Great Balls of Fire! (1989)

Regisseur:

Jim McBride

Drehbuchautoren (WGA):

Myra Lewis (book) and
Murray Silver Jr. (book) ...

Premierendatum:

30. Juni 1989 (USA)

Genre:

Biographie | Drama | Musik

Werbezeile:

The true story of a legend.

Plot:

The story of Jerry Lee Lewis, arguably the greatest and certainly one of the wildest musicians of the 1950s...

Plot Keywords:

Elvis | Elvis Presley | Historical | Bible Belt | Jerry Lee Lewis

Filmpreise:

1 win

Nutzerkommentare:

Immensely Entertaining & The Music Is Great

US TV Schedule:

Sun. July 20	3:00 PM	CMTV
Wed. July 23	10:30 PM	CMTV
Thur. July 24	8:00 PM	CMTV

Besetzung

Dennis Quaid	...	Jerry Lee Lewis
Winona Ryder	...	Myra Gale Brown
John Doe	...	J.W. Brown
Stephen Tobolowsky	...	Jud Phillips
Trey Wilson	...	Sam Phillips
Alec Baldwin	...	Jimmy Swaggart
Steve Allen	...	Himself
Lisa Blount	...	Lois Brown
Joshua Sheffield	...	Rusty Brown
Mojo Nixon	...	James Van Eaton
Jimmie Vaughan	...	Roland Janes
David Ferguson	...	Jack Clement
Robert Lesser	...	Alan Freed
Lisa Jane Persky	...	Babe
Paula Person	...	Sam's Secratary

Alternativ:

Great Balls of Fire (Österreich) (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) [de]
Great Balls of Fire - Jerry Lee Lewis - Ein Leben für den Rock'n'Roll (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) (TV title) [de]

Länge:

108 Min

Produktionsland:

USA

Sprache:

Englisch

Farbe:

Farbe

Seitenverhältnis:

1.85 : 1

Tonverfahren:

Dolby SR

Altersfreigabe:

USA:PG-13 (re rating) | Iceland:L | Australia:M | USA:R (original rating) | Canada:14A | Finland:S | Sweden:11 | West Germany:12

Drehorte:

Marion, Arkansas, USA

Firma:

Orion Pictures Corporation

Dies und das:

Jerry Lee Lewis re-recorded his songs for this film, which Dennis Quaid lip-syncs.

Pannen:

Audio-Visuelle Asynchronität: When Jerry plays at the burning piano, he stops playing clearly before the piano-sound is gone. It keeps on a few more seconds, then it stops too.

Dialogzitate:

Lois Brown: "Jerry Lee here's a married man, ain't that right, Jerry Lee?"
Jerry Lee: "Well, that's not necessarily so, Lois."
Lois: " And just what do you mean by that?"
Jerry Lee: "Well, you see I was still married to my first wife when I married my second wife,so I never really was married to my second wife. And since I divorced my first wife a couple of years ago, I'm as free as a bird in a tree!"

Bezüge zu anderen Titeln:

Wird parodiert in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)

Soundtrack:

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Immensely Entertaining & The Music Is Great

An excellent job by director Jim McBride of putting Myra Lewis's book about the life of legendary rock and roll star Jerry Lee Lewis (her husband) on film.

Dennis Quaid gives an over the top performance (sometimes a bit too over the top; but, then again, this is Jerry Lee Lewis) as Lewis, arrogant and child-like, trying to deal with sudden fame, having to deal with the consequences of having married his thirteen year old cousin (Myra, who authored the book). Quaid was truly excellent in this role. Yes, the lip-synching was perhaps a bit too obvious at times, but for the sake of hearing some great music performed by the real Jerry Lee Lewis, that was an irritant I could easily put up with. The relationship between Lewis and Myra (Winona Ryder) is developed sensitively and tastefully by McBride. Humour is added by exploring the complex love-hate relationship between Lewis and his cousin, the evangelist Jimmy Swaggart (Alec Baldwin). There is also great irony, given what ultimately happened to Swaggart, as we listen to him lecturing Lewis about the dangers of taking the "gold-paved streets of rock and roll."

I really enjoyed this movie. Perhaps it was guilty of portraying everyone in it as a bit of a caricature, but it still seemed to offer an entirely believable story of Lewis's life. Well worth the watching.

9/10