The Buddy Holly Story [Movie](1978)

The Buddy Holly Story (1978)
Country: USA
Language: English
Release Date: 3 November 1978
Also Known As: Buddy Holly
Filming Locations: Biltmore Hotel - 506 S. Grand Avenue, Downtown, Los Angeles,
Runtime: 114 min

Video Format: RealVideo 4
Codec ID: RV40
Codec ID/Info: Based on AVC (H.264), Real Player 9
Duration: 1h 53mn
Bit rate: 504 Kbps
Width: 720 pixels
Height: 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio: 3:2
Frame rate: 23.976 fps
Standard: NTSC
Stream size: 411 MiB (87%)

Audio Format: Cooker
Codec ID: cook
Codec ID/Info: Based on G.722.1, Real Player 6
Bit rate: 64.1 Kbps
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits

The film opens with Buddy Holly's beginnings as a teenager in Lubbock, Texas and his emergence into the world of rock and roll with his fictional good friends and bandmates, drummer Jesse Charles (Don Stroud) and bass player Ray Bob Simmons (Charles Martin Smith), soon to be known as The Crickets. Their first break comes when they are brought to Nashville, Tennessee to record, but Buddy's vision soon clashes with the producers' rigid ideas of how the music should sound and he walks out. Eventually, he finds a more flexible producer, Ross Turner (Conrad Janis), who, after listening to their audition, very reluctantly allows Buddy and the Crickets to make music the way they want.
While there, he meets Turner's secretary, Maria Elena Santiago (Maria Richwine). His budding romance with her nearly ends before it can begin, when her aunt initially refuses to let her date him, but Buddy persuades her to change her mind. On their very first date, Maria accepts his marriage proposal and they are soon wed.
A humorous episode results from a misunderstanding in one of their early bookings. Sol Gittler (Dick O'Neill) signs them up sight-unseen for the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, assuming from their music that they're a black band. When three white Texans show up instead, he is stunned, but unwilling to pay them for doing nothing, he nervously lets them perform and prays fervently that the all-black audience doesn't riot at the sight of the first all-white band to play there. (In real life, that distinction belongs to Jimmy Cavallo and The House Rockers, who played at that venue in 1956.) After an uncomfortable start and an initially hostile crowd, Buddy's songs soon win them over and the Crickets are a tremendous hit. Gitler books them to come back several times.
After two years, Ray Bob and Jesse decide to break up the band, feeling overshadowed by Buddy and not wanting to relocate to New York City. Initially, he is saddened by their departure, but he soldiers on. When Maria announces that she is pregnant, Buddy is delighted.
On February 2, 1959, preparing for a concert at Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly decides to charter a private plane to fly to Moorhead, Minnesota for his next big concert. The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens (who is reluctant to fly, but wins a coin toss with Tommy Allsup for the last seat) join him on the flight. Meanwhile, the Crickets, feeling nostalgic, appear unexpectedly at Maria's door, expressing their desire to reunite the band. They trace Buddy's next tour stop at Minnesota, and they plan to surprise him there. After playing his final song, "Not Fade Away", Holly bids the crowd farewell with "Thank you Clearlake! We love you. C'mon....we'll see you next year". A caption at the end reveals the deaths of Holly, Valens, and the Bopper in a plane crash that night and dedicates the film to his family and friends ("the people who loved him first"). The film ends with text reading "...and the rest is Rock and Roll."
This film set the standard for all rock biopics to follow. It accomplished this through the energetic performances of the leads, the steadiness of the camera-work (avoiding 'rock-video' clichés that were actually invented for the Beatles in their first two films), tight editing, and a non-judgmental presentation of the star as human being rather than symbol or god (or demon). Yes, there are minor holes in the plot, and incidental details that are a little unnecessary, and there will always be debate between families of those personally involved as to specifics. But the issue here, as in the much more recent "I walk the Line" or Carpenter's famed TV Elvis biopic of the same era, is whether the meaning of the performer's life, in its time and place, as a catalyst for fans' ideals and appreciation, is made manifest in the performance, and this is clearly the case here. We come away from this movie understanding not only how Buddy Holly became a star, but why. I don't see what else one could want from the film.
TRIVIA:
According to Rock-N-Roll legend Little Richard, the Apollo theater performance by Buddy Holly and the Crickets in front of an all black audience is pretty accurate. Holly and his band were booked into the all black hall "sight unseen" because the owner thought they were black and the audience were shocked to see white performers on stage. But as in the movie, the audience embraced Buddy and his band.

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