Out of the Blue was more troubled than most troubled productions. The production hired the notoriously unstable Dennis Hopper to play the father of a teen girl named Cebe — the title character of a 1980 Canadian production being filmed in Vancouver by first-time director Leonard Yakir. Producers abruptly shut down filming when Yakir’s early daily rushes proved to be unusable, but Hopper saw an opportunity. He rewrote the film’s script over a weekend and pitched his new angle as a way to save the production. Hopper was sitting in the director’s chair on Monday morning.
Hopper the director might be best categorized as a filmmaker of countercultures: Easy Rider (1969) immortalized the looks, lingo and philosophy of hippie culture, and Colors (1988) brought South Central Los Angeles’ street gang scene vividly to life at a time before most Americans had heard of the Crips and the Bloods. Even Hopper’s follow-up to Easy Rider — 1971’s aptly titled The Last Movie — immersed Western audiences in the lives of rural Peruvian villagers. Hopper showed us real gangbangers in Colors and actual hippies in Easy Rider, and in Out of the Blue we see Cebe sitting in on the drums with the real-life Vancouver punk band Pointed Sticks at a club show packed with actual local fans. The film follows Cebe (the electric Linda Manz), a disaffected teenager whose life is defined by trauma and abuse — her father Don (Hopper) is incarcerated after a drunk-driving tragedy, and her neglectful, drug-addicted mother (Sharon Farrell) disrupts their lives with a succession of creepy boyfriends. Cebe worships Elvis Presley and spouts punk rock ideology — “Disco sucks!” But she also still sucks her thumb and clings to a raggedy teddy bear in her sleep.
Out of the Blue gives us Hopper’s remarkable return to directing nearly a decade after The Last Movie’s disastrous reception, but it’s most notable as a showcase for the crackling presence of Manz, who died in 2020. Her nonchalant realist acting and improvising glow with a natural charisma — she’s also got a gift for physical performance, and biting comic timing. Manz came to the production after her also-exceptional turn as Linda in Terrence Malick’s 1978 masterpiece Days of Heaven. Malick struggled with his edit for more than two years before bringing Manz back in to improvise the film’s iconic narration in her endlessly listenable Bronx accent, tying together the director’s impressionistic tale of love and death in early-20th-century Texas. Some Nashvillians might be most familiar with Manz via her role as Solomon’s mother in Harmony Korine’s 1997 surrealist portrait of life in the Nations, Gummo.
Out of the Blue will screen at the Belcourt through the weekend, and it will also serve as the Jan. 31 installment of the theater’s Music City Monday series. In addition to Hopper’s helming and Manz’s unforgettable performance, this film also boasts a killer soundtrack that features vintage Elvis rock ’n’ roll tracks like “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Teddy Bear” alongside Neil Young’s title song “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue).” The aforementioned Pointed Sticks unleash on tracks like “Out of Luck” and the irreverently titled “Somebody’s Mom,” and Powder Blues Band provides Don and his dirtbag friends with R&B-inspired tunes played at the speed of cocaine. A real highlight here is “Sorry Just Won’t Do,” penned by Powder Blues Band’s Tom Lavin and performed by Canadian bluesman and actor Jim Byrnes, who sounds — in the best way — like Bob Seger’s long-lost twin.
Out of the Blue gives us bravura filmmaking and an energizing soundtrack, but it’s ultimately a very dark, disturbing story that cranks up the regular struggles and insecurities we expect in teen films until they explode. The film literally begins with a crash, and the rest of its 94 minutes are full of the chaotic aftermath that defines Cebe’s day-to-day life. Viewers might not want to follow Out of the Blue everywhere it takes them, and Hopper and his cast do a magnificent job of pacing this movie like a kettle on a slow boil that turns screaming-hot before the audience can realize they’re the ones on the burner. The filmmakers pull this off by not pointing directly at the movie’s darkest underlying themes until the characters and viewers alike can no longer look away. Out of the Blue ends in a bittersweet catharsis of feminist empowerment and teenage revenge accompanied by burning images that mirror the combustible conclusion of Easy Rider.
Out of the Blue premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980, but its bleak story and production infighting meant it never received a proper run in theaters. The new release of this 4K restoration — arriving 12 years after Hopper’s death — looks to remedy that. When we think of 1980s teen heroines, we might picture Molly Ringwald dancing in the library or Jennifer Grey leaping into Patrick Swayze’s arms. But future generations might picture little Linda Manz greasing her hair back, muttering Elvis lyrics and lighting another cigarette.
