Simply A Masterpiece

Excellent but underrated film

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This story follows the tragic story of Dorothy Stratten from her Vancouver home, to Playboy centerfold, to the beginnings of movie stardom, then to her violent death at the hands of her estranged husband, Paul Snider. There's no way to make this subject matter happy, so be prepared.Because most viewers know how the story will end, watching this film is very chilling. In addition, Eric Roberts' disturbing (but authentic) performance as Paul Snider will stay with you for a long, long time. Mariel Hemingway stars as the young and innocent Stratten, while Cliff Robertson has the role of Hugh Hefner.The final scene, filmed in the house where the murder actually took place, is very difficult to watch. The movie is very well directed and acted. Eric Roberts' performance should have resulted in an Oscar nomination, but no one who plays a character this creepy would ever be nominated. This very good movie will haunt you for days after you watch it.

A small-time promoter, Paul Snider (Roberts) of low-taste runs across a shy, nice-looking waitress, Dorothy Stratten (Hemingway), in Vancouver and decides she'd make a good property, so he does what small-time promoters do. He takes Stratten to Los Angeles, the Cardo and Decumanus of good taste, and promotes her.After having her glossed up like an actress in a skin flick, he insinuates her into the Playboy mansion by means of photo images alone. Hefner (Robertson) is impressed by her, as who wouldn't be? Hefner is impressed with her figure and her utterly guileless personality. He's less impressed with Paul Snider who, unlike Hef himself, sophisticated in the most bourgeois way imaginable, has the aesthetics of a pimp -- overdressed, fawning, boasting of his talent and his property.At this point the American Dream begins to hit some chuck holes. Stratten is like an empty vessel waiting to be filled. Snider has been doing a fine job of animating her but, the more time Stratten spends at the mansion, the more she begins to reflect the values (and repeat the phrases) of Hefner, who strolls around with his pipe and bathrobe, Master of Playgirls, embodiment of 1950s' radical conformity.It gets worse. While roller skating as part of a horde of guests, she's spotted by a movie director, Aram Nicholas (Rees), whose name in real life as Peter Bogdanovitch. Nicholas whisks her off to make a movie in New York, leaving Snider behind in L.A. dreaming of small triumphs, like a Dorothy Stratten Gymnasium. The inevitable happens, with the loving couple, now married, drawing farther apart and Stratten beginning to repeat the phrases of Nicholas instead of Hefner.This is all driving Snider nuts back in L.A. It DOES drive him nuts. The ending is tragic.The writer and director, Bob Fosse, uses a technique similar to the one he used in "Lennie," a series of interviews with people who knew Snider and Stratten. (All are actors, not the actual persons.) Eric Roberts gives a splendid performance as the ambitious and possessive "manager" and husband. The guy is pathetic. When he meets Stratten for the last time, he tells her, "Boy, am I nervous. I must have combed my hair a dozen times." He's mercurial. He can change in a moment from sobbing out apologies to screaming in a murderous rage. He chews the scenery. He chews the carpets. He chews everything. And he does a great job of suggesting the despair beneath the bravado.Marial Hemingway as Stratten does a good job as well. She's presented as sweet, normal, a little dumb. And Hemingway gives her a little-girl voice that invites nurturance leavened with lust.The dynamics we see, social and psychological, are absolutely believable, if one word were to be used. All of us have felt something of what we see on the screen. Stratten was a victim, no question, but Snider was something more than a snarling villain.Bogdanovitch, who was in love with Stratten, hated the movie. Hemingway was too big and gawky. Snider didn't deserve to have his side of the story shown. And the actor who plays Bogdanovitch had no grasp of the real character. Bogdanovitch wrote a book about the whole affair and donated the royalties to Stratten's family.There really isn't much TO celebrity, as the film shows. Fickle food on a shifting plate, as Emily Dickenson put it. After the murder, Hefner is seen eagerly picking over slides for the next Playmate of the Month. If she had lived, Stratten today would have been one of the footnote people of history, but she might have had a life no less satisfying than those of the rest of us.

The slimy underbelly of the entertainment industry and the destruction that so often comes along with fame was a theme that lurked behind every movie Bob Fosse made, and it's at its most obvious and aggressively nasty in "Star 80." Eric Roberts plays Paul Snider, a sleazy hood who discovered Playboy centerfold Dorothy Stratten and then murdered her and himself in an obsessive rage. It's a heartbreaking, violent and disturbing story on many levels; however, the saddest thing about it is that Stratten wouldn't be worth making a movie about if she hadn't been murdered in the first place. What does that tell you about the lure of celebrity?Roberts gives a fierce performance as Snider -- he was a very good and almost completely overlooked actor. Mariel Hemingway plays Stratten, and she's rather vapid, which is all the role really requires. Fosse was not able to keep his cynicism and bile at bay, and so while the movie is accomplished, it's also downright unpleasant to sit through. It's as nihilistic as "All That Jazz" but without the flashy production numbers to add some variety.Grade: B

Some films are light and breezy. Others are full of explosions and booming sound effects. Still others are romantic and dreamy.This isn't any of those kinds of films. From the very start, the film makes clear that this is a tragic story - true story - of need and manipulation with an ending that was almost inevitable. It is more a character study than anything else, at how taking people out of their element can change them, either by raising them up or by destroying them. Both of which happen here."Star 80" works because it has two fantastic performances at its core. Eric Roberts just dazzles as small-time hustler Paul Snider, who stumbles on a gorgeous small-town girl played by Mariel Hemingway and manages to transform her into a major celebrity (Playboy Playmate and neophyte actress Dorothy Stratten). Roberts was wonderful at this stage of his career, and he draws you into his character to the point where you understand him and his crazy actions. Just about anybody can empathize with some part of the twisted Snider-Stratten story, despite the bizarre antics of Snider.Hemingway, with her brilliant "aw, shucks" performance, shows how being too passive can draw out the worst in certain people. Which is not to pin any blame on Stratten - the story shows that her only error was to trust Snider for too long.It would be easy to write Snider off as simply a cold-blooded killer with no redeeming qualities, but this film rises above that. Snider is a snake and ultimately a killer, but he's also a man who on his own dime builds an elaborate cage for a friend's dog. Snider winds up pining for Stratten - perhaps she was more than just a meal ticket to him? But Roberts also conveys the torment of a man who managed his protégé to stardom, only to face the bitter reality that it is her success, not his. A lover cast aside, to be left with nothing while he thinks she is ascending the golden steps of fame without him - yes, we come to understand Snider's motivations very well. It's a fascinating role reversal, for the stereotype is of the successful man casting his wife aside for something better - and here we have the opposite. No matter how loathsome Snider may be, and how much he may have deserved getting dumped, that is the underlying tale here. The tragedy lies in how he deals with it.It's difficult to find fault with this film, but I will say that the role of Stratten's mother, played by Carrol Baker, seems a bit false. The part as written has all the earmarks of 20-20 hindsight, and that goes for the roles of the brother and Hugh Hefner, too (why Hefner sued about his characterization is beyond me, he comes off probably better than anyone else in the film). If Stratten's mother really had tremendous misgivings about her daughter going off to LA to live with Snider, why did she sign the necessary papers? And why aren't we shown any scenes of momma visiting her daughter, or even calling her - what did she do, sign away her right to be her mother, too? And did Dorothy even HAVE a father? Maybe a little parental influence could have helped matters. No, the film is a little thin there, which is understandable but leaves some lingering questions.A fantastic film showing the sleazy and sometimes tragic side of "success." For mature audiences only.