Thanks to HMV's 3 for £20 sale I finally caught up with SPARKLE, a film I had been wanting to see for years as it was never released in the UK. Filmed in 1976 it's obviously been released by Warner Brothers on the back of the DREAMGIRLS success and you can see why with it's basic premise of three black girls in a singing group who meet heartbreak and success in equal measure as well as the score featuring songs by Curtis Mayfield.
The trouble is that SPARKLE... um... doesn't.

The late 50s: Sister (Lonette McKee), Sparkle (Irene Cara) and Delores (Dwan Smith) - their mother Effie (Mary Alice) obviously ran out of Ss - are living in Harlem. Two male friends from their church choir - Stix (Philip Michael Thomas) and Levi (Dorian Harewood) - ask them to join them singing in a doowop group. They win talent shows but get no further. When Levi leaves to work for Satin (Tony King) the neighbourhood crime lord, Stix decides to drop out too and manage the girls as a three piece Sister And The Sisters. Soon they are headlining at a fancy club and obvious success beckons. Sparkle and Stix start a relationship but when Sister falls for the sadistic Satin she soon goes from headlining to mainlining. She stumbles out of the group and their home. Delores, tipping off the police in the hope of getting Satin caught dealing drugs, instead causes Levi to be arrested and sent to jail. She too disappears to escape Satin's clutches. Stix breaks Sparkle's heart when he too leaves New York. Sister dies of a drug overdose, Stix returns and wins Sparkle back, promising to make her a star. Borrowing money from the Jewish 'businessman' who Effie cleans for, they get a hit record and a supporting spot to Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall. But when the 'Businessman' wants more than just his investment returned Stix says no. Sparkle goes onstage not knowing Stix has been kidnapped by hoodlums. Refusing to sign over Sparkle's record contract to the mob even at gunpoint... they let him go!! He rushes back to Carnegie Hall to see Sparkle wow the audience. Slow curtain, The End.

Now that's a lot of hare-brained plot for a 98 minute movie. You would think whoever came up with that story would never work again. Step forward Joel Schumacher who went on to direct ST ELMO'S FIRE, THE LOST BOYS, FLATLINERS, BATMAN FOREVER, BATMAN AND ROBIN, PHONE BOOTH and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. However SPARKLE is directed by noted editor Sam O'Steen who is so busy cramming the story in he neglects giving any of the characters a reason for doing what they do or any sense of dramatic tension. It's flat, clunky 'tv' movie look - not sure if this is the fault of the original film or the dvd transfer - doesn't even allow it to be ushered into the shrieking halls of Camp. Sadly the absurd ending with Stix being released from the Mob with them shaking their head going "Tsk that guy eh?" robs the film of any credibility.

The cast fare little better and none more so than Lonette McKee as Sister. She is never less than watchable, bristling and firey - what a CARMEN JONES she would have made - she exudes star quality and her sudden disappearance from the film is completely baffling. Irene Cara plays Sparkle and as likeable as she is, her character is so milquetoast you wonder why they didn't stop mid-filming, rewrite the script and call it SISTER! To show how lazy the filmmakers are: Stix goes to see Sparkle after the funeral and tells her he wants to make her a star because she has a different style to Sister - Sparkle, still furious he left her, angrily throws him out saying "No one understood her like I did". This throws you completely as there is no scene of them alone together!! It's all the more frustrating as Irene Cara plays the scene exquisitely. Dwan Smith as Delores has a good screen presence but is also jettisoned too early from the film. Mary Alice as the girls' mother is quietly effective as well.

I think the reason the film is remembered at all today is because of it's score. One of several film scores by Curtis Mayfield, the film never had a proper film soundtrack album. Instead Mayfield produced Aretha Franklin singing over the existing music tracks and this was then released by Atlantic as a solo album. The most famous song is SOMETHING HE CAN FEEL which reached #1 on the RnB chart and #28 on the pop charts. In 1992 En Vogue had a Top 10 hit both here and the US with it and it again was a #1 hit on the RnB chart.

But typically with this damn film, as good as the songs are they don't seem to fit the period that the film is set in. The song LOOK INTO YOUR HEART which allegedly catapults Sparkle to fame would never have been a hit in the early 1960s as it's too sophisticated a sound.