WALLPAPER:
MOVIE REVIEW by Lorraine:
This is now very rare but well worth a look at if you can get it.
It is a very unusual and tender love story and one in which the young Jan Michael Vincent excelled.
Set in 1948, Jan Michael Vincent plays Buster, very much in the mould of James Dean …. Very handsome, and broody …. a basically decent young man who is someone to be looked up to by his friends. He tries hard in school, although he hates it, goes to church with his parents, acts tough around his school friends, and works hard on his parent's farm before and after school. He is also dating the prettiest girl in his class. However, Buster is sexually frustrated. His girlfriend whilst happy to go along with some pretty heavy petting in the front seat of his car, will not go any further.
Billie is a somewhat simple girl, from a very poor background with parents who seem not to even know that she is there, and she is known to the other boys in school as a girl who will let them go all the way, and to that end, as a group they use her horribly. Buster realises that if he is ever going to relieve his frustration it will have to be with a girl like Billie, because 'nice girls' just didn't do that kind of thing …. but he is reluctant to join in with the other guys in their group thing. So, with only one thing on his mind, he contrives to ask Billie out on a date, which is a bit uncomfortable because they both know what is really on Buster's mind, but he does at least try to show some interest in Billie before pouncing on her. The story develops with the two of them meeting regularly, and on each occasion, Buster shows a little more compassion toward Billie, treating her more like a date than a sex object, and as in all classic romance tales, these two opposites begin to find love. However, tragedy is not very far away.
Jan Michael Vincent is very good in this well acted period piece and there are some touching scenes between him and Joan Goodfellow who plays Billie …. This is a nice little feel good movie, but the ending is a bit of a surprise, a twist in the tale, which spoils it just a little …. Another surprise is Jan Michael's full frontal nude scene, although done in good taste and in context for a 'skinny dipping' scene, one has to wonder just how comfortable JMV was and how much he needed convincing to do it.
Score out of 10 - 8.
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| BUSTER & BILLIE - 1974 page 4
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PAGE CREATED: 08/14/05 UPDATED: 03/10/13
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