The one thing that the Derek Malcolm list threw up, or rather didn’t was his own personal favourites, we can all rave about Touch Of Evil, Tokyo Story or Shoah, but what about those films that we would dearly like to take with us to a desert island and to my least favourite decade of all time (although that might now have been over taken by the 00s) – The 1980s, not that I minded living through the 80s, it was just the worst decade of film. I suppose we had been spoilt in the 70s, but how did films like Crocodile Dundee, Three Men & A Baby and The Goonies ever get made! It seemed that all the great films of the 80s were from directors who made their name in the 70s or earlier ET, Raging Bull, Hannah & Her Sisters, Blue Velvet, Once Upon A Time In America, Wings Of Desire etc so for me, this was a breath of fresh air when I saw it at the end of the decade.
A bored house wife becomes obsessed by the personal ads in the paper and longs to meet Susan, by an accident she looses her memory and thinks she is Susan. A film that made the most of it’s supporting star (Madonna) who recorded the title song (never released), but it was her Demo of “Into The Groove” that was eventually used in the film and gave her . Rosanna Arquette won the BAFTA for her role as Roberta Glass and the same year she made After Hours with Martin Scorsese, but it flopped and she decided to only make one film a year after that, they have been a bit hit and miss, Pulp Fiction and Crash being the highlights. It is a shame Madonna didn’t give up on her film career, would anybody really want to sit through “Who’s That Girl, Swept Away or The Next Big Thing once never mind again!
Susan Seidelman never went on to make another big film (in fact she directed the pilot and several episodes of “Sex & The City”), but I thought this gave two great female strong performances and that was the only great thing of the 80s (think “The Terminator”, “Aliens”, “The Witches Of Eastwick” etc).
A Wonderful film.
US Premiere 29/03/1985 UK Premiere 06/09/1985 DF Viewing 03/01/1989
The Dirk Malcolm Alternative 
Finally watched this film last night after years of listening to Dom’s appreciation of it. It’s an old fashioned ‘screw-ball’ romantic comedy set in the 80s. Dom’s right about the leads,their performances are spot on, Madonna seems accessible in this, she is too big of a pop star to be anything other than Madonna in the later film (surprised that Body of Evidence was missed off her list of crimes).
It features the staple of 80s US cinema ‘the tit flash’ on a couple of occasions, maybe to entertain the male audiences, because what is remarkable about this film is that it is about young women FOR young women and they are not a sector that is presently well served by cinema.
I enjoyed the film a great deal and would recommend.
Minus points for using amnesia as a narrative device.
I’d forgotten about that …
(cymbal)
Congratulations on your news Andy.
Thanks Dirk.