Unseen Tom Petty Film by Cameron Crowe Uncovered! Plus, Top LA Movies This Week!

Hey there, I’m Mark Olsen. Join me once again as we delve into the world of truly exceptional films.

Earlier this week, I found myself at a 30-year commemorative screening of the film “Speed”, hosted by Beyond Fest at the Egyptian Theatre. The evening’s highlight was a Q&A session featuring the movie’s stars, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, and its director, Jan de Bont. This marked the first occasion that the trio had publicly discussed the film in front of a live audience.

The atmosphere was electric, with the audience’s anticipation reaching fever pitch at the prospect of witnessing two of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors — who owe a significant part of their stardom to this very film — share their experiences after the screening.

The Q&A did not disappoint. Bullock and Reeves captivated the audience, with De Bont injecting the same offbeat energy that characterized the film itself.

Bullock revealed she had actually obtained a Santa Monica bus driver’s license, despite not being the one to drive the movie’s iconic bus.

Bullock reminisced, “I was technically in control of the bus, but there was always someone else actually driving — either from the back or even from the roof. I was basically being steered into whatever Jan decided I should be crashing into that day.”

Being an enthusiastic supporter of Dennis Hopper, I was thrilled when the discussion turned to reflect on the actor, who played the film’s unhinged bomber villain in an unforgettable performance.

Speaking of Hopper, Reeves commented, “He’s extraordinarily talented, undeniably charismatic, and fully dedicated.”

De Bont chimed in, “And he’s also a bit eccentric.”

“Absolutely,” Reeves agreed with an exhilarated chuckle. “And while we say he’s a bit eccentric, he’s a consummate professional. Absolutely professional. We had some absurdly funny lines, and it was just fantastic.”

Bullock added, “I was taken aback by how — I dislike this term — but normal he was. He might have seemed strange to you guys, but to me, he was very kind.”

Then Bullock reflected, “He was a man who simply couldn’t get enough. Life was moving too quickly, and he just craved more and more from it.”

Cameron Crowe looks back at his Tom Petty ‘Beach Party’

As part of the promotional activities for a special edition of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1982 album “Long After Dark,” the Petty Legacy archives are also bringing out the lost film “Tom Petty: Heartbreakers Beach Party,” which was aired only once, on MTV in February 1983. The film will be shown in theaters on Oct. 17 and 20, with a release on Paramount+ expected sometime in the coming year.

Journalist-turned-director Cameron Crowe, in collaboration with Doug Dowdle and Phil Savenick, directed the “Beach Party” project, marking Crowe’s directorial debut. At the time, Crowe was best known for his reporting work for Rolling Stone. He had just started his screenwriting career with “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and would later create acclaimed films like the Oscar-winning “Jerry Maguire” and “Almost Famous.”

The film captures Petty and the band during a transitional phase, evolving from a young, eager group hungry for touring to seasoned professionals settling into the long journey of their careers. One of the interviews with Petty takes place in a limousine cruising the streets of Los Angeles, and while it is meant as a nod to rock star clichés, there is also a hint of apprehension about it, as if asking: “Is this really who I am?”

Other highlights include concert footage from L.A.’s intimate Whisky a Go Go and the massive US Festival, Petty at home with just a guitar talking through his writing process, and a recording session with Stevie Nicks for the hit duet “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”

In a recent interview, Crowe recalled a transformative moment with Petty on a bus to the video shoot for the song “You Got Lucky.”

“He said, ‘Here, I got something I wanna play — you get a camera,’” Crowe told me. “And I’m like, ‘I’m just a writer. I’m not a director. And he’s like, ‘Pick up the camera, turn it on, let’s go.’ And so he performed that song ‘I’m Stupid’ into the camera, and it was such an energizing moment for me because there’s no intermediary, there’s no me going home into a room to write about the experience. It’s like: There he is doing it for you, the profiler, right there.

“And then we cut the shot and he said, ‘Congratulations, you’re a director.’ And I’ve never gotten over that thrill,” said Crowe.

Crowe also mentioned that while he had initially been excited about some of the more conventional interview moments in the film, it was Petty himself who gave the film the energy that made it unique.

“I was thrilled because there he is with a guitar showing us how he wrote ‘The Waiting’ and ‘American Girl.’ This is front-row fan stuff,” said Crowe. “But Tom saw it and he said, ‘How can we make this more of like a joint passed among friends? Let’s create an experience where you can just feel what it is to be a fan of this band and to be in the band.’ And that was an insightful note.”

Petty took a camera crew with him on a tour of Europe, capturing some barn-burning performance footage, evocative moments with the band and one mishap that would actually influence one of the most famous scenes in “This Is Spinal Tap.” After a show in Germany, the Heartbreakers were led to the wrong dressing room backstage and had to find their way to where they were supposed to be. Through a network of friends and family, footage of the moment made its way to the creative team behind “Spinal Tap” (which would not be released until 1984), inspiring the famed scene where the band can’t find the stage.

The 20 minutes or so of bonus material that has been added to the end of the hour-long “Beach Party,” includes recent footage of Crowe talking with Adria Petty, Tom Petty’s daughter, who initiated the project to restore the film. But among the restored outtakes is also a moment that has always remained close to Crowe’s heart.

On the bus, Petty began singing Elvis Presley songs, a shared passion between Petty and Crowe. Horsing around, absentmindedly strumming and singing, Petty shifted and began performing the 1961 song “His Latest Flame” with a startlingly vivid emotional clarity that seemed to presage some of Petty’s own revelatory future work.

“That stayed with me for many years because this was an outtake and I didn’t have a copy of it even, I just had this memory,” said Crowe. “He starts playing ‘His Latest Flame’ and it’s not a joke. He loves that song. It’s just him on guitar. He’s singing it to the camera and we’re not doing kitsch stuff suddenly. And it’s him investing kind of a romantic personal spirit to this song.

“This guy is sprouting wings that even he is new to. And I feel it every time I see that sequence,” said Crowe. “My favorite thing of being able to put this out in any form is that we got ‘His Latest Flame’ out there. To me, it was the spirit of all to come.”

The film truly captures Petty and the Heartbreakers as a cohesive unit, playing together on stage, hanging out off stage, and embodying that street-gang, band-of-brothers vibe that makes a rock band a unique coalition of personalities.

Crowe paused for a moment as he began to recall an interaction with musician and producer Robbie Robertson, a former member of the group the Band, not long after the making of the “Beach Party” film.

“I think at this point in history, it’s OK to tell tales semi-out-of-school,” said Crowe, “but Robbie Robertson was talking to some people and he’s saying, ‘I did this track with Tom. When’s he gonna leave that band? When’s he gonna just go solo?’ And I remember standing there and thinking like, Oh wow, this is when Rod Stewart leaves the Faces. This is when they come to the crossroads and they go for the solo career.

“And I knew standing there having made the film that Tom was never gonna leave that band. That band is the superpower,” said Crowe. “They are brothers and whatever happens with this guy, it’s gonna come from that brotherhood and stay within the spirit of the brotherhood. And it wouldn’t take a genius to feel that way if you’ve been around them.

“But it did make me think that within the so-called business, the corporate world of how do we maximize our investment in Tom Petty — who’s on the cover of Rolling Stone, not the whole band — it’s like, do we separate this guy from the band? And the answer is absolutely not. And he knew it and he was able to, of course, do both. And that took courage. And these are the questions I know he’s facing at the time of the making of the film.”

Crowe also reflected on what it has been like to revisit this earliest chapter from his own career as a director.

“Everyone who made that film was being free with their best instincts,” he said. “And it just reminded me that being free with your instincts is your voice. And the movie is a little bit about that creative voice in Petty.”

Points of interest

Tarsem’s ‘The Fall’ in 4K

The 4K restoration of Tarsem’s 2006 film “The Fall” is hitting theaters starting Oct 15. Set in 1915, the narrative follows a hospitalized Hollywood stuntman (Lee Pace) into an opioid-induced fantasy of heroism. (I believe that’s the most accurate way to describe it.)

Tarsem had previously directed notable music videos for the likes of R.E.M., as well as the Jennifer Lopez feature “The Cell.” On making the risky “The Fall,” he said to The Times’ Patrick Goldstein, “This is an obsession I wish I hadn’t had. It was just something I needed to exorcise. You have to make your personal films when you’re still young. I knew if I didn’t do it now, it would never happen.”

The movie was not well received when it was released, but has since picked up a cult fandom overwhelmed by its epic visuals and lush beauty. Among those who did not like the film at the time was me. As I wrote in a review for The Times, “Like De Chirico does MTV in the ‘80s, his ideas of what constitutes ‘artful’ — mostly consisting of slo-mo, tableau framing, strange costumes and a romanticized exoticism — seem at best encased in amber and at worst completely regressive. For a film that wants to present itself as extravagantly dazzling, there is something thuddingly familiar and bland in its vision.”

I know, I know, that sounds pretty brutal, but I am actually considering giving this re-release a shot, considering how many people have been captivated by the film in the years since.

Rita Moreno and ‘West Side Story’ in 70mm

This Thursday, the Academy Museum will be screening Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ 1961 adaptation of “West Side Story” in 70mm with actor Rita Moreno in person for a pre-show conversation about her life and career. Moreno, one of the rare EGOT winners, also appeared in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 version of “West Side Story.

The Times’ original review of Wise and Robbins’ film (by critic Philip K. Scheuer) noted, “As one who had seen the play, I experienced, again, all my original amazement at the intricacy and artfulness of Jerome Robbins’ gravity-defying choreography — but this was still ‘theater.’ …I daresay most spectators will also find the pull of this film irresistible. The hardest problem faced by its adapters must have been one of intangibles — how to make an essentially ballet-opera form believable as realistic cinema — and they have all but licked it.”

‘The Cruise’ restored

“The Cruise” documentary has been remastered for its 25th anniversary and is returning to theaters. Opening this week in New York, the film will play at the Los Feliz 3 on Oct. 19, with director Bennett Miller in attendance. “The Cruise” is a key example of the potential of early digital filmmaking and marked the directorial debut of Miller, who would later receive two Oscar nominations for directing for the films “Capote” and “Foxcatcher.”

The film is a portrait of Timothy “Speed” Levitch, who transformed the job of tour bus guide into something far more poetic and philosophical with his psychedelic speaking style, unique banter, and deep knowledge of New York City’s esoteric history.

In a 1998 review, Kevin Thomas wrote, “[Levitch] sees the tour as no less than a metaphor for the journey through life and views his relationship to Manhattan and the universe itself in exuberant, cosmic terms. … With his film ‘The Cruise,’ documentarian Bennett Miller not only takes us along on Levitch’s bus tours and his strolls through the city but also celebrates Levitch’s brave spirit, his determined assertion of individuality and self-worth in the face of poverty, loneliness and his family’s disappointment in him. At the same time, ‘The Cruise’ is a paean to the glories of the city that Levitch views as a living organism, to which his relationship is in constant flux.”