Brenda Starr

**Brenda Starr** is a 1989 American adventure\romantic comedy film directed by Robert Ellis Miller which was first released in France on May 15, 1989 and in the United States on April 15, 1992 by Triumph Releasing Corporation.

Although the film was shot in 1986, it wasn't released for three years due to issues over distribution rights.

## Plot

Comic book artist Mike Randall is struggling with his "Brenda Starr" comic strip. When Brenda comes to life in the strip and realizes how unappreciated she is by Mike, she leaves the strip. In order to keep his job, Mike draws himself into the comic strip and enters Brenda's world.

## Cast

* Brooke Shields as Brenda Starr
* Tony Peck as Mike Randall
* Timothy Dalton as Basil St. John
* Diana Scarwid as Libby Lipscomb
* Nestor Serrano as Jose
* Jeffrey Tambor as Vladimir
* June Gable as Luba
* Charles Durning as Francis I. Livright
* Kathleen Wilhoite as Hank O'Hare
* John Short as "Pesky" Miller
* Eddie Albert as Police Chief Maloney
* Mark von Holstein as Donovan O'Shea
* Henry Gibson as Professor Gerhardt Von Kreutzer

## Distribution issues

"Brenda Starr" was filmed in 1986 and was originally planned to be released in 1987.

By May of 1987, Myron Hyman and Phil Issacs (representing Mystery Man Productions) began distribution negotiations with New World Pictures. Executive Bob Cheren later testified that Hyman said "all rights" to the film were available and a deal was arranged.

New World Pictures wanted to cash in on the fact that Timothy Dalton had been cast as James Bond and the impending surge in comic-book movies such as "Batman" and "Dick Tracy."

The film was meant to open theatrically in January 1988; however, Sheik Abdul Aziz al Ibrahim decided that he wanted a new deal. According to Hyman: *"They (the Ibrahim people) just didn't understand the movie business. They looked at it like real estate or something."*

One of Ibrahim's representatives said that their client was *"prepared to keep the film on a shelf and watch it in the desert on Saturday nights"* if he could not have the kind of distribution deal he wanted.

Mystery Man Productions kept the film's negative locked up, claiming that New World Pictures had not signed a contract.

New World then discovered that Tribune (the company who owned the "Brenda Starr" comic) claimed to hold all television rights to Brenda Starr which meant that they couldn't make money on a television sale.

On July 10, 1987, Tribune notified New World Pictures that the distribution deal was *"unacceptable"* and Mystery Man Productions pulled out of the deal. In September of that same year, New World Pictures sued Tomorrow, Mystery Man and the film's sales agents, claiming fraud, breach of contract and civil conspiracy. Mystery Man sought to block New World from distributing "Brenda Starr."

In December of 1987, Brooke Shields' mother, Teri said: *"I feel the film's not ready to be released. They need about $60,000 more to re-edit."* Teri was also unhappy with the billing, saying: *"Brooke's name is not on top and it's supposed to be. That's in our contract."*

New World Pictures sold "Brenda Starr" to countries such as Zambia, Japan, Belgium, Colombia, Norway and Swaizland. In February of 1989, New World Pictures were bought by Pathe for $189 million.

In January of 1990, AM-PM Productions brought the rights to "Brenda Starr." According to a representative: *"We saw the picture as definitely a Cinderella story. It's sweet, cute, adorable and charming. These are not words Hollywood likes to use."*

AM-PM Productions cut the film's running time from 108 minutes to 90 minutes. A new release date was set to be released in North America on June 7, 1991 with Triumph Releasing Corporation distributing it. It wasn't until 1992 that the film was released.

## Box Office

"Brenda Starr" was a box office bomb, grossing $30,035 at the box office. Overall, the film grossed only $67,878 worldwide on an estimated budget of $16,000,000. It was pulled from theaters shortly after its release.

## Critical Reception

Entertainment Weekly gave "Brenda Starr" an "F" grade, saying that the title character *"comes off as a giggly (if spectacularly elongated) high school princess"', adding that the film is* "so flaccid and cheap-looking, so ineptly pieced together, that it verges on the avant-garde. I suspect they won't even like it in France."

Peter Travers from Rolling Stone magazine said: *"There's been so much negative insider buzz about Brooke's 'Brenda' that you might be harboring a hope that the damned thing turned out all right. Get over it. Brenda Starr is not as bad as the also-rans that Hollywood traditionally dumps on us before Labor Day... it's a heap*
worse."

The New York Times wrote: *"This would-be comic romp is badly dated in several conspicuous ways. Its cold war villains are embarrassingly outre (even allowing for the film's 1940's look, in keeping with the peak popularity of Brenda Starr as a comic strip heroine). And its narrow view of the comic strip's screen possibilities, in the wake of such visually ambitious projects as "Batman" and "Dick Tracy," is similarly outmoded."*

Pamela Bruce from the Austin Chronicle said: *" "After gathering dust for five years, some studio executive decided that there just isn't enough dreck in the world and decided to unleash Brenda Starr upon us poor, unsuspecting mortals."*

Stephen Hunter from the Baltimore Sun wrote: *"The movie means to unspool in that zone of fable where irony meets camp; but it's too leaden for that. It bumbles along like Tinker Bell on steroids, charmless, clumsy and awesomely stupid."*

The Los Angeles Times said that the film *"runs out of gas around the first half-hour mark, lapsing into an ever-increasing tedium."*

Bill Kelley from the South Florida Sun Sentinel wrote: *"It's like a bad, over-the- top 1940s radio serial that not only must be heard, but seen as well."*

TV Guide Magazine said: *"The screenplay is a total mess, trying to maintain a comic-strip feel while also poking fun at the conventions of the form, and Robert Ellis Miller's direction is strained in its attempts at comedy and simply inept in the action scenes."*