Purple Rain

Dir: Albert Magnoli

1984

*

Prince is, and will always be, a legend and a pop icon. However, his 1984 musical Purple Rain will always be a huge pile of awfulness. It may well feature classic hit songs, most of which I like, but the story and the acting are among some of the worst committed to celluloid. The film stars Prince in his acting debut playing 'The Kid', a quasi-biographical character who sings as a regular in a club but is looking to be replaced by the club's manager. When not singing or driving around on his purple motorbike, 'The Kid' lives with his mother and abusive father in their basement. He's 26 years old, clearly has money (designer clothes, purple motorbike etc) but still lives with mum and dad. He meets a young girl called Apollonia who clearly worships him and makes her strip next to a lake before ridiculing and abandoning her. He later punches her in the face. A bit odd for a man who admits in the film that his own father used to beat his mother. His father also shoots himself in the head, something that didn't happen in real life. Now like I said, I'm not a huge Prince fan but this film did not make me warm to him much. The band members (The Revolution) played themselves, indeed Clarence Williams III, Olga Karlatos and Apollonia Kotero were the only professional actors in the entire cast, and The Kid's treatment of Wendy and Lisa in the film is pretty much how Prince treated them in real life. Like a jerk. When The Kids and the band receive success and a standing ovation following their final show I didn't feel happy at all, I simply though yeah, it does seem to be the assholes who somehow become the most successful. It was a cheap and easy way to showcase Prince and sell some albums, and that is exactly what it did. The film grossed more than $68 million at the box office in the United States and over $80 million worldwide, thus making a large profit on its $7.2 million budget.The film won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, the last to receive the award. It was written by Albert Magnoli and William Blinn, and produced by Prince's managers Robert Cavallo, Joseph Ruffalo and Steven Fargnoli. Prince developed the concept during his 1999 Tour. The original script by Blinn was darker. Later Magnoli was brought aboard and rewrote it. The film was directed and edited by Magnoli who had next to no directional experience. Blinn was an established writer and work on some of the best TV shows of the 60s and 70s, everyone else was winging it and it shows. Prince intended to cast Vanity, leader of the girl group Vanity 6, but she left the group before filming began. Her role was initially offered to Jennifer Beals (who turned it down because she wanted to concentrate on college) before going to Apollonia Kotero, a virtual unknown at the time. Prince had seen her appearance on the February 1983 episode of Tales of the Gold Monkey, in which she played a saucy island girl who was sleeping with a German man of the cloth. Excluding Prince and his onscreen parents, almost every character in the movie is named after the actor who plays him or her, adding to the amateurish feel of the movie. After the character change from Vanity to Apollonia, the script was drastically revised, and many dark scenes were cut. Some of these scenes include Prince and Apollonia having sex in a barn (a concept which was the story behind the 1985 song "Raspberry Beret"); Prince going to Apollonia 6's rehearsal and engaging in a physical fight with the members of The Time; and a scene which featured Prince's mother talking to him about her shaky relationship with his father. There was a second love scene that was not included in the final cut of the film. This scene has special meaning because it contains the actual illusion of the purple rain. A snippet of this scene is included in the theatrical trailer for the film as well as the When Doves Cry montage. This scene, as well as the other deleted footage that led up to it, is also outlined in the film's screenplay found on various websites. It is rumored that this second love scene almost earned the film an X-rating although it's unclear as to whether this scene was actually included in early edits of the film or actually submitted to the MPAA. Why cut the 'Purple Rain' scene or make it so unsaleable. It's an awful film made by amateurs. Great songs, and I understand the ultra-camp appeal but it is taken far too serious for me to even sit back and laugh at. It's pretty nasty in places and I really didn't care for it. Listen to the album instead, super-fans will probably disagree.