| Pure Country | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Christopher Cain |
| Produced by | Jerry Weintraub |
| Written by | Rex McGee |
| Starring | George Strait Lesley Ann Warren Isabel Glasser Kyle Chandler |
| Music by | Steve Dorff |
| Cinematography | Richard Bowen |
| Editing by | Jack Hofstra |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | October 23, 1992 |
| Running time | 112 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $15,164,458[1] |
Pure Country is a 1992 American dramatic musical western film directed by Christopher Cain. The film stars George Strait in his acting debut with Lesley Ann Warren, Isabel Glasser and Kyle Chandler. The film was considered a box office bomb, however the soundtrack was a critical success and to date Strait's best selling album. The film was followed by a sequel in 2010 titled Pure Country 2: The Gift.
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Wyatt "Dusty" Chandler (George Strait) is one of the hottest performers in country music. Dusty feels that his elaborate stage show is overwhelming his music, a suspicion confirmed one night when he purposely forgets several bars of a chart-topping hit and his fans don't even notice. Disillusioned, Dusty walks off after the concert without telling his manager, Lula (Lesley Ann Warren). The only person he tells is his best buddy and drummer, Earl (John Doe), and that he's taking a break, but he doesn't say where he's going or for how long. After shaving his beard and cutting off his ponytail, Dusty heads for the small farm town where he grew up, visiting his wise old grandmother (Molly McClure) and ending up at the ranch of the Tucker family, where nobody recognizes him. He stays on at the ranch, paying room and board and taking roping lessons, all the while earning the respect of owner Ernest (Rory Calhoun) and falling in love with Ernest's daughter, Harley (Isabel Glasser), a woman determined to save the struggling spread with victory in a Las Vegas rodeo. When Dusty learns that Lula has secretly replaced him onstage with her boyfriend, Buddy Jackson (Kyle Chandler), dressed like Dusty and lip-syncing to a recording of Dusty, he returns to the stage. He demands that his stage shows be toned down, without all the smoke and elaborate light show of which he had grown weary. His first appearance after his "vacation" is in Las Vegas at the same time as the rodeo Harley Tucker is competing in. He writes a special love song just for her and arranges for her and her family to have front row seats to the concert. True to his wishes, he does the show without all the hoopla and sits on the edge of the stage - playing and singing "I Cross My Heart", which wins him Harley's love.
Pure Country was filmed in 1991 throughout Texas, but mostly in Maypearl. The graveyard scene was shot at Cresson Cemetery in Cresson, Texas, and the concert sequences were filmed at concert venues in Fort Worth, including Will Rogers Coliseum.
Despite Strait's super-star status in the music world, Pure Country only grossed just over $15 million at the box office. Although the expectations had been higher for his first major film role, this did not stop the soundtrack album from becoming the best-selling of Strait's career to date.[2]
A sequel to Pure Country, Pure Country 2: The Gift was released on October 15, 2010.[3] George Strait appears as himself, but will not be the central character of the film. The sequel has no storyline connection to the original, and instead focuses on a young woman's struggles to become a country singer with Strait in a more limited role.
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