Ode to Billy Joe (film)

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Ode to Billy Joe
Directed by	Max Baer, Jr.
Produced by	Max Baer, Jr.
Written by	Herman Raucher
Starring	Robby Benson Glynnis O'Connor
Music by	Michel Legrand
Cinematography	Michel Hugo
Editing by	Frank Morriss
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	4 June 1976
Running time	105 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US $1.1 million
IMDb profile

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 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 country jamboree celebration, however, McAllister gets drunk and seems nauseous and confused when entering a makeshift whorehouse behind the gathering (though he doesnt make love with a "drag queen", an odd mistake made by some audience members, her ample breasts show that she is definitely a female).

It turns out that in his inebriated state, he made love to another man who later turns out to be his sawmill boss, Dewey Barksdale (James Best). After disappearing for days, he returns to bid an enigmatical goodbye to Bobbie Lee. Overcome with guilt, McAllister subsequently kills himself by jumping off the bridge spanning the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi. In the film's final scene, Bobbie Lee meets Dewey on the bridge as she is leaving town, and he guiltily confesses to her that he was the man. She insinuates that she has invented a rumor of being pregnant, possibly to counteract town gossip about Billie Joe's homosexuality.

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.