The Karen Carpenter Story (1989)
Starring: Cynthia Gibb, Mitchell Anderson, Louise Fletcher

In honor of today’s Daily Vibe!

There are tons of unreleased-on-dvd cult movies up over at youtube. The Karen Carpenter Story is one of those great made-for-tv biopics from the 80s, before the Lifetime network gained control of the genre and turned all women’s lives into some sorry excuse for the celebration of victimhood.

No, the Karen Carpenter Story presents her ups and downs as part of the epic journey of life, so she is never defined by her eating disorder but first and foremost as a musician and human being. That said, it is by no means a masterpiece of narrative cinema, but it is still schlocky good fun. The production is pretty bad, and the actress that plays Karen does so in a series of obvious, bad wigs that never even come close to any of the styles the real Karen ever wore. One of the best story arcs of the movie is Richard’s addiction to Quaaludes, to which he was introduced and spurred on by his mother.

My favorite scene is the one above. Karen is sad because all the men she meets are only interested in her for being famous. When she meets the man who is to become her husband, she can’t believe he has never heard of her. Karen has to leave and excuses herself. Mr. Right responds with what just might be my favorite cheesy line of all time, “Just for the time being, Miss Carpenter, because we’ve only just begun.” What a sly fox, that one!

If you want to watch the movie from the beginning, follow this link.

This entry was posted by astrology detective on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 2:06 am and is filed under cult corner . You can trackback from your own site.