Crazy in Alabama (1999)

It's clear why Melanie Griffith saw Mark Childress's bestselling book, Crazy in Alabama, as the perfect vehicle for herself. The role of Lucille, a beautiful, battered wife in rural Alabama who dreams of glamorous movie stardom, is tailor-made for her. Griffith's husband, Antonio Banderas, has done quite a respectable job guiding her in this, his directorial debut; her performance--compelling, funny, and warm--is her best since Something Wild. (She also looks simply smashing.)

Otherwise, the film is a curious amalgam of genres: an antic, surreal Southern Gothic comedy combined with a deadly serious civil rights parable. As the movie opens, in the summer of 1965, Lucille (Griffith) has just murdered her abusive husband and is blowing town for Hollywood with his head in a Tupperware container. Scenes of her wacky cross-country road trip are interspersed with incidents back in Alabama involving clashes between protesting blacks and murderously intolerant whites. One can't imagine how these two seemingly disparate narrative lines will come together, but they do, in a surprisingly effective manner. The moral of both stories turns out to be: "You can bury freedom, but you can't kill it." Stand-out performances by Robert Wagner, as Lucille's Hollywood agent; Rod Steiger, as a quirky Southern judge; Meat Loaf, as a brutal, bigoted Southern sheriff; and Lucas Black (Sling Blade) as Lucille's highly principled young nephew, give the film an additional boost. --Laura Mirsky Amazon.com

A good yarn

This is a surprisingly entertaining movie. I had never seen or heard of it before. Melanie Griffiths, who plays Lucille, is superb as the aspiring starlet who admits to killing her husband and then runs off to conquer Hollywood with her husband's head in a hat box. Back at home Lucas Black (Slingblade),her nephew, narrates how is life is in Alabama. The movie flips from her life on the run, and the boy's life back home. Meatloaf plays a racist cop to perfection as is the time of civil rights and segregation - a time of change. This movie takes life and makes it larger than life. It is a comedy, but it is also poignant and politically enlightening. When Lucille is eventually brought home to face justice after finding stardom on Bewitched, she meets the judge played by Rod Steiger. This is where reality flies out of the window and the story reminds us of those old black n' white 1930s movies where the heroine charms the court and escapes real justice. This is a movie that should have received more acclaim. November 23, 2007

Crazy behind the camera in Southern fried soap opera

Whatever became of It "Working Girl" Melanie Griffith,who defeated her rival Sigourney Weaver and won the heart of Harrison Ford? She married the younger Antonio Banderas,who decided to direct her as a quirky killer housewife turned Hollywood diva.

"Crazy in Alabama" is a bizarre blend of two stories-a housewife who killed her husband&flees to Hollywood,and that of a young Southern boy who is a witness to racial tensions and participates in the civil rights struggle of the '60s. The stories could've been melded well;instead,there is a constant,choppy bouncing between them.The voice-overs of the housewife (Griffith) and the boy (Lucas Black) are intrusive,an excuse for the director to tell instead of show.It's also heavy-handed. The housewife also carries her husband's head in a hatbox for most of the movie--which doesn't make sense. It's never explained why she's dragging the evidence of her murder everywhere she goes. The young boy's interracial friendship-and his growing maturity-could have been touching.His story is more compelling;Lucas Black is a talented young actor.He's convincing in his character's growth. There are excuses for celebrity cameos from Meat Loaf,Robert Wagner,George Foreman and Rod Steiger;but it doesn't further the movie. Melanie Griffith isn't convincing as an abused housewife or a mother of a large family;she's barely shown with her children,and there's no emotional connection. Instead,she plays a Southern belle Auntie Mame;campy,a drama queen,all glitter without substance.

"Crazy in Alabama" has only two redeeming points-the soundtrack is wonderful and the civil rights plot,while good,could've been handled better. As Antonio Banderas' directing debut,it's no wonder he now only promotes his perfume/cologne line and voices Puss in Boots for the Shrek movies. July 11, 2007

For the love of Melanie

Melanie Griffith is one of the biggest stars in the late 80's and early '90's, and her stardom has faded a bit in recent years. Although I really was impressed by her early work in Working Girls, it wasn't until I saw this film when I was swept away by her multi-layered performance that was funny, campy, and melodramatic. For a low-key period piece, she's the reason to see it.
Melanie plays a house wife raising 7 children under the roof of house dominated by her sexually, verbally, and physically abusive husband. She's had enough, so she cut his off and headed for Hollywood to pursue her acting career, leaving her kids and friends behind in Alabama. She carried his dead husband's head in a big hat box along for the ride. The police are trying to track her down.
She landed a gig in a TV show and became a big star over night. It's hard to believe that happened so easily. Everyone saw her on TV including the cops. A black boy was killed by a white boy accidently in Alabama and it was a huge racism scanddal. Melanie got arrested and was sent back to Alabama. Everyone treated her like a star when she arrived.
The courtroom scene was the climatic part of the film when Melanie gets to tell her story as a victim of abuse and trying to win the simpathy of the jury. I was so moved by this scene, and Melanie commands absolute attention, because she's very real and powerful emotionally. Whether she was released or sent to jail, you are just going to have to watch it.
It was obvious that Melanie gave her all to the direction of her husband/Antonio Banderas' debut. This is a must see for Melanie Griffith fans! November 3, 2004

Crazy in Alabama - One of my favourite movies

"Crazy in Alabama" is one of the best films I've ever seen, combines with great ability two different stories, one of Civil Rights and other about Lucille, who killed her husband , put his head into a bag and went to Hollywood to become a TV star.
I think Antonio Banderas directed this film perfectly and Melanie Griffith does one of her best movies.
I watch this movie from time to time and I really enjoy it, the music is beautiful.
I'm expecting your next movie Antonio! June 23, 2003

Good performances can't save choppy film

The DVD included an interview with director Antonio Banderas. I mention this because he introduced some of the movie's out takes. In doing so, he said that the original rough cut ran three and a half hours and that cutting it to its present length was very difficult. I am of the 'shorter is better' film school, but, in this case, I would be curious to see the long version. I suspect that Carzy in Alabama's heart wound up on the cutting room floor.

In the movie, as in the book, thirteen-year old Peejoe [Lucas Black] narrates two stories. These are two life-altering events that happened to him in his hometown of Industry, Alabama in 1965. One is about about how his Aunt Lucille [Melanie Griffith] kills her abusive husband with rat posioning, parks her seven kids with her mother and drives to California to be a star. The other concerns his witnessing the killing of a young black boy by the local sheriff during a sit-in at a local public swimming pool. Both stories are about the high price of freedom.

Carzy in Alabama is very professionally done. It's equal parts sweet and bitter-sweet. The bad thing is that it also has very little substance. Imagine that you are driving down a long, tree-lined driveway. You arrive at a large, beautiful house. You are impressed by your surroundings. You enter the house, which is beautifully decorated, except for one glaring detail - there are no furnishings. You find there are not even any clothes in the closets. That's what movies such as Crazy in Alabama are like. Impressive looking yet sadly empty.

This hollowness is not the fault of the actors. What we see of them is quite good. I suspect that the only way to really judge their performance would be to see the rest of the footage. There is a scene during Lucille's trial where she points at a woman in the gallery. She says that she knew all along that this woman, her best friend, had been having an affair with her now dead husband. As if to prove the point, the woman flees the court room in tears. The problem with this scene is that it's the first and last time the audience sees Lucille's best friend. So, the moment lacks impact. I can't blame Banderas. In fact, he seems to have had little problem in directing the cast or in supervising the photography. I can't point the finger at the book's author, because I haven't read it. There is only one place I can lay the blame. The movie's distributor was afraid to release a three-hour version of a film that wasn't very commercial to begin with. [You can tell when a studio has a problem picture when the trailers have virtually nothing to do with the storyline.] I believe that, if you know you are going to lose your investment, why does it matter how long the product runs? Isn't getting praise from a limited audience some kind of consolation?

Because it is so badly edited, Crazy in Alabama is unable to tell either of its two stories well. You don't get enough background to relate to Lucille's insisting she had no other option than to kill her husband. She comes across as self-centered, which surely was not the movie's intent. The civil rights story has the picture's most moving and dramatically interesting moments, but this tale gets quitely put in a corner about three-fourths of the way through. March 20, 2002

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