Pack your bags and get ready to fly from Vancouver to Hollywood, as the Video Archives Podcast tackles Bob Fosse’s true-crime shocker Star 80! Quentin, Roger & Gala devote the entire episode to unpacking Fosse’s intentions, and asking what’s actually true in this adaptation of Teresa Carpenter’s Village Voice story “Death Of A Playmate,” dramatizing the murder of actress and Playboy model Dorothy Stratten. I’ve got VHS boxes and magazine covers to accompany your listen on today’s Counter Talk, so let’s dive in…
This is the first episode of Video Archives to focus on a single film – which wasn’t originally the plan. Before taping, Quentin and Roger had picked a couple other films to include with Star 80 in our usual episode format. But once the episode started, as they began breaking down the successes and failures of the film in detail, bringing in archival reviews and context for Dorothy Stratten’s life and career, we decided this discussion needed to stand alone. The focus on Stratten’s life in particular, and the need for her memory to live on beyond her flawed depiction in Star 80, made this a uniquely moving episode of the show, and one of my favorite episodes we’ve done so far.
If Star 80’s greatest sin is that it pretends to be a film about Dorothy Stratten while actually being a film about her killer, Paul Snider, the cover of the VHS box is emblematic of that sin. It’s a simple close-up of Mariel Hemingway as Stratten, smiling and smelling a flower, emptily capitalizing on Hemingway’s beauty.