for the film at a dance club in West Hollywood in September, 1983, where Cafferty and his band played. The film was pulled from theaters after three weeks and all of the promotional ads pulled after one week. Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars. He wrote, despite a good cast, "terrific" music and an intriguing concept, "the ending is so frustrating, so dumb, so unsatisfactory, that it gives a bad reputation to the whole movie." In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Some of the details ring uncannily true, like the slick oldies nightclub act that one of the Cruisers is still doing nearly 20 years after Eddie's supposed death. Other aspects of the film are inexplicably wrong. Eddie's music sounds good, but it also sounds a lot like Bruce Springsteen's, and it would not have been the rage in 1963." However, she did praise Paré's performance: "Mr. Paré makes a fine debut; he captures the manner of a hot blooded young rocker with great conviction, and his lip synching is almost perfect." Gary Arnold for The Washington Post wrote, "At any rate, it seemed to me that what Eddie and the Cruisers aspired to do was certainly worth doing. The problem is that it finally lacks the storytelling resources to tell enough of an intriguing story about a musical mystery man."

In 1984, Eddie and the Cruisers was discovered by additional audiences during its first pay cable run on HBO. Looking back, Davidson said, "that picture should have been a theatrical success. There was an audience for it. People still watch it and still tell me about it." Davidson was offered the job of directing a sequel to the film, but he was not keen on the idea and wanted no participation. The eventual project, which had no link to the Kluge source novel, was released as Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! in 1989.

In 1984, Eddie and the Cruisers was released on VHS videocassette, CED and Laser videodisc by Embassy Home Entertainment.