I HAVE JUST WATCHED THE FILM FOR THE SECOND TIME. THE FIRST WAS PROBS 4/5 YEARS AGO AND ALTHOUGH I WAS A FAN I DID'NT FOR WHAT EVER REASON DIG IT. BOUGHT THE FILM IN A RECORD FAIR FOR £2. YES £2.
TAKE IT FOR WHAT IT IS. THE FLICK IS FUNNY AND I FORGOT HOW BRILLIANT THE MUSIC IS.

THE MUSIC THAT DID NOT MAKE IT ON TO ALBUM ARE AMONG THE STRONGEST TRACKS. E.G. THE HONEST MAN PIANO SEGEMENT AT THE START OF THE FILM AND THE BACKGROUND MUSIC IN THE DANCING SCENE, WERE OUR HERO FRONTS WITH THE JIBE "CABBAGE HEAD". A POSITIVE FEEL GOOD MOVIE CANT UNDERSTAND THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS. PS I WAS ONLY 8 WHEN THE FILM WAS FIRST RELEASED. PEACE.

I remember seeing this film in a movie theatre a week after it came out.There were only about 5 other people in the theatre besides me! Nevertheless,I enjoyed the film.It's campy and alot of fun.There are many hilarious scenes.

yo dave, good to hear from u. listening to parade live at the moment at work. Absolutely brilliant, the break after 'I wonder U' gets me every time. "we are young and we are funky, if u hear any noise its just me and the boys".
prince-files

THEBUNNYMEN said:

The plot isn't up to much, and it is difficult to empathise significantly with the (fairly two-dimensional) characters and the situation they find themselves in - factors which, if done well, go to help make a great 'feel good' movie.

The decision to film in black and white doesn't add anything to whatever the film was trying to achieve. Suggestions that, by doing this, the film was trying to capture, or pay homage to, a period comedy genre are either misplaced, or the idea fails.

I remember seeing it on first release. The audience laughed at the ladder scene, but also laughed (and groaned)at the mediocrity of the work.

They also laughed at "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Gone with the Wind".

Now I'm not saying "Cherry Moon" is in the same category, but wait a few decades and someone will be praising the uniqueness of this film.

used to have a vhs copy of this. hadn't watched for like 6-8 yrs until i saw it recently on satellite [starz!] and i still like it.

but i take into acct that i'm a prince fan w/ some appreciation for prince humour. i think the film works more for fans than the average daily movie reviewer.

I aggree with Langeblu. The plot wasn't much, and the characters were 2 dimentional.But...


Prince has a sick sense of humor and that's what made the movie for me. It was the first time he really revealed that side of himself. The jokes cracked me up.

Other than that, it was a pretty weak movie.

But nowhere near as bad a Graffiti Bridge!

I remember seeing the film in the theater. It was the first time I ever saw anyone actually get up and leave in the middle of the movie. However, I have always found it funny and entertaining.

I agree that it is probably more amusing to Prince fans (who are at least willing to give the movie the benefit of the doubt) than to the average viewer. It is a very bad movie, but that is what campy is all about, right?

I must admit that one of my favorite moments in film is in this movie:

Christopher: I love U
Marie: No. No you don't.
Christopher: Fine. Then I hate U.
Marie: No. No U don't.
Christopher: Fine. Then I love U.
Marie: Prove it.
INTRO TO "KISS"

I agree with those of you who say that this film is more geared towards Prince fans than the average movie-goer.I think 'Purple Rain' was obviously meant to be more of a "mainstream" film,designed for mass appeal.'Cherry Moon' was clearly for the diehards,who could understand and appreciate it more than the fickle,mainstream fans could.

And yes,it is a much better movie than 'Graffiti Bridge'.

Also I agree that ppl into Prince will probably get into this more than ppl that aren't.

Personally, I think he looks like a damn outright hornbag in this film. His eyes are so beautiful and sexy!

Going now... to wipe up excess moisture pouring over my chin.

Glad this post caused some debate. Check out the Parade live stuff that is floating round on the net. Some hot shit.
Responding to the last post. Prince does look street in under a cherry moon and i am a hot blooded man.

Don't twist it I said don't twist it. peace

Looks like u are asking for that 1 to be twisted...

So, u fancy him, is that it??!?!!

I said don't twist it. The mans cool he has a style that is rare. A funky mix of all his heroes. Sly, Brown Hendrix, Clinton, maybe not Clinton. Aint seen no huge space ships on stage recently at any prince gigs. Hey is that u in the picture or mayte if its U 'LOOKIN GOOD'.

Don't twist it, I said don't twist it.

langebleu said:

Actually, UTCM was originally filmed in COLOR. The decision to print the master in B&W wasn’t made until later.

Eleventeen said:

Sorry - my mistake.

THEBUNNYMEN said:

Its me indeed. Thanx.

There are times I'll pull that movie out and watch it every other day.
1. Prince looks delicious
2. The Music kicks azz (even those in the theater not feeling the movie started dancing in their seats to KISS)
3. Prince looks delicious
4. I actually dug the simple plot - Love or Money? Which would U choose?
5. Prince looks delicious
6. Very Romantic (the choice of B&W added old school elegance IMO)
7. Prince looks DEEELICIOUSSS
That stated, think I'll take it in this weekend. Thanx 4 the reminder.
PEACE

DavidEye said:

I must be the only person who digs Graffiti Bridge

How Cherry Moon could have been great:
1) Have all of the Revolution in the movie as themselves. Make it so the band in Purple Rain moved to France and are now a big deal. Lisa and Wendy fans were screwed. Have Prince just be 'the Kid', not fucking 'Christopher Tracy'.
2) Use the music from 'The Family' like 'High Fashion', 'Nothing Compares to U' and 'Desire'. The film needed more hits, less (admittedly excellent) experimental shit.
3) Much, much more dancing and performing. This is from P.'s peak era as a dancer (as someone once said, 'like Nijinsky with his ass on fire') yet the film was all talky bullshit.
4) More SEX. A major sex scene with Kristin Scott Thomas.

Whadya reckon?

Somebody above said that UTCM would be a rediscovered gem in the future. Well, as you can see from this Salon.com review, the re-evaluation has already begun.

Peace, David

---

Salon.com
Sept. 29, 1998
Home Movies by Charles Taylor

A.F.R.O.-.Deco -- Prince's unfairly maligned second film mixes swank screwball comedy with uptown sass.

The luxurious settings of 1930s movies were less the province of the characters who could afford them than the ones who knew how to have the most fun. For all their art-deco elegance, the comedies and musicals of the era were populated by the sort of earthy performers you wouldn't expect to find on the social register. Cruising through the plush, satiny settings with an air of cheerful disrespect, Mae West, Jean Harlow, Ginger Rogers and others kept all the wealth on display from seeming like just cold cash. In contrast to stiff swells determined to be tastefully discreet about their bucks, the wisecracking stars most popular with Depression audiences acted out an unabashed fantasy of finding yourself in the chips.

A gloss on '30s movies that combines lowdown comedy with high-fashion style, Prince's "Under the Cherry Moon" (1986) was not what anybody expected as a follow-up to the hit "Purple Rain," although it's a much more enjoyable movie. "Under the Cherry Moon" isn't in the same class as "Top Hat," "She Done Him Wrong" or "Dinner at Eight," but Prince captures the essence of '30s comedies better than any of the directors (from Peter Bogdanovich to Woody Allen) who have slavishly imitated them. The movie has a casual, tossed-off approach and an air of impudent swank. If Becky Johnston's script proceeds more by flourishes than plot development, she still includes plenty of snappy repartee. And Prince was lucky enough to have the benefit of Richard Sylbert's production design and Michael Ballhaus' cinematography, which bring the lush, silvery look of '30s movies into the age of Versace and rock 'n' roll.

When Prince appeared in the early '80s, the essence of his appeal lay in the way his outrageously sexual image flouted the new conservatism of American society (it was a Prince song that prompted a shocked Tipper Gore to found the Parents Music Resource Center). Every enjoyable movie fantasy is rooted in some emotional or cultural reality, and here that reality is the Reagan era, with its agenda of relegating wealth and privilege to a chosen few. But, in place of speechifying, the movie's cultural nose-thumbing expresses itself as a dedication to the principle of fun.

"Under the Cherry Moon" is a fantasia of what might have happened if blacks in classic Hollywood comedy hadn't been relegated to playing maids and bellhops. Prince and the gifted and debonair Jerome Benton (he was Morris Day's sidekick in "Purple Rain") play a pair of gigolos loose on the French Riviera and insinuating themselves into the playground of rich whites. The sassiness of Mae West and Jean Harlow here translates into the jivey put-ons of a pair of slick black hustlers. As Christopher and his partner Tricky, Prince and Benton are something like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby doing Amos and Andy. (And if you know Amos and Andy only in disrepute, you probably don't know about the program's clever, punning verbal humor, like the great line "I not only denies the allegation, but I resents the allegator!") The difference is, Prince and Benton are nobody's patsies. Everyone who deals with them winds up feeling three steps behind, just as the poor straights who tried to have a conversation with Groucho or Chico did. When their landlady (the comely Emannuelle Sallet) tells them that Tricky's charms will no longer suffice to pay the rent, the two of them sink to their knees and become a pair of po' little orphan boys, begging not to get thrown out in the cold, mean streets.

Prince and Benton's antics are a form of subversive blackface. In the '20s and '30s, rich New York whites headed to Harlem for what they regarded as chic slumming. In "Under the Cherry Moon," the slums make house calls on the Vanity Fair set. Throughout the movie, whenever Prince wants to bait stuffy white people (or just have a little fun), he abandons his natural sexy speaking voice for a high-pitched black dialect. In one scene Christopher and Tricky, dining in a fancy restaurant with a tycoon's daughter (Kristin Scott Thomas, in her movie debut) they've set their sights on, make her read a phrase they've written out: "Wrecka Stow." To the pair's whooping delight, Thomas (who, with her tart comic delivery is as game as she is beautiful) pronounces it in her flawless English accent, and when she demands to know what it means, they tell her, "If you wanted to buy a Sam Cooke album, where would you go?"

Maybe because his sexuality had been the subject of speculation, Prince makes a grand joke out of his doe-eyed swanning. Wittily costumed in a series of ensembles that includes high-heeled boots, cut-to-the-waist jackets, beaded bandannas and skin-tight sequined pants, he asks the camera to drink in every primped and pomaded inch. At one point he sits in the bathtub wearing a bolero hat while Benton showers rose petals on him. The two of them conduct their partnership as an endless round of flirtations and flare-ups (too good-spirited to be homophobic), even falling into a couple of eye-flashing clinches. (The real drama queen here is Steven Berkoff, in one of his reliably disgraceful performances, as Scott Thomas' father. He makes his entrance in a white suit leading a big trophy dog on a leash and greets his daughter with a mincing, "Hello Kitten, how's the prettiest girl on the Côte d'Azur?" Oh, Mary!) But when he wants to be, Prince is an ace seducer. The movie's sexiest scene comes when he and Scott Thomas are talking on the phone, lying on their respective beds, not doing much more than listening to each other's breathing. And when he takes her to his seaside grotto, there's a lovely superimposed shot where the two of them appear to be making love inside her outstretched hand.

The bad buzz about "Under the Cherry Moon" began a week into the shoot when Prince fired director Mary Lambert (who had made a name directing videos for Madonna) and took over. His direction is a little all over the place. At times he seems to have gotten swept up in the movie's party escapades and the parade of scenemakers floating by the camera. The big set piece, Scott Thomas' birthday garden party, captures the slightly tipsy feel that pervades the film. But sometimes it's as important for a director to provide the right spirit as it is to be precise, and the most important thing to Prince here seems to be to keep us entertained. The stylish, slightly unsteady whirl of "Under the Cherry Moon" is like watching a '30s movie while slipping into an afternoon nap and having it become part of your dreams. It doesn't even wreck the fun when Prince moves from comedy to romantic melodrama in the last half-hour: His dreams just seem to have led him into another movie. And the comic tone is restored in the number ("Mountains") that ends the picture: Prince and the Revolution performing the song direct from heaven. Life is a parade, Christopher says. So's the movie. Prince wants to ride atop the float, receiving the crowd's adulation, but he's also larking about down in the street, happy to be one of the clowns.

I love this movie!!! One of the funniest! My boyfriend first introduced me to it because it has always been one of his favorites, he watches it often. I never heard of it because I didn't know Prince had another movie after Purple Rain. Ever since then, his treasure became mine also.
[This message was edited Fri May 31 20:39:30 PDT 2002 by purpleleaf7]

Two thumbs up!!

Thanks livewire for the interesting review. I always thought this movie was beautiful and funny --- a nice tip of the hat to 30s era movies.

I never liked Kristin Scott Thomas though. Didn't feel any chemistry between her and Prince in the movie. I always wondered how she was cast for this part. Anyone know?

Get the flamers out because many will not get this but here goes...

The reason that this movie was panned was because the MEDIA starmakers wanted to get PRINCE period. It was their revenge for the whole WE ARE THE WORLD episode.Another reason was the interracial romance that even today is taboo.(Unless it's a Black woman with a White man.)

I love the movie .It's not the greatest movie ever but it didnt deserve a minus 1 star that Ive seen given to it.Dick Tracy was given 4/5 stars by critics and it was horrible.

Just remember the STAR machine that is the media can make you or break you.