Brenda Starr is a 1989
adventure filmThe adventure genre, in the context of a narrative, is typically applied to works in which the protagonist or other major characters are consistently placed in dangerous situations...
, based on
Dale Messick'sDalia Messick was an American comic strip artist who used the pseudonym Dale Messick. She was the creator of Brenda Starr, which at its peak during the 1950s ran in 250 newspapers....
Brenda Starr comic stripBrenda Starr, Reporter was a comic strip about a glamorous, adventurous female reporter. It was created in 1940 by Dale Messick for the Chicago Tribune Syndicate....
. The film was directed by
Robert Ellis MillerRobert Ellis Miller is an American film director. He has directed 50 films and TV episodes between 1959 and 1996.He was born in New York, New York.-Selected filmography:* Pointman * Brenda Starr * Hawks...
, and stars
Brooke ShieldsBrooke Christa Shields is an American actress and model. Some of her better-known movies include Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon, as well as TV shows such as Suddenly Susan, That '70s Show and Lipstick Jungle....
,
Timothy DaltonTimothy Peter Dalton ) is a Welsh actor of film and television. He is known for portraying James Bond in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill , as well as Rhett Butler in the television miniseries Scarlett , an original sequel to Gone with the Wind...
, and
Diana ScarwidDiana Scarwid is an American actress. Scarwid has done work in film, television and theater.-Personal life:Scarwid was born in Savannah, Georgia, and left Georgia at the age of 17, heading to New York to become an actress. She graduated from Pace University and The American Academy of Dramatic...
.
Plot
Mike is a struggling artist who draws the 'Brenda Starr'
comic stripA comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
for a newspaper. When Brenda comes to life and sees how unappreciated she is by Mike, she leaves the comic. To return her to her rightful place and keep his job, Mike draws himself into the strip.
Within her fictional world, Brenda Starr is an ace reporter for the
New York Flash. She is talented, fearless, smart and a very snappy dresser. The only competition she has is from the rival paper's top reporter, Libby Lipscomb.
Brenda heads to the Amazon jungle, in order to find a scientist with a secret formula, which will create cheap and powerful gas from ordinary water. There, she uncovers a plan to blow up the planet with newly developed rocket fuel.
Cast
- Brooke Shields
Brooke Christa Shields is an American actress and model. Some of her better-known movies include Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon, as well as TV shows such as Suddenly Susan, That '70s Show and Lipstick Jungle....
as Brenda Starr
- Tony Peck as Mike Randall
- Timothy Dalton
Timothy Peter Dalton ) is a Welsh actor of film and television. He is known for portraying James Bond in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill , as well as Rhett Butler in the television miniseries Scarlett , an original sequel to Gone with the Wind...
as Basil St. John
- Diana Scarwid
Diana Scarwid is an American actress. Scarwid has done work in film, television and theater.-Personal life:Scarwid was born in Savannah, Georgia, and left Georgia at the age of 17, heading to New York to become an actress. She graduated from Pace University and The American Academy of Dramatic...
as Libby Lipscomb
- Nestor Serrano
Nestor Serrano is an American film and television actor. He often portrays authority figures on both sides of the law.Serrano began his acting career in off-Broadway plays in the late 1970s. His first film was the 1986 Tom Hanks comedy The Money Pit...
as Jose
- Jeffrey Tambor
Jeffrey Michael Tambor is an American actor, perhaps best known for his roles as George Bluth Sr. and Oscar Bluth on Arrested Development and Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show.-Early life:...
as Vladimir
- June Gable
June Gable is an American Character actress, best known for her role as Estelle Leonard of The Estelle Leonard Talent Agency in the American sitcom Friends.-Life and career:...
as Luba
- Charles Durning
Charles Durning is an American actor. With appearances in over 100 films, Durning's memorable roles include police officers in the Oscar-winning The Sting and crime drama Dog Day Afternoon , along with the comedies Tootsie, To Be Or Not To Be and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the last two...
as Francis I. Livright
- Kathleen Wilhoite
Kathleen Wilhoite is an American film and television actress, as well as a singer-songwriter. She also voiced the title character in the animated series Pepper Ann...
as Hank O'Hare
- John Short as Pesky Miller
- Eddie Albert
Edward Albert Heimberger , known professionally as Eddie Albert, was an American actor and activist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, and in 1973 for The Heartbreak Kid.Other well-known screen roles of his include Bing...
as Police Chief Maloney
- Mark von Holstein as Donovan O'Shea
- Henry Gibson
Henry Gibson was an American actor and songwriter, best known as a cast member of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and for his recurring role as Judge Clark Brown on Boston Legal.-Early life:...
as Professor Gerhardt Von Kreutzer
- Matthew Cowles
-Personal life:The son of actor and theatre producer Chandler Cowles, he was born in New York City.Since 1983 he has been married to actress Christine Baranski with whom he has two daughters, Isabel and Lily...
as Capt. Borg
- Tom Aldredge
Thomas Ernest "Tom" Aldredge was an American television, film and stage actor.-Life and career:Aldredge was born in Dayton, Ohio, the son of Lucienne Juliet and W. J. Aldredge, a colonel in the United States Army Air Corps...
as Capt. Borg Impostor
- Ed Nelson
Edwin Stafford Nelson is an American actor.Nelson has appeared in numerous television shows, more than fifty motion pictures, and hundreds of stage productions. Until 2005, he was teaching acting and screenwriting in his native New Orleans at two local universities there...
as President Harry S. Truman
The project originally envisioned
Jessica LangeJessica Phyllis Lange is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. The recipient of several awards, including two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes and one Emmy, Lange is regarded as one of the première female actors of her generation.Lange was discovered by producer...
as Brenda Starr. The script later came to
Anjelica HustonAnjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...
, then to
Melanie GriffithMelanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
, and finally to Brooke Shields.
Post production & release
The film was finished in 1986, however it was
not released for three yearsIn politics, the term can be used for policy drafts, that have never been officially brought into legislation.In the film industry, a film is considered shelved if it is not released for public viewing after filming has started, or even completed....
, due to lengthy litigation over
distributionA film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing...
rights.
When the film was released in the United States in 1992, it
bombedThe phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...
at the box office, making US$30,000 in the first week of its release, after opening to mostly empty houses. Negative reviews were blamed for lack of interest, and the film was pulled from theatres shortly after its theatrical distribution.
Reception
The film received mostly negative reviews.
Owen Gleiberman, of
Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
, rated the film 'F', stating that Brenda "... comes off as a giggly (if spectacularly elongated) high school princess.", and that "Brenda Starr is so flaccid and cheap-looking, so ineptly pieced together, that it verges on the
avant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
. I suspect they won't even like it in France." Peter Travers of
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine gave the film an equally negative review, stating "There's been so much negative insider buzz about Brooke's 'Brenda' that you might be harboring a hope that the damned thing turned out all right. Get over it. 'Brenda' is not as bad as the also-rans that Hollywood traditionally dumps on us before
Labor DayLabor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...
... it's a heap worse."
The New York Times' Janet Maslin stated "This would-be comic romp is badly dated in several conspicuous ways. Its
cold warThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
villains are embarrassingly outre (even allowing for the film's 1940's look, in keeping with the peak popularity of Brenda Starr as a comic strip heroine)... Most dated of all is Brenda herself, the "girl reporter" who worries chiefly about not running her stockings or breaking her high heels, and who in one scene actually uses a black patent leather handbag as a
secret weaponA secret weapon is either a concealed weapon, or a weapon that is not officially confirmed by the owner.In terms of large-scale weapons, a secret weapon may refer to a newly-designed or invented weapon that the government denies the existence of...
."
Pamela Bruce, of The Austin Chronicle, was highly critical of the film, stating that "After gathering dust for five years, some studio executive decided that there just isn't enough dreck in the world and decided to unleash Brenda Starr upon us poor, unsuspecting mortals."
Home video
The film, rated PG, was released on both VHS and DVD formats.
The DVD version is available for purchase in two variations; one for all
regionsDVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
and another for Region 2. The film is presented in Full Frame, 1.33:1 format, with English
Dolby DigitalDolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...
Stereo sound.