Line #17 Film/EddieAndTheCruisers


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2	[[caption-width-right:300:[[TallDarkAndHandsome And this is Eddie]].]]
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4	''Eddie and the Cruisers'' is a 1983 American film directed by Martin Davidson with the screenplay written by Martin and Arlene Davidson, based on the novel by P. F. Kluge.
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6	The movie follows a fictional '60s rock band called [[TitleDrop Eddie and the Cruisers]]. The band makes a name for itself while playing regularly at a Somers Point, New Jersey club called Tony Mart's. It is there that they meet Frank Ridgeway (Creator/TomBerenger), whom Eddie Wilson (Creator/MichaelPare) hires to be the band's keyboard player and lyricist. Doc Robbins (Creator/JoePantoliano) and Sal Amato (Creator/MatthewLaurance) are skeptical of hiring Frank, who is not a trained musician or experienced song writer, but Eddie believes that Frank is crucial to the band's development. The movie then continues to detail the rise of band to the top of the charts as well as the lives of the band members involved. When the movie begins in the 1980s, the band's music is experiencing a revival, Eddie has been missing (and presumed dead) for 18 years, and a documentary filmmaker (Creator/EllenBarkin) is looking up the old members.
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8	The film was followed by a sequel, ''Eddie and the Cruisers II: [[SpoilerTitle Eddie Lives!]]'' in 1989.
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10	!!Tropes associated with this work:
11	* AlmightyJanitor: Eddie and the Cruisers met Frank when he was working as a janitor at the bar they used to play. Joann finds out that he's conveniently also an amazing poet and Eddie decides to hire him after reading his poetry.
12	* AnachronismStew: The flashback portion of the story takes place in the early 60s, but their hit sounds an awful lot like [[Music/BruceSpringsteen a certain rocker who was kind of popular at the time of the film's release.]]
13	* TheBandMinusTheFace: Sal was the only original member in a new version of The Cruisers.
14	* BreakoutPopHit: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQ-6IAS1cc On The Dark Side]]" by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.
15	* CaptainErsatz: John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band [[Music/BruceSpringsteen kind of sound familiar, don't they?]]
16	* CoolCar: Eddie's '57 Chevy.
17	* DespairEventHorizon: Eddie, as noted by his choice of titles for his new album's songs.
18	* TheEighties: The movie begins in 1982 and tells The Cruisers' story through flashbacks.
19	* FakeBand: The actors are lip-synching to John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.
20	* FakingTheDead: [[SpoilerTitle On the off chance you were wondering why the sequel is called "Eddie Lives!",]] look no further than the ending of this one...
21	* TheFifties: Even though the movie's flashbacks take place during the early 1960s, the attitudes, clothes, and Eddie's car show that the culture hasn't shifted yet.
22	* {{Flanderization}}: Between the two movies this happens to Eddie.
23	* {{Flashback}}: The book and the film both divide their time between the early 1980s and the heyday of Eddie and the Cruisers in the early years of rock 'n' roll.
24	* IsThatWhatHeToldYou: Frank believed the story that Wendell's [[spoiler: death was a result of a heart attack and not a heroin overdose]] until Sal set him straight.
25	* JerkAss: Eddie has talent, but he can be incredibly insensitive, petty, and dismissive of other people's feelings.
26	* {{Joisey}}
27	* LastNoteNightmare: A Season In Hell. First it's disturbing, then pretty, then the final note hits and it gets really disturbing. Many radio stations edit this part out.
28	* MementoMacGuffin: The master tapes for ''A Season In Hell'' are sentimental to both Joann and Eddie.
29	* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: The flashback scenes include a performance at a small college (unnamed in the book, named Benton in the film) where Frank was briefly a student. The description of the college's location (on a hill near a river in rural Ohio) makes it a clear fictional counterpart of Kenyon College, from which P.F. Kluge graduated in 1964 and at which he taught creative writing for many years.
30	* NewSoundAlbum: The never released ''A Season In Hell'' album.
31	* PopularHistory: Averted. The flashbacks take place in the early 1960s and avoid portraying the era as a free love fest.
32	* PosthumousCharacter: Averted. [[ItWasHisSled Again, if you were wondering about the name of the sequel...]]
33	* PuttingTheBandBackTogether: Doc Robbins suggested this to Frank after hearing that Sal was playing with a new version of The Cruisers.
34	* SettingUpdate: The flashback sections in the book take place in 1957-58, with Eddie portrayed as a doo-wop singer cut from the same cloth as Music/{{Dion}}. For the film, the setting is updated to 1964.
35	* ShoutOut: As noted in the film, ''A Season In Hell'' is a theme album to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Season_in_Hell Arthur Rimbaud's classic work.]]
36	* ShortLivedBigImpact: In-universe. Eddie and the Cruisers as a band is a fictional example.
37	* TheSixties: The early version that came before Vietnam, the Hippies, and Woodstock.
38	* SmallNameBigEgo: Eddie could be accused of this.
39	* SofterAndSlowerCover: Inverted. "Dark Side" was originally written by Frank as a ballad, but Eddie sped it up into a rocker.
40	* SparedByTheAdaptation:
41	** In the book, Eddie is unambiguously dead by the time of the "present day" story. In the film, he is still alive.
42	** An inanimate object example: the tapes that the characters pursue in the book are revealed to include jam sessions with many of the great rock musicians of the era (including Music/BuddyHolly, Music/ElvisPresley, and Music/SamCooke) rather than a NewSoundAlbum; however, Joann finally admits that she erased the tapes after Eddie died. In the film, the tapes haven't been erased and are ultimately edited into a commercial release.
43	* SpoilerTitle: The sequel. At that point, the 1983 film's TwistEnding was [[ItWasHisSled well known.]]
44	* StorefrontTelevisionDisplay: The finale of the film features such a storefront window. And then we're shown the man watching the screen, the supposedly deceased Eddie Wilson.
45	* WhamLine: Eddie and Sal to each other, in-universe:
46	-->''[after the record company has rejected "Season in Hell"]''\
47	'''Sal:''' Eddie, you're wrong! You're wrong! Now listen to me. I love you. I've known you longer than anyone else. But you're ''wrong''. They want "On the Dark Side"! Why are we giving them some damn opera?! I don't even know what you're after!\
48	'''Eddie:''' I want something ''great!'' I want something nobody's ever done before!\
49	'''Sal:''' ''(completely gobsmacked) "Great"?!'' We ain't "great!" We're just some guys from Jersey!

Context Film / EddieAndTheCruisers