Passing Notes In Fifth Period History Class With Phoebe Cates

I knew a girl in high school named Allyson. We became friends in my senior year, and we would pass notes back in forth in a mind numbingly boring fifth period history class. Allyson played a relatively small role in my life but even now, well over fifteen years since I last saw her, there isn’t a month that goes by where I don’t stop for an instant and think about her and remember those funny little words that passed between us or the way she brightened up that fifth period class on a daily basis.
The film career of Phoebe Cates is a bit like that friendship I had back in high school. It is a relatively minor one, with a small number of films and only a couple of bona fide classics. She never won any awards and has all but completely retired now but something special still remains and, like Allyson, a small secret smile comes across my face when I think of her.

I don’t know a lot about her. I know she is from New York and she is just shy of a decade older than I am. Typically I crave to know the minute details of my favorite film figures but some I just prefer to keep on the screen. Phoebe has always been in that latter category, although of course her reputation as one of Hollywood’s best moms should be mentioned.
After some early commercial and modeling work she made her big screen debut before her twentieth birthday in 1982’s PARADISE. This rather weak little film is made memorable by the breathtaking young sun scorched Cates, and a DVD release would be most welcome.
She would quickly become one of the early eighties most interesting young stars with just her second film, Amy Heckerling’s legendary FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (also from 1982). This Cameron Crowe scripted work remains one of the best high school themed films ever shot and it introduced many film lovers to not only Cates but also Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold, Eric Stoltz,, and Forest Whitaker among others. Cates is delightfully moving in the picture and her scene arising out of the swimming pool in Reinhold’s fantasy is a moment frozen in many film lovers’ dreams. It’s an iconic moment that ranks, for people who grew up with it, with Marlon Brando stripping off his shirt in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE or Marilyn Monroe’s dress blowing up in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH.

Had FAST TIMES RIDGEMONT HIGH done better on its initial release Phoebe Cates could have probably become a huge star, but for two years after she was stuck in mostly youth oriented roles that were a major step backwards from Heckerling’s film. Noel Black’s PRIVATE SCHOOL (1983) certainly has its charms but it hardly broke any new ground for the talented Cates (or its impressive cast which included Betsy Russell, Matthew Modine and Sylvia Kristel), while the less said about her television films like LACE the better.
Phoebe got probably her greatest role though in 1984 with her charming turn as Kate in Joe Dante’s GREMLINS. She oozes charisma and a sexy wholesomeness that hadn’t been seen in American cinema since the early sixties in this role, and I still don’t think I have gotten over seeing her for the first time in this film back when I was eleven during its first release. Her reading of the film’s most controversial scene, where she admits why she hates Christmas, is one of the funniest and most moving sequences from the eighties and is for me the absolute highlight of the film.

Like after FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, the film career of Phoebe Cates should have took off following GREMLINS. She has never been what one would call prolific though and her roles since have been sporadic. She’s added spark to some disappointing films like DATE WITH AN ANGEL (1987) and BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY (1988) and appeared in some good ones like the irresistible SHAG (1989) opposite Bridget Fonda and Dante’s own GREMLINS sequel in this period but she never regained the momentum she had in 1984.

After 1991’s irritating DROP DEAD FRED Phoebe Cates virtually vanished from the screen. Her slight returns have been especially sweet though. 1993’s BODIES, REST AND MOTION is one of the great forgotten films of the nineties, and her work with Bridget Fonda in the film shows her as an actress capable of a lot more depth than probably even her biggest fans had previously recognized. 1994’s PRINCESS CARABOO might not be overwhelmingly noteworthy but Cates is stunning in the film to watch and the fact that it is her last starring role makes it almost haunting.
Phoebe Cates retired from the screen after starring in PRINCESS CARABOO just past the age of thirty to raise her children. She has appeared just once since in a film, 2001’s THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY for her old friend and FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH survivor Jennifer Jason Leigh. Nearing forty in the film, Cates is still breathtaking and for people who grew up with her and Leigh it is something special to see them together again. THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY is a fitting farewell to Cates, it’s a strong and personal film from first time director Leigh and Phoebe delivers a nice low key performance for her.
Occasionally I will do a search for Phoebe Cates to see what she is looking like these days, and pictures of her at Premiere’s with her husband Kevin Kline show her to appear seemingly ageless. Now in her mid forties, she still contains more style, sweetness and natural beauty than most actresses half her age could ever hope to. Whether or not she ever returns to the screen remains to be seen but the small legacy she left us is an endearing and potent one. Much like many of us might never recover from a secret crush or a lost friendship from high school, the film career of Phoebe Cates is not likely to fade anytime soon for people who grew up loving her.

For more on Phoebe please visit this rather wonderful fan site.

Sorry, Your Party is Dead: Jennifer Jason Leigh in Eyes of a Stranger (1980)

Mostly remembered for its terrific Tom Savini makeup effects as well as being the debut feature for the tremendous Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ken Wiederhorn’s The Eyes of a Stranger is at times as generic as its title, but it’s both stylish and entertaining and Slasher enthusiasts should absolutely seek it out.
Wiederhorn has mainly worked in television for the past couple of decades, but genre fans will mostly know him for his strangely effective 1977 debut as a writer and director, Shock Waves, as well as for 1988’s Return of the Living Dead Part II. With Eyes of a Stranger, his one entry in the early eighties Slasher craze, Wiederhorn shows himself as a competent and occasionally stylish director well aware of what genre fans would want from a stalk and slash film in 1980. He also offers up a sly and sometimes surprising tongue-in-cheek attitude in the film as well, as his own Shock Waves is playing on one of the victim’s televisions at one point and one of Savini’s most legendary films, George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, also comes into play during the film.







Scripted by Friday the 13th Veteran Ron Kurtz, with assistance from an Eric L. Bloom, Eyes of a Stranger details a string of bloody murders and rapes by a serial killer, whose hook is a prank phone call before his attacks, and a local female news-anchor who becomes obsessed with stopping him. There’s nothing too out of the ordinary here and Eyes of a Stranger can rightly be looked upon as a hodgepodge of earlier and mostly better Slasher films, but it moves along at a brisk pace and doesn’t outstay its welcome in its 90 minute running time.



















Starring television favorites Lauren Tewes as daring anchorwoman Jane Harris, John DiSanti as the sleazy killer Stanley and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Jane’s blind sister Tracy, Eyes of a Stranger works best when Wiederhorn pulls out all the exploitation stops, as he is unable to build any true tension with the film. Bloody and filled with no small amount of nudity from its attractive cast of victims, Eyes of a Stranger features pretty much every element that Slasher critics love to pick on and, of course, it’s those same elements that has made it a minor fan favorite over the years.











Legendary (yes, I have no problem calling her that) Jennifer Jason Leigh not surprisingly provides the film’s best performance. Just eighteen when she filmed Eyes of a Stranger, Leigh is already showing traces of the qualities that would go on to make her one of the most fearless and consistently brilliant actors of her generation. Eyes of a Stranger might be a minor and not totally successful film but it will always have a place in film history as the big screen introduction to Leigh, who had only appeared in television up to this point.












Jennifer Jason Leigh’s introduction aside, the best thing about Eyes of a Stranger are the bloody make-up effects by Tom Savini. Produced by the company that handled the original Friday the 13th, that Savini had made so memorable, Eyes of a Stranger benefits at every turn due to his involvement. While there is nothing here as groundbreaking or as shocking as Savini’s work on films of the same era like Maniac, The Prowler and The Burning, the effects for Eyes of a Stranger are instantly recognizable and never less than very effective.
Eyes of a Stranger, like many of its Slasher counterparts from the era, was heavily censored upon its release. Missing well over five-minutes of Savin’s unsettling effects, Wiederhorn’s film was extremely neutered for its big-screen run. Once only available in a complete version courtesy of an Australia VHS copy, the current Region 1 DVD from Warner Brothers (part of their Twisted Terror Collection) is thankfully uncut with a fairly solid widescreen transfer that shows off the film's at times very striking cinematography. No extras are offered, but having the cut footage reinstated is honestly extra enough. While far from being one of the great early eighties Slasher film, Eyes of a Stranger is an enjoyably sleazy offering that hits more often than it misses. I dig it.