'Fame' Opens, Bubbling With Life:The Long, Long Road

By Janet Maslin  May 16, 1980

"FAME" is a jubilant, hugely entertaining movie by a man whose principal directing experience has been the making of commercials, and so it is happier, sexier and a little bit livelier than life. That's no problem, most of the way through; it simply makes "Fame" a film to be enjoyed and taken lightly. The cast is full of glowing newcomers, the score is emphatically upbeat, and the action moves swiftly from character to character, stringing together a lot of subplots in quick succession.

"Fame" runs into trouble only when it tries to turn wistful. Alan Parker, its director, seems to know everything about making his characters superficially appealing and little about what makes them tick. 

"Fame," which opens today at the Ziegfeld theater, is set at the High School of Performing Arts, where it follows a big, rambling band of characters from their first auditions to graduation day. The audition sequence that begins the film lasts nearly half an hour, and it is spectacular, the best thing "Fame" has to offer. Mr. Parker moves nimbly from one hilariously hair-raising tryout to another, capturing these teenagers' hopes, their silliness, their promise. One girl gets through an acting audition by playing 0. J. Simpson's role as he waited for an elevator in "The Towering Inferno." A boy with an impenetrable New York accent stumbles his way through "Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" until a weary acting teacher lets him know he's reading the girl's part. A budding composer arrives for a music tryout trailing six pieces of a synthesizer and half his family. Mr. Parker makes all of this deliciously funny, and it races along flawlessly, without missing a beat.

 The actors aren't uncommonly handsome, but they're all photographed in a style that makes them beautiful, so near it seems you can reach right out and touch them, and bathed in a warm, sunny light. All of "Fame" looks like this; all of a Coca-Cola ad looks like this, too. Whatever "Fame" is selling, it comes in the prettiest, shiniest package the movies have lately seen.

Each of Mr. Parker's two previous features, "Bugsy Malone" and "Midnight Express," had its own overpowering sense of style. "Fame," which is by far Mr. Parker's most successful effort, has a comparably impenetrable quality, but the surface is so slick an audience simply glides along as the movie juggles its vignettes. Ralph (Barry Miller) sometimes imagines he's Freddie Prinze. Doris (Maureen Teefy) has a stage mother and a blossoming ambition. Coco (Irene Cara) wants desperately to be a singer, and her talent is so evident she seems well on her way. Leroy (Gene Anthony Ray) is a showstopping dancer and the Don Juan of the classroom, but he may not make it through high school if he does not learn how to read.

"Fame" whirls past dozens of incidental characters, like the pretty young teacher (Debbie Allen) who nearly swoons at Leroy's audition, or the sterner, more experienced teacher (Anne Meara) whose tart tongue and unflinching manner keep her classes in line. It also frequently breaks into song, into big, noisy, raucous musical interludes to which Mr. Parker brings his utmost flair. These numbers don't always fit the film, but no one seems to care. "Hot Lunch," set in the school cafeteria, is a routine everyone breaks into with no particular spontaneity — even though the film's style has been fairly naturalistic up until this point, and the sight of dozens of dancers executing Louis Falco's choreography utterly ruptures the mood.

Eventually, Mr. Parker winds up playing some unnecessary tricks. Coco, who has been seen sitting in a Howard Johnson's in Times Square at the beginning of her freshman year, is approached in the very same restaurant several years later by a bogus Frenchman, who tries to lure her into a pornographic film; she would have to be très stupid to fall for this, but by now the movie is determined to turn sad. Montgomerey (Paul McCrane) announces and bemoans his homosexuality, in a speech so self-pitying it drew hisses at one screening. Lisa (Laura Dean) appears to jump in front of a subway train after a teacher dresses her down — only she doesn't jump, she isn't even thinking of jumping. This is just Mr. Parker's notion of an ironic twist.