Ode to Billy Joe (1976)

Directed by

Max Baer, Jr.

Genre

drama film, teen film, LGBTQ-related film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 45m

Rated

PG

Rating

6.1 of 10 from 34 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A teenager in 1950s Mississippi has a secret romance with a girl while dealing with a hidden trauma. The story leads up to the suicide of a young man who jumps off a bridge.

melancholicslow-burnnostalgictragicromanticsomberintrospectiveatmospheric

What happens

Ode to Billy Joe is a 1976 American drama film, directed and produced by Max Baer Jr., with a screenplay by Herman Raucher, and starring Robby Benson and Glynnis O'Connor. It is inspired by the 1967 hit song by Bobbie Gentry, titled "Ode to Billie Joe." Made for $1.1 million, the film grossed $27 million at the box office, plus earnings in excess of $2.65 million in the foreign market, $4.75 million from television, and $2.5 million from video. Reviews were mostly positive. Gentry's song recounts the day when Billie Joe McAllister committed suicide by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge on Choctaw Ridge, Mississippi. When Gentry discussed the screenplay with Raucher, she explained she did not know why the real person who inspired the character of Billie Joe had killed himself. Raucher thus had a free hand to pick a reason. His novelization of the story, published the year of the film's release as a movie tie-in, used the same rationale for the suicide. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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