Give Stella Her Groove Back, Y'all

Why isn't Bette Midler's 1990 film Stella heralded as more of a camp classic? I haven't seen the original Barbara Stanwyck film from 1937, but why should I when I can say the following without reservation: Bette's version is wonderful. I love this film. I mean, it's horrible... totally horrible... but it's also just wonderful. It makes me smile, it makes me cry, it makes me want to barf and die and hug my mommy all at once.

Take this scene for example: It's the night of Stella's first date with the med-student Stephen Dallas. They go and see the latest Kim Novak picture (what sounds like a huge Vertigo rip-off, called The Legend of Lylah Clare - anybody seen it?) and then head back to Stella's place for some fizzy beverages and even fizzier conversation. Stella breaks out the photo album - because what else do you do on a first date? - and shows off a (terribly doctored) picture of a younger version of herself with a man on the beach, whom she dubs "Eugene Gagliano, the gorgeous pig":


Obviously this nickname is eerily reminiscent of "Iris Myandowski, the hand-walking queer" from Bette Midler's previous weepie, Beaches. What that means, I cannot tell you. Bette's melodrama characters are all haunted by oddly-nicknamed figures from their pasts! You do the math. Anyway, Stella tells why Eugene Gagliano was a pig - he used to be rough, tie her up in bed. So Stephen, bless his heart, takes that as his cue to stuff his face into Stella's crotch:


Romance ain't dead, y'all. It's just living in Watertown... and going to Cornell. Which is in Ithaca. Who cares if those places are a good two hours away from each other? It's all upstate NY, right? Gah.

By the way, on their second date Stella & Stephen - Can I call them Stellan for short? Awesome, thank you! - Stellan go and see a fancy opera singer perform on their second date, which was obviously Stephen's idea, he's all up in that fancy shit, which will Come To Haunt Stella Eventually, but for now she makes a ridiculous face and he giggles:


And these two discerning opera-loving patriarchs of fine breeding and upstanding morals are totally affronted:


You can tell they're fancy because they wear tweed and have stiff necks, by the way. So Stellan have to leave the performance, swept up into a fit of laughter as they become. I only point out this moment because it's obvious that the television show Seinfeld totally ripped off their "Pez dispenser episode" from this movie, and were forced to let Bette appear on their show as retribution for their idea-theft.


Shameless!

Next, Stephen goes and gets Stella preggars. Her home skillet is knocked up, yo. As a kid, I was rather fond of the scene where Stella tells Stephen this news, because it involves Stephen Collins laying around in his underwear:


Not really my type now, but you took it where you could get it back in the day. So Stella's oven is bunned, and Stephen says he'll give her whatever she wants - because he's perfect, y'all - and she sacarstically says that what she wants is a room full of balloons.


And the fucker gives it to her! Good grief I love this movie. Are you reading this boyfriend? Give me a room full of balloons and I will do whatever you want me to. Unfortunately, I know that emulating a Bette Midler movie, even with ironic detachment, is akin to a thousand years in hell for you, so this will never happen. Sadness.

Blah blah blah, Stellan split up - He's too perfect! She's too Watertown! - and Stella goes and has the baby. Little Jenny-girl. We skip over a decade and a half or so in a flurry of cameo'd actresses of increasing age:


That Jenny #2 there is played by Ashley Peldon, sister of Courtney Peldon, of Go Fug Yourself infamy by the way. I think Ashley has changed her named to "Brown" maybe? Weirdness. And Jenny #3 is Curly Sue! The baby-Jenny doesn't have a credit on IMDb, but it's got to be either a Fanning or one of the 9/11 hijackers.


Our main Jenny-girl is played by the lovely, the lost Trini Alvarado.


I miss you, Trini! Where have you gone, Trini Alvarado? My nation turns its lonely eyes to you!

Okay, so I'm not gonna recap the entire movie like this. You should catch it. If you're insane like me. And might like a terrible, soppy, melodramatic mish-mash of bullshit and hysteria in equal measure. I will, however, give you a random sampling of some of the further highlights to be had.

Eileen Brennan shows up as a villainous PTA member for like two scenes, just enough to screw up Jenny's life FOREVER because she doesn't like Stella's brash mouth, and as with everything in this film, subtlety lacks - they basically outfit Brennan like a witch in a Disney cartoon:


I kept waiting for her to eat a live puppy on-screen. So Jenny's just about to have her Sweet Sixteen birthday party, and let me tell you this: those girls on that My Super Sweet Sixteen show ain't got nothing on Stella Claire and her party-throwing abilities! There's ginger-ale based punch! Streamers and banners and balloons (again with the balloons) galore!


There's fried chicken by the bucket!


But the Pièce de résistance, I must say, would have to be the rice krispie treats topped with circus peanuts (to the right of the cake):


High-class, all the way!

But Evil Eileen Brennan fucks up everything and tells the entire world not to show up at Jenny's party! And they all listen, because Evil Eileen Brennan will turn them all into toads if they do not comply. All Jenny-girl gets is this:


A drive-by mooning! They couldn't even stop, come in, eat come moist snack cakes, and then moon her? Monsters! I should thank the monsters though, because this leads to one of my favorite moments in all of film - their teary mother-daughter bonding moment (well, their first teary bonding moment... the movie has MANY). Stella sees how unhappy her Jenny-girl is, and tries to make her smile...


... by putting two cookies over her eyes, and saying "I love ya, Jenny girl!" And yes, I have reenacted this moment a million times over in my life. Don't judge. But then she pulls off the cookies, and Stella's crying underneath their delicious chocolaty goodness!


And Jenny cries. And Stella cries. With chocolate rings around her eyes. It's a blessed moment.

Another wonderful side character is one Jim Uptegrove, the bad boy that enters Jenny's life now that it's spiraling out of control after the Great Sweet Sixteen Disaster:


Yes, that's Ben Stiller, in his finest career achievement to date. He takes Jenny out on the town, and well, he introduces young-me to the pick-up line I'll be using for the rest of my life:

"Come on! You act like you never had one in your hand before."

Classic. But Jenny must choose! The loveliness that is Jim Uptegrove, or the rich boy she visits when she's staying at her father's house, one Pat Robbins.


Doesn't the name just fill you with warm feelings? Pat Robbins (played by period-staple-WASP William McNamara)... it's like you're gently hitting a pile of birds. Rich, pretty birds. Pat goes to Brown - "I'm second legacy, they had to take me," he says as if that makes him less of a snob - and he teaches special-ed kids... but he's totally blasé about it, because that's how perfect and not a snob he is. As Jenny-girl and Pat fall for each other, we're treated to a Massingill commercial:


A Massengill commercial filled with twu-wuv! And why is he making out with her nose? And note how they're always wearing white. But when Jenny-girl's home with her mom, it's always the black clothes and "New Wave" hair:

"There is NOTHING wrong with my hair.
It's called 'New Wave'!"

Not to mention all the drugs and Ben Stillers!


Horrors. Really, the funniest things about Stella are its wonderful end-of-the-Eighties leftover views on class - remember, this story originally took place during the Depression, so Stella's eventual sacrifice (giving Jenny-girl up to be raised by her more wealthy father and his new family) made a lot of sense. But displacing it to the Eighties... it becomes a little silly. So all the wealthier characters have to be total Saints, while Stella's only friend is an alcoholic John Goodman:

It must be said here that Goodman is actually very good, in a genuine sort of way, in this movie. Anyway, listen to the story of how Stephen's new wife Janice, played by Marsha Mason, became so fabulously wealthy:

"I was born on a dirt farm in Missouri. I got a scholarship to Smith, then I got my job at Random House...that's where I met my husband. He had money."

God, it's so simple! Why aren't we all so fabulously wealthy? One two rich, GO!

But... okay, the whole class wackiness thing is the second funniest thing in Stella. The funniest thing in Stella is their trip to Florida. Because Stella Claire gets to Florida, and she loses her ever-loving mind. They take the trip so Jenny can spend Spring Break with Pat Robbins - see Massengil commercial, above - and his family. Stella has apparently never left Watertown, and takes this opportunity - you know, of meeting her daughter's boyfriend's very rich family and giving them a fateful first impression - to turn herself into the bleached-out version of Charo:

She likes thinking about the aquamarine and pink ruffled dress.

Needless to say, The Rich People do not react well to this Most Crass Display:


So judgy! We then meet my single favorite character in the film, Nameless Rich Bitch #1 (along with her cohort in nameless rich bitchery, Nameless Rich Bitch #2):


They're witnesses to Stella's can-can freak-out and later, while laying on the beach, engage in a conversation of unparalleled bitchery... not knowing that poor Stella is laying right beside them and can hear every word they're saying!


We meet them discussing sunscreen (with possibly my favorite entry line of all-time), and it unfolds from there:

Nameless Rich Bitch #1: I don't CARE if I get wrinkles.
Nameless Rich Bitch #2: Well I use a 30.
Nameless Rich Bitch #1: Oh, you know that THING we saw in the bar this morning? You know who that is? That's Jenny Claire's MOTHER. Can you believe that? I thought it must've been Pee Wee Herman's wife or something.
Nameless Rich Bitch #2: That is Jenny's mother?
Nameless Rich Bitch #1: I know. Incredible.
Nameless Rich Bitch #2: I kinda feel sorry for her.
Nameless Rich Bitch #1: I tell you one thing: she had Pat Robbins REAL interested for awhile, but I bet she can kiss that one goodbye. I mean REALLY how'd you like to have a mother like THAT? UH, I'd SHOOT myself.

Sadness, y'all. Also, hilarious! Pee Wee Herman would be honored, I'm sure. But... mostly sadness. I might seem like I'm knocking this flick... and I am, but with love. Loads of love. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I sob - like, we're talking heaving chest, red-eyed SOBS - every time I watch it. I hadn't seen it in years until the other night, and it hit me again like a force of fucking nature. This thing carves out my insides and bleeds me dry. Obviously I'm aware of it's... tawdriness. But it gets the job done. When we get to the end, and Stella sees his Jenny-girl's face is happy...


UGH! It murders me every time. And every time I'm near Tavern on the Green I want to go run up and pound on the windows and tell Jenny-girl to look out the fucking window and see her mother standing there in the rain! Blind bitch.

So in my mind, I choose to remember Stella Claire as she should be: still off in Watertown, dancing on the bar the least sexy fake striptease ever performed:

.