Ode to Billy Joe (film)
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Ode to Billy Joe is a 1976 film with a screenplay by Herman Raucher adapted from his own novel, which in turn was based on the 1967 hit song by Bobbie Gentry, also titled "Ode to Billie Joe" (note different spelling).
The film was directed and produced by Max Baer, Jr. (of The Beverly Hillbillies fame as Jethro Bodine) and stars Robby Benson and Glynnis O'Connor. Made for US$1.1 million, it grossed US$27,000,000 at the box-office, plus earnings in excess of US$2.65 million in the foreign market, US$4.75 million from television, and US$2.5 million from video.
[edit] Plot
Gentry's song recounts the night of June 3 1953, when Billie Joe McAllister committed suicide by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge on Choctaw Ridge, Mississippi. When Gentry and Raucher got together to work on the screenplay, she explained that while the song was based on an actual event, she had no idea why the real person characterised as "Billie Joe" had killed himself. Raucher thus had a free hand to pick one.
The film explores the budding relationship between McAllister (Benson) and Bobbie Lee Hartley (O'Connor), who corresponds to the unnamed narrator of the original song. Hartley and McAllister struggle to form a relationship despite resistance from Hartley's family, who contend she is too young to date. They develop the relationship, despite the odds in their way. One night at a party, however, McAllister gets drunk. In his inebriated state, he makes love to another man dressed in drag, though later he reveals he knew what he was doing. He bids an enigmatical goodbye to Hartley. Overcome with guilt, McAllister subsequently kills himself by jumping off the bridge spanning the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.
Throughout the film Hartley voices her concerns that she will always remain a child, until she throws her ragdoll from the bridge, marking the point at which she begins moving towards adulthood. This also explains the other enigma of the song, where the object thrown from the bridge remains a mystery.
