Stay Hungry **** (1976, Jeff Bridges, Sally Field, Arnold Schwarzenegger, R G Armstrong, Robert Englund) – Classic Movie Review 5165

Co-writer/ co-producer/ director Bob Rafelson’s 1976 cult comedy drama film Stay Hungry stars Jeff Bridges as restless Alabama heir Craig Blake, who is suddenly orphaned. He turns his back on the country club values and is brought in by the syndicate to buy a gym.

There he finds strange new friends in weird characters who frequent it, like Mr Austria bodybuilder Joe Santo (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who is training for the Mr Universum championships. And he falls in love with another of the oddball characters, Joe’s receptionist friend Mary Tate Farnsworth (Sally Field).

Rafelson’s determinedly oddball movie, which, among other things, reflects about the gulf between people’s dreams and the actual reality, is funny, constantly surprising and beautifully acted. It is not much of a plot, just a situation and a bunch of characters, and, alas, the film’s oddness alienated a mass audience, but it was warmly appreciated by a few of the cognoscenti.

Schwarzenegger won the Golden Globe for Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture – Male.

The screenplay is by Rafaelson and Charles Gaines, based on Gaines’s novel.

Also in the cast are R G Armstrong, Robert Englund, Roger E Mosley, Scatman Crothers, Fannie Flagg, Joanna Cassidy, Woodrow Parfrey, Kathleen Miller, Helena Kallianiotes, Richard Gilliland and Ed Begley Jr.

Bob Rafelson (February 21, 1933 – July 23, 2022).

Films directed by Bob Rafelson: Head (1968), Five Easy Pieces (1970), The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), Stay Hungry (1976), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Black Widow (1987), Mountains of the Moon (1990), Man Trouble (1992), Wet (1995), Blood and Wine (1996), Poodle Springs (1998), and No Good Deed (2002).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5165

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