Movie Music Archives #020: “Author, Author”

Plot outline: While facing the stress of his play being produced on Broadway, a playwright (Al Pacino) deals with having to raise his sons, his stepdaughters and his sons’ friend.

I’m gonna guess that Pacino’s agent, after having his client star in the ultra-lurid “Cruising”, thought it best for Al’s career if the actor were to suddenly leap from exploitation to family-friendly fare. Whatever the case may be, “Author, Author” is the height of ’80s cinematic banality, and Pacino’s participation in it is more shocking than anything shown on-screen during “Cruising”. The greatest insult may be the film’s end credits song, “Coming Home To You”, which is “sung” by Michael Franks; upon listening to this song, you get the distinct impression that Mr. Franks had never uttered a note in his life before stepping in front of the mic to record it, for it is just a wretched, wretched performance. The lyrics don’t help, either. I do enjoy those wildly out-of-place disco drum pad noises that wander in from time to time, though –

Author, Author - “Coming Home To You” (MP3)

9 Responses to “Movie Music Archives #020: “Author, Author””

  1. FrF Says:

    I don’t know…To me the song sounds not half as atrocious as Bret makes it out to be. Sure, Michael Franks’ performance (especially during the verses) treads a fine line between tendernesss and being too subdued but overall it’s lightweight snappy “stuff”, finetuned to appeal to a family market (as probably the movie it belongs to also was).

    The song was composed by ultra-pro Dave Grusin, btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Grusin

    And the NYT is nice and has an article about the movie and its writer Israel Horowitz in its free archives:

    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07EFD7123BF931A35754C0A964948260

  2. andrew Says:

    it fun ending they cut that ending .
    of the kids cakeing , him .
    play good music .on the sax
    champine
    then the cake comes.right in the face
    the kids celberite that he made it fanily.

  3. ANDREW Says:

    it was a funny moive i like the cake ending with the kids doing the cake .in the face it show that thing are back to normal and he dont need his wife to help . him.

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