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Inspired by a recent episode of Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary’s podcast The Video Archives, I decided to review Bob Fosse’s 1983 film Star 80. Fosse was known for his musical films like All That Jazz, Cabaret, and Sweet Charity. He also did the Lenny Bruce biopic Lenny which could be considered outside his usual oeuvre. This was my first experience with Star 80, and being a Bob Fosse fan, it’s interesting he would even tackle a subject like this.
Star 80 was ripped right from the headlines when released in 1983. It tells the story of Playboy model Dorothy Stratten (Mariel Hemingway), who was murdered by her husband, Paul Snider (Eric Roberts), in 1980. The film’s main action is Stratten’s relationship with Snider, their move to Los Angeles, her success as a Playboy model, the annulment of their relationship, and her murder. Interestingly, this was not even the first movie to tackle the Dorothy Stratten story. It was initially covered in a 1981 made-for-TV movie called Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story starring Jamie Lee Curtis. However, this was the first film to portray the story’s dark underbelly.
The number one thing that leaps out to you about this movie is the excellent performance of Eric Roberts. Some people forget that in the early 80s, Eric Roberts was considered the next great young actor. Roles in Star 80 and movies like The Pope of Greenwich Village and Runaway Train would cement that status. He benefits in Star 80 from the film about Paul Snider more than anything with Dorothy Stratten. Roberts brings an insane amount of intensity to the role of a sleazy womanizer loser, though hardly a dummy. Every time Roberts is on screen, the anxiety is ratcheted up.
All the performances are well done. Mariel Hemingway does the best she can with having to portray a real-life character who was just killed a few years earlier. As Quentin and Roger pointed out, a flaw of this film is that Dorothy’s point of view is not explored at all. It doesn’t seem like Fosse is interested in Dorothy. He’s more interested in Paul Snider, with who he saw parallels between him and himself. Still, I think Hemingway overall is acceptable in the film. She serves her purpose in Fosse’s limited view of the story.
Cliff Robertson portrays Hugh Hefner, who probably would not allow for an entirely critical view in real life. Robertson gives a good performance and is one of the few actors who could have pulled that role off. However, as Gala Avary points out in the podcast, given the film was made so recently after the actual events, perhaps it invited itself for a movie to have the main focus be on Paul Snider, the killer who killed himself after he murdered Dorothy Stratten. Indeed there was tremendous pressure on anyone tackling the story at that time to portray Dorothy in a sensitive light. Fosse doesn’t even attempt to bring Peter Bogdanovich to the screen, Dorothy’s real-life lover, instead choosing to get a director stand-in character played by Roger Rees, who bares no resemblance to Bogdanovich, who wanted nothing to do with the film. Paul Snider is the only character that can be dived into. It’s a fault of the film, but at the same time, it does show the horrors of misogyny.
Despite those flaws, I recommend Star 80 on Eric Roberts’s performance alone. As a departure for Fosse, it’s also an interesting case study, and in the podcast, they go very deep into it. Still, Roberts remains watchable throughout. His performance was nominated for a Golden Globe but, shockingly, not an Oscar. I think the podcast was a little harsh on the film, personally. I wouldn’t call it a classic but not a complete misfire like the podcast suggests, given the restrictions of the time of the making of the film. For what it is, it’s rightly unpleasant and sad, with some great performances.
