Robert Altman Goes Indie: “Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean”

It’s hard to resist a moviewith an outrageous title like Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean,Jimmy Dean. Especially when you learn it was directed by a past master ofquirky ensemble dramas, Robert Altman. It was not until I’d watched this small1982 film that I found out it began life as a play, written by an Ohio-based dramatistwho was also for many years the artistic director of a local theatre company.It had a brief stay on Broadway when Altman left Hollywood for more fertileartistic climes. That stage production starred Oscar winner Sandy Dennis (Who’sAfraid of Virginia Woolf), Oscar nominee Karen Black (Five  Easy Pieces), and Broadway newcomer Cher,who would win her own Oscar for Moonstruck five years later. Alsofeatured were Marta Heflin and Kathy Bates, another future Best Actress Oscarrecipient. All these women repeated their roles in the modest film production.

 Hooray for low-keyproductions in which actors have the opportunity to shine! The film, like theplay, mostly takes place in a modest Woolworth five-and-dime store, a placewhere you can sip a Coke at the lunch counter, listen to the McGuire sistersharmonize on the jukebox, and then shop for pretty much anything you can thinkof.  This one is in McCarthy, Texas, astone’s throw from Marfa. The rapidly decaying Marfa is, in the eyes of thestore’s patrons, a shrine of sorts, because it is where the film Giantwas shot, back in 1955. Giant, of course, starred Rock Hudson, ElizabethTaylor, and heartthrob James Dean, who was killed in a California auto crashbefore the film’s release.

 In a story that moves backand forth in time, we see the central characters in 1955 and also at a reunionmeet-up twenty years later. (Their costumes and appearances don’t really changefrom era to era, which makes for a lot of confusion on the part of viewers.)They are all members of a fan club called The Disciples of James Dean, and havethe matching red jackets to prove it. Mona (the twitchy but always interestingDennis) is convinced she was chosen to be an extra in Giant. She’sfurthermore sure that she spent a romantic evening in Marfa with Dean himself,resulting in a never-seen but clearly difficult son she named after his daddy.In the twenty years since the filming of Giant and Dean’s deadlyaccident, some things have changed and others haven’t. Bates’ character, thesassy Stella Mae, seems to have gotten rich. Heflin’s Edna Louise is nowmarried and perennially expecting.  ButMona remains as daffy and Dean-infatuated as ever, and Cher’s voluptuous Sissyis still the siren of the group. At midpoint, there’s also a mysteriousstranger (Karen Black) who seems to know a surprising amount about the town andits inhabitants. Aha! A mystery! But not one that seems, in the long run,terribly convincing.

 I try to be open-minded whenit comes to art. I don’t like rules about who should or shouldn’t handlecertain subjects. I don’t think you should be required to write only about whatyou know in a deeply personal way. That being said, the man who wrote this playabut women doesn’t seem to have a genuine understanding of the opposite sex. Ican’t put a finger on anything he gets terribly wrong, but the characters he’screated seem far more theatrical constructs than flesh-and-blood human beings.And the play’s stab at exploring gender identity, which may have seemed bold in1982, just strikes me as a ham-handed trick here.