Out Of The Blue

After a mighty re-shuffle concerning a family-friendly drama called ‘Cebe’ in which Dennis Hopper had been hired to act, he decided to take over the whole project after the original director left and by doing so not only appeared as the male lead but rewrote the entire script and assumed the director’s chair. The result is OUT OF THE BLUE, a bleak drama with a heavy dose of punk attitude starring the late Linda Manz as Cebe, an Elvis worshipper who gradually slides into a downward spiral thanks to her dysfunctional family background. It goes without saying that Hopper’s version is anything but family-friendly!

Cebe Barnes (Linda Manz) is a loudmouth and a rebel-yell… an androgynous teenager obsessed with Elvis and punk rock who bemoans the fact that the King had died on her and so did Sid Vicious – her heroes in a world inhabited by adults most of whom are morally corrupt. Deep down though Cebe is an emotionally insecure adolescent who regularly escapes this troubled world by seeking refuge in her bedroom, a room which resembles a shrine to Elvis. She even wears a denim jacket with his name emblazoned on the back. Her other passion is her drum kit.

At the start we see Cebe riding in her dad Don’s truck. Daughter and father have obviously come from some sort of function as she sports clown make-up and he is way over the alcohol limit. In a moment of foolishness and sharing terms of endearment which suggests incest, Don temporarily takes his eyes off the road to listen to Cebe singing an Elvis song. When he finally sees the school bus it is too late stepping on the brakes and the truck smashes into the other vehicle, killing several pupils in the process. We then find out that this was in fact a flashback because an older Cebe (still a teenager) wakes up from one of her many nightmares covered in perspiration. With daddy in prison due to drunken driving and manslaughter charges her mother Kathy (Sharon Farrell) is now in charge of looking after the girl but Kathy, who works as a waitress in a roadside diner, is a highly-strung drug addict who has several affairs on the go, one with the volatile Charlie (Don Gordon) and another with her boss in the diner. No wonder Cebe feels misunderstood and neglected, often roaming the streets with her mates and causing trouble wherever she goes.

When Don, after a five year stint in prison, finally gets released, Kathy and Cebe look forward to becoming a family again but Don’s past is never far away and despite the parents best efforts (if you can call it that) cracks soon begin to appear and threaten to destroy what little is left of the family: Kathy can’t quit her drug addiction nor her flirtatious nature and Don, now working as driver at the local garbage disposal unit (the only job he could get) soon reverts back to his volatile and aggressive nature and his penchant for hard liquor. No wonder one day, Cebe decides she’s had enough and runs away to the big city (Out Of The Blue was filmed in Vancouver, Canada, so presumably that’s where the story is set). During a nightly excursion she climbs into a cab and soon establishes some sort of rapport with the cab driver by repeating her mantra (which we also hear her say towards near the beginning) “Kill all hippies” and “Disco sucks”. Impressed, the cabbie invites her to a party somewhere in town but it turns out to be a blue hotel where prostitutes and transvestites hang out. Instead of engaging in a conversation about punk music it emerges the cabbie plans to have sex with the underaged Cebe and a prostitute but Cebe manages to escape and soon finds shelter in a music venue where a punk band (real-life Vancouver punk band ‘Pointed Sticks’) create havoc. Cebe is introduced and the band even allow her a stint on the drums – one of the rare moments in Cebe’s life during which she seems to be genuinely happy.
Meanwhile her parents have raised the alarm and Cebe once again finds herself in the room of psychiatrist Dr. Brean (Raymond Burr) who warns her and mother Kathy that if things don’t change Cebe will find herself in an institute for juvenile delinquents… to which she replies “It’s my life and I do what I want”. There’s a punk attitude for you!

No prizes for guessing that things deteriorate even further though it’s not exactly Cebe’s fault but her parents’ constantly erratic and irresponsible behaviour. We know that Cebe has pretty much reached the limit when she smears half a ton of hair gel into her mane, paints sideburns on her face and dresses in a black leather outfit just like her hero Elvis. What follows is a harrowing climax which sees the nihilistic Cebe come full circle and during which she take her parents with her on this final destructive journey…

This nitty-gritty drama is as raw as it gets and is perhaps not an easy film to watch. It caused controversy and outrage when it was released in 1980 (let’s face it, many Dennis Hopper associated projects had that stigma attached to them) but has since gathered a cult following. The late Linda Manz is simply electrifying as the doomed Cebe and anyone familiar with Manz’ story will no doubt notice certain similarities between her screen character and her own story which saw her grow up without a father in Manhattan and at constant loggerheads with her mother, kicked out of several schools, regularly running away from home and beginning to chain smoke from a very young age. Linda can be seen smoking in director Terrence Malick’s seething romantic drama ‘Days of Heaven’ (1978) while she never stops puffing away in ‘Out of the Blue’… therefore it shouldn’t perhaps come as a complete surprise that the actress sadly passed away last year aged 58 from lung cancer.

Dennis Hopper is of course in his element and exudes the same level of intensity and irrational behaviour in his part of Don Barnes. Indeed, how much of the real Dennis Hopper and the real Linda Manz came out in their performances is anyone’s guess.
Likewise, Sharon Farrell (the only surviving member of the film’s main cast) delivers a rollercoaster of emotions.
The film’s title is taken from the Neil Young song ‘My My, Hey, Hey’ (Out of the blue and into the black. You pay for this, but they give you that. And once you're gone, you can't come back. When you're out of the blue and into the black. The king is gone but he's not forgotten. Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?) in which Young compares the rise of Johnny Rotten with that of Elvis Presley due to the fact that both ‘icons’ were initially looked upon as a bad influence on the gullible youth.

To celebrate the 4K restored 2-Disc Blu-ray release of OUT OF THE BLUE the good people at BFI have thrown in a generous amount of bonus material including:
Audio commentary with Dennis Hopper, producer Paul Lewis and distributor John Alan Simon (2000) / Commentaries / Dennis Hopper interviewed by Tony Watts (1984, 97 mins) / Screen Guardian Talk: Dennis Hopper (1990, 91 mins, audio only) / Subverting Normality: Linda Manz Comes from Out of the Blue (2021, 18 mins) / Remembering Out of the Blue (2021, 174 mins) / Me & Dennis (2021, 95 mins): four new interviews with Hopper’s friends and colleagues featuring Ethan Hawke, Richard Linklater, Julian Schnabel and Philippe Mora / Alex Cox Recalls Out of the Blue (2021, 13 mins) / Montclair Film Festival Q&A (2020, 30 mins) / Jack Nicholson radio spot (1982, 1 min) / Trailers / Illustrated booklet (first pressing only plus selection of complementary archive shorts:
Morecambe and Wise – Be Wise Don’t Drink and Drive (1963, 1 min) / Drink Drive Office Party Cartoon (1964, 1 min) / A Girl’s Own Story (Jane Campion, 1983, 27 mins) / Girl (Carol Morley, 1993, 7 mins).