Honeysuckle Rose *** (1980, Willie Nelson, Dyan Cannon, Amy Irving, Slim Pickens) – Classic Movie Review 7019

Director Jerry Schatzberg’s 1980 fictionalised biopic of popular Country and Western singer Willie Nelson oddly uses the vintage classical music romantic soap opera drama Intermezzo (1939) as a starting point. The screenplay is based on the story by Gustaf Molander and Gösta Stevens, which first saw the light of day in the original Swedish Intermezzo (1936). Both versions star Ingrid Bergman.

Honeysuckle Rose centres on a married country singer called Buck Bonham (Nelson) who goes obsessively boozing and flirting when he tours on the road despite his passionate feelings for his wife Viv (Dyan Cannon) and boy (Joey Floyd) back home.

Nelson does well in his first starring role and Amy Irving scores as young Lily Ramsey, his new band partner, with Slim Pickens outstanding in a cameo as her old father Garland, Buck’s longtime musical sidekick. Soon Buck is caught in a romantic triangle between Viv and Lily.

Schatzberg attends carefully to both the performances and the Country and Western music and scene in order to lift the downbeat film out of the gloom.

Nelson sings his Oscar-nominated hit On the Road Again, as well as Pick Up the Tempo, Heaven or Hell, It’s Not Supposed to Be That Way, I Guess I’ve Come to Live Here in Your Eyes  and Bloody Mary Morning (all written by him).

Also in the cast are Diana Scarwid, Charles Levin, Emmylou Harris, Pepe Serna, Priscilla Pointer, Joey Floyd, Charles Levin, Mickey Rooney Jr, Lane Smith, Rex Ludwick, Bee Spears and Mickey Raphael.

Honeysuckle Rose (aka On The Road Again) is directed by Jerry Schatzberg, runs 119 minutes, is produced and released by Warner Bros, is written by Carol Sobieski, William D Wittliff and John Binder, is shot in Technicolor by Robby Müller, is produced by Sydney Pollack and Gene Taft, is scored by Willie Nelson and Richard Baskin, and is designed by Joel Schiller.

Mickey Rooney Jr was born on 3 July 1945, as Joseph Yule III, the first son of movie legend Mickey Rooney and his second wife Betty Jane Rase. He made only four films.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7019

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