Stardust Memories

Sandy Bates is a director of comedy films. His latest film ends with a surreal sequence in which a character (played by Sandy) is trapped on a train carriage surrounded by grotesque and unhappy figures. The character looks out the carriage window and sees another train filled with beautiful and happy people. Convinced he is on the wrong train, he tries unsuccessfully to get off the train before it speeds away. In the next scene, all the characters from the train wander aimlessly through an immense garbage dump. Sandy's character sees that the passengers from the other train have also ended up at the dump. Studio executives, having watched Sandy's film, complain that it is uncommercial and depressing. When this is conveyed to Sandy, he insists that he no longer wants to make shallow comedy films, as this no longer feels honest to him.

Sandy's managers remind him that he is scheduled to appear at a weekend-long retrospective of his films at the Stardust Hotel on the Jersey Shore. He is reluctant but agrees to attend. Through the weekend, Sandy is haunted by memories of Dorrie, a former lover with mental illness issues. He recalls his first meeting with Dorrie on the set of one of his films, the blossoming of their relationship, and its later deterioration through a combination of her insecurities and his philandering. His last meeting with Dorrie takes place in a psychiatric hospital, where she is depressed and heavily medicated.

Arriving at the Stardust Hotel, Sandy is swamped by fans, who often make bizarre or comical requests from him. He attends screenings of his films, and then submits to question and answer sessions. After the first session, he is invited to a nearby club by a young couple, Jack and Daisy, and he eagerly agrees. At the nightclub, Sandy uses an instance of Jack's absence to openly flirt with Daisy.

The following day, Sandy's current lover Isobel, a married mother of two, arrives at the hotel to join him. She announces that she has left her husband. Sandy responds ambivalently to this news, but considers taking their relationship to the next level. Sandy also meets with executives from his film studio, who have reshot the ending of his film, with the characters ending up in "jazz heaven", instead of the garbage dump. Sandy declares the idea to be idiotic, and refuses to accept it.

While talking with his agent on a public phone, Sandy overhears Daisy talking about her sexual ambivalence towards Jack. Later, Sandy organizes an outing alone with Daisy. While the two are together, Sandy's car breaks down and they are forced to continue on foot. They arrive at a large field, where they encounter a congregation of locals awaiting the appearance of flying saucers. During this encounter, Sandy begins losing touch with reality, imagining or hallucinating various figures from his life and films, as well as a group of extraterrestrials (who advise him to continue making comedies). He finally imagines a psychotic fan who shoots him dead.

Actually having fainted in a panic attack, Sandy fantasizes that he is given a posthumous award for his life's work. He accepts the award in person, and tells the audience that the one moment in his life where he felt truly happy and fulfilled was on a sunny morning in his Manhattan apartment, passing the time with Dorrie, reading and listening to Louis Armstrong's version of "Stardust". As Sandy awakes from his fainting spell, he speaks Dorrie's name, which angers Isobel, who has been waiting by his bedside. She attempts to break up with him, prompting him to abandon the retrospective and follow her onto her train. He passionately persuades her to forgive him, and they kiss as the train departs.

These events are observed by a film audience, which includes many figures who appear as characters in the film itself. As this film ends, they discuss its merits and flaws, and share their experiences of making it. As the audience departs the theater, a figure resembling Sandy enters, retrieves his iconic sunglasses from a seat, and then exits.

{{Cast listing|

• Woody Allen as Sandy Bates
• Charlotte Rampling as Dorrie
• Jessica Harper as Daisy
• Marie-Christine Barrault as Isobel
• Tony Roberts as Tony
• Daniel Stern as Actor
• Amy Wright as Shelley
• Helen Hanft as Vivian Orkin
• John Rothman as Jack Abel
• Anne De Salvo as Sandy's Sister
• Leonardo Cimino as Sandy's Analyst
• Sharon Stone as Pretty Girl On Train{{efn|Of the train window through which she blows a kiss during the opening sequence, Stone remarked, "I gave it my best shot to melt the sucker."{{cite book|last=Fox|first=Julian|title=Woody: Movies from Manhattan|url=https://archive.org/details/woodymoviesfromm0000foxj/page/124/mode/2up|url-access=registration|location=Woodstock, New York|publisher=The Overlook Press|year=1996|page=124|isbn=978-0-87951-692-5}}}}
• Jack Rollins as Studio Executive
• Judith Roberts as Singer ("Three Little Words")
• Candy Loving as Tony's Girlfriend
• Brent Spiner as Fan In Lobby
• Judith Crist as Cabaret Patron
• Irwin Keyes and Bonnie Hellman as Fans Outside Hotel
• Cynthia Gibb (credited as Cindy Gibb) as Young Girl Fan
• Annie Korzen (credited as Anne Korzen) as Woman In Ice Cream Parlor
• James Otis and Largo Woodruff as UFO Followers
• Alice Spivak as Nurse At Hospital
• Armin Shimerman as Member of The Eulogy Audience
• The Jazz Heaven Orchestra, which includes Joe Wilder, Richie Pratt, Hank Jones, Arvell Shaw, and Earl Shendell
• Laraine Newman as Film Executive (uncredited)
• Louise Lasser as Sandy's Secretary (uncredited)
• William Zinsser as Catholic Priest (uncredited){{efn|Zinsser had been an early interviewer of Woody Allen in 1963, for The Saturday Evening Post; after a chance re-encounter in 1980, Allen cast him in this role; Zinsser has remarked, in that context, that Protestants abound among his ancestors.{{cite magazine | url=http://theamericanscholar.org/my-stardust-memories/ | title=My Stardust Memories | magazine=The American Scholar | date=August 2, 2010 | access-date=April 19, 2012 | last=Zinsser |first=William | author-link=William Zinsser | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120422204621/http://theamericanscholar.org/my-stardust-memories/ | archive-date=April 22, 2012 | url-status=live}}}}

}}

Allen has asserted that Stardust Memories is not an autobiographical work. "[Critics] thought that the lead character was me!", the director is quoted as saying in Woody Allen on Woody Allen. "Not a fictional character, but me, and that I was expressing hostility toward my audience. ... [T]hat was in no way the point of the film. It was about a character who is obviously having a sort of nervous breakdown and in spite of success has come to a point in his life where he is having a bad time."{{cite book |last1=Allen |first1=Woody |author-link1=Woody Allen |last2=Björkman |first2=Stig |author-link2=Stig Björkman |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780802115560/page/120/mode/2up | title=Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation with Stig Björkman |year=1994 | location=New York |publisher= Grove Press |page=121 |isbn= 978-0-8021-1556-0 |url-access=registration}}

The conflict between the maternal, nurturing woman and the earnest, usually younger one, is a recurring theme in Allen's films. Like many of Allen's films, Stardust Memories incorporates several jazz recordings including those by such notables as Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, and Chick Webb. The film's title alludes to the famous take of "Stardust" recorded in 1931 by Armstrong, wherein the trumpeter sings "oh, memory" three times in succession. However, it is the master take that plays in the movie during the sequence where Sandy is remembering the best moment of his life: looking at Dorrie while listening to Armstrong's recording of the song.

The film deals with issues regarding religion, God, and philosophy; especially existentialism, psychology, symbolism, wars and politics. It is also about realism, relationships, and death. It refers to many questions about the meaning of life. It also ruminates on the role that luck plays in life, a theme Allen would revisit in Match Point.

Filming locations include:

• Asbury Park, New Jersey
• Bradley Beach, New Jersey
• Ocean Grove, New Jersey{{cite web |title=Stardust Memories |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56508-STARDUST-MEMORIES?sid=4f2788b6-6dcc-4330-a948-42ea4c26247a&sr=12.662987&cp=1&pos=0 |website=AFI Catalog of Feature Films |access-date=July 17, 2024}}

From the sleeve notes of MGM's 2000 DVD release: "Shot on location in the fall of 1979, Stardust Memories may look as though it takes place in a Victorian-style seaside hotel, but it was actually shot at the Ocean Grove Great Auditorium and the Methodist Episcopal Conference Center and Concert Hall in New Jersey. Most of the interiors, including the bedroom scenes, were shot in a vacant Sears Roebuck building, but the crew also recreated a vintage train at Filmways Studio in Harlem. To reproduce the movement of a rail car, the whole train was mounted on jacks and gently jostled back and forth."{{cite AV media notes |title=Stardust Memories |year=2000 |type=DVD |publisher=Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer}}

{{Div col}}

• "Tropical Mood Meringue" (Sidney Bechet) by Sidney Bechet
• "I'll See You in My Dreams" (Isham Jones and Gus Kahn) by Django Reinhardt
• "Tickletoe" (Lester Young) by Lester Young with Count Basie and His Orchestra
• "Three Little Words" (Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby) by the Jazz Heaven Orchestra
• "Brazil" (Ary Barroso, S.K. Russell) by Marie Lane
• "Palesteena" (J. Russel Robinson and Con Conrad) by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band
• "Body and Soul" (Edward Heyman, Robert Sour, John W. Green, and Frank Eyton) by Django Reinhardt
• "Night on Bald Mountain" (Modest Mussorgsky) by Vienna State Opera Orchestra
• "If Dreams Come True" (Irving Mills, Edgar M. Sampson, and Benny Goodman) by Chick Webb
• "Hebrew School Rag" (Dick Hyman) by Dick Hyman
• "Just One of Those Things" (Cole Porter) by Dick Hyman
• "Easy to Love" (Cole Porter) by Dick Hyman
• "One O'Clock Jump" (Count Basie) by the Jazz Heaven Orchestra
• "Sugar" (Maceo Pinkard and Sidney D. Mitchell)
• "Sweet Georgia Brown" (Ben Bernie, Kenneth Casey and Maceo Pinkard)
• "Moonlight Serenade" (Glenn Miller) by Glenn Miller
• "Stardust" (Hoagy Carmichael, Mitchell Parish) by Louis Armstrong{{cite book |last= Harvey |first= Adam|year= 2007|title= The Soundtracks of Woody Allen: A Complete Guide to the Songs and Music in Every Film, 1969–2005|location= Jefferson, North Carolina |publisher= McFarland & Company |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=S5WIT9aA1A8C&pg=PA137 137]–138 |isbn=978-0-7864-2968-4}}

{{Div col end}}

Stardust Memories opened in North America on September 26, 1980. On its opening weekend, the film grossed $326,779 from 29 theaters, averaging $11,268 per screen.{{cite web |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl1316193793/weekend/ |title=Stardust Memories (1980) – Domestic Weekend |website=Box Office Mojo |access-date=May 23, 2024}} It grossed $10,389,003 in the United States and Canada by the end of its run, against a production budget of $10 million.{{cite web |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0081554/ |title=Stardust Memories (1980) |website=Box Office Mojo |access-date=May 23, 2024}}

In Diane Jacobs' But We Need the Eggs: The Magic of Woody Allen, the director is quoted as saying: "[S]hortly after Stardust Memories opened, John Lennon was shot by the very guy who had asked him for his autograph earlier in the day. ... This is what happens with celebrities—one day people love you, the next day they want to kill you."{{cite book|first=Diane|last=Jacobs|title=But We Need the Eggs: The Magic of Woody Allen|url=https://archive.org/details/butweneedeggsmag0000jaco/page/146/mode/2up|url-access=registration|location=New York|publisher=St. Martin's Press|year=1983|page=147|isbn=978-0-312-10999-8}}

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 66% based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Woody Allen throws himself a pity party with all the surrealistic trimmings of Federico Fellini in Stardust Memories, a scabrous self-portrait that rankles as often as it impresses stylisticly."{{cite web|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/stardust_memories|title=Stardust Memories|website=Rotten Tomatoes|access-date=September 20, 2023}} Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote the work "is [Allen's] most provocative film thus far and perhaps his most revealing" and certainly "the one that will inspire the most heated debate".{{cite news |author=Janet Maslin |author-link=Janet Maslin |title=The Acid Humor of Woody Allen's 'Stardust Memories' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B02EFD81238F935A1575AC0A966948260 |work=The New York Times |date=September 26, 1980 |access-date=February 13, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170826075523/http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B02EFD81238F935A1575AC0A966948260 |archive-date=August 26, 2017}} Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four and called it "a disappointment. It needs some larger idea, some sort of organizing force, to pull together all these scenes of bitching and moaning, and make them lead somewhere."{{cite news |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stardust-memories-1980 |title=Stardust Memories |last=Ebert |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Ebert |newspaper=Chicago Sun-Times |year=1980 |access-date=December 3, 2018 |via=RogerEbert.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116130240/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stardust-memories-1980 |archive-date=November 16, 2018 |url-status=live}} Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and suggested that Allen "seems to have run out of creative gas. The film doesn't have much of a premise."{{cite news|first=Gene|last=Siskel|author-link=Gene Siskel|date=October 3, 1980|title=Woody Allen trips on his own work in 'Memories'|newspaper=Chicago Tribune}} Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that the film "has no dramatic shape or resonance, and the incidental laughs are few and far between."{{cite news |last=Arnold |first=Gary |date=October 3, 1980 |title=Left-Over 'Memories' |newspaper=The Washington Post |page=C1}} Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times was positive, calling the film "both extremely funny and extremely affecting ... Allen's growth as an actor and as a filmmaker in confident command of his medium is one of the several remarkable readouts from this film."{{cite news |last=Champlin |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Champlin |date=September 28, 1980 |title=Woody Allen's Weekend: Close Enough For Discomfort |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |at=Calendar, p. 1}} Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote, "In Stardust Memories we get more of the same thoughts over and over—it's like watching a loop. The material is fractured and the scenes are very short, but there was not a single one that I was sorry to see end. Stardust Memories doesn't seem like a movie, or even like a filmed essay; it's nothing."{{cite magazine |last=Kael |first=Pauline |author-link=Pauline Kael |date=October 27, 1980 |title=The Current Cinema |magazine=The New Yorker |page=189}}

In a joint article, The Daily Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey listed it as Allen's 10th greatest film and wrote; "slammed at the time, it's a retrospective knock-out, thanks to its ambitious structure, vinegary gags and the searing monochrome photography, courtesy of Gordon Willis".{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/woody-allens-best-and-worst-movies/ |title=All 47 Woody Allen movies – ranked from worst to best |last1=Collin |first1=Robbie |author-link1=Robbie Collin |last2=Robey |first2=Tim |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |date=October 12, 2016 |access-date=January 31, 2017 |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118143535/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/woody-allens-best-and-worst-movies/ |archive-date=January 18, 2021 |url-status=live}} Sam Fragoso of IndieWire also ranked it among Allen's best works, lauding it as "an extraordinarily realized portrait of artistic stagnation".{{cite web|url=http://www.indiewire.com/2014/07/here-are-woody-allens-best-movies-23798/|title=Here Are Woody Allen's Best Movies|last=Fragoso|first=Sam|website=IndieWire|date=July 25, 2014|access-date=January 31, 2017|archive-date=December 28, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161228154927/http://www.indiewire.com/2014/07/here-are-woody-allens-best-movies-23798/|url-status=live}} The film was listed 16th among Allen's efforts in a poll of Time Out contributors, with editor Joshua Rothkopf praising it as "a piece of self-referential hilarity in its own right."{{cite magazine |url=https://www.timeout.com/newyork/film/the-best-and-worst-woody-allen-movies#tab_panel_3 |title=Best Woody Allen movies: 20–11 |magazine=Time Out |date=March 24, 2016 |access-date=January 31, 2017 |archive-date=May 29, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170529003144/https://www.timeout.com/newyork/film/the-best-and-worst-woody-allen-movies#tab_panel_3 |url-status=live}}

In October 2013, Stardust Memories was voted by The Guardian readers as the eighth best film directed by Allen.{{cite news |title=The 10 best Woody Allen films |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/04/the-10-best-woody-allen-films |access-date=November 22, 2014 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=October 4, 2013 |archive-date=November 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129080854/http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/04/the-10-best-woody-allen-films |url-status=live}}

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