Blue Velvet
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
David Lynch
Kyle Maclachlan
Laura Dern
Dennis Hopper
Isabella Rossellini
Hope Lange
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
David Lynch is at his creepy best with this erotic murder mystery! Kyle McLachlan stars as a happy, small-town guy on the straight-and-narrow.until he discovers a human ear in the middle of a field. His investigation into the origin of the ear leads him into a strange world populated by a bizarre, drug-addicted sadist and twisted nightclub singer. Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini co-star.
Director
David Lynch
Cast
Kyle Maclachlan
Laura Dern
Dennis Hopper
Isabella Rossellini
Hope Lange
Dean Stockwell
George Dickerson
Priscilla Pointer
Frances Bay
Jack Harvey
Ken Stovitz
Brad Dourif
Jack Nance
J Michael Hunter
Dick Green
Fred Pickler
Philip Markert
Leonard Watkins
Moses Gibson
Selden Smith
Peter Carew
Jon Jon Snipes
Angelo Badalamenti
Jean Pierre Vaile
Donald Moore
A Michelle Depland
Michelle Sasser
Katie Reid
Chris Isaak
Crew
Alan Abrams
Mark Adler
Michael Anderson
Michael Anderson
Morris Atkins
Angelo Badalamenti
Angelo Badalamenti
Angelo Badalamenti
Sandina Bailo-lape
John Bankson
Celia Claire Barnes
Reginald Barnes
Donah Bassett
Frank Behnke
John Berbeck
Brian Berdan
Mark Berger
Todd Boekelheide
David Boushey
Peter Braatz
Jock Brandis
Mary Bridges
Karen A Brocco
Edward Brown
Shaw Burney
Robert Burton
Billy Butler
Fred Caruso
Patti Clark
Kathryn Colbert
Tim Craig
Julee Cruise
Donne Daniels
Catherine Davis
Mark Shane Davis
Sarah Christine Davis
Steve Day
Monte Dhoge
Bill Doggett
Bill Doggett
Lex Du Pont
Duwayne Dunham
Doug Durose
Fred Elmes
Frank Eulner
Tim Farrow
Mark Fincannon
Mark Fincannon
Roe Fonvielle
Rob Fruchtman
Vivien Hillgrove Gilliam
Jeff Goodwin
Cindy J Gray
Austin Gross
Mike Hall
Vernon Harrell
Vernon Harrell
Doug Hersh
Edward Heyman
George Hill
Patricia Hill
Robert G Hoelen
Neil Holcomb
Greg Hull
Richard Hyams
Pat Jackson
Cynthia Jarose
Dean Jones
Michael William Katz
Gail M Kearns
Robert Kearns
Ross Kolman
Ann Kroeber
A. Welch Lambeth
Richard Langdon
Sherrie Ann Langdon
Gloria Laughride
Kitty Lester
Kathi Levine
Tantar Leviseur
Henry Earl Lewis
Tanya Lowe
Rita M Lucibello
David Lynch
David Lynch
Jennifer Lynch
Joe C Maxwell
John W Mceuen
Loren Mcnamara
Loren Mcnamara
Umberto Montiroli
Patrick Moriarty
John Morris
Lee Morris
Dean Mumford
Patricia Norris
John Nutt
Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Barbara Page
David Parker
Les Pendelton
Pamela Rack Guest
Ellen Rauch
Isabella Rossellini
Richard Roth
Sarah Rothenberg
David Rudd
Roger Russ
David Salamone
Page Sartorius
Debra Schuckman
Clifford Scott
Paul Sebastian
Paul Sebastian
Dawn Serody
Jonathan P Shaw
Dennis Shelton
Shep Shepherd
Michael Silvers
Alan Splet
Ken Sprunt
Tony Stephens
Rina Sternfeld
Rina Sternfeld-allon
Rev. David Strong
Mary Sweeney
Robert Testerman
Dennie Thorpe
James R Tomaro
Steve Venetis
Tim Viereck
Bobby Vinton
Arron Waitz
Arron Waitz
Bernie Wayne
John Wentworth
Doug White
Doug White
John Wildermuth
Frank Williams
Frank Williams
Jeffrey A. Williams
Ian Foster Woolf
Jay Yawler
Victor Young
Videos
Movie Clip
Film Details
Technical Specs
Award Nominations
Best Director
Articles
The Gist (Blue Velvet) - THE GIST
If Blue Velvet's answer to Michael and Jane Banks is its young adult protagonists Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan, the boy hero of Dune, Lynch's 1984 adaptation of the classic Frank Herbert novel) and Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), then its Mary Poppins is the villain of the piece, Frank Booth. As played by Dennis Hopper, Frank is, for all his profanity, brutality, nitrous oxide abuse and predilection for cheap beer, a mentor to Jeffrey. It is Frank who takes Jeffrey and Sandy through the figurative sidewalk chalk to the other side of dreamland. It is Frank who (like Mary) propels the story both by commission (his various crimes, among them homicide, rape and dope peddling) and omission (the dropping of clues for Jeffrey to follow like bread crumbs). It is Frank who gets Jeffrey dirty (as Mary Poppins and her confederate Bert the chimney sweep did for Michael and Jane) and in so doing makes a man of him. One of many iconic moments from Blue Velvet finds Jeffrey concealed inside a walk-in closet, peeking through the slats of the louvered door, to witness Frank brutalizing Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), a nightclub singer whose husband and child he holds hostage. Apart from its folkloric resonance, the image of Jeffrey spying on this primal scene recalls the voyeurism of Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). Kyle MacLachlan even bears a passing resemblance to Anthony Perkins, while Blue Velvet suggests, with its marriage of the saccharine and the sick, that madness is more than just a sometimes thing.
Just as Psycho had polarized audiences and critics at the time of its release so did Blue Velvet, which also has become a cult classic, if not an outright American classic. Like so many other classics, the whole thing might just as easily never have come together. Smarting from the box office failure of Dune, producer Dino De Laurentiis pulled the plug on Blue Velvet's original January 1985 start date. Lynch had already begun casting when he was given the ultimatum to cut the budget or see the project die on the stalk. Slashing his own salary and getting his actors to work at just above union scale, Lynch cut thirty percent out of the budget and got cameras rolling on Blue Velvet that summer. Recently rehabilitated from decades of alcohol and substance abuse, Dennis Hopper was risky casting as Frank Booth. Lynch had in fact wanted to use British actor Steven Berkoff, at the time a familiar villainous face from such films as Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985). Lynch had also wanted Helen Mirren for Dorothy Vallens and only met with Isabella Rossellini because she had just worked with Mirren in White Nights (1985) and Lynch hoped the ex-model would put in a good word for him. Val Kilmer also reportedly turned down the chance to play Jeffrey in Blue Velvet. It's difficult to imagine Blue Velvet being as memorable as it remains a quarter century after the fact if even one of these casting decisions had come to fruition.
Blue Velvet was shot on location in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, where the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group had been headquartered since the 1970s. To keep costs down, standing locations were used as settings in the film. Arlene's Restaurant, the small town diner where Jeffrey and Sandy discuss the abiding mystery, was in reality the storefront office of New Hanover Human Resources. Both the Wilmington Police Department and New Hanover High School contributed cameos, more or less playing themselves, while Market Street's Carolina Apartments stood in for Dorothy Vallens' creepy walk-up. Scenes involving Sandy's home were filmed at a two-storey Tudor dwelling located at 128 Northern Boulevard in nearby Sunset Park, North Carolina. Shooting there displaced the Spencer family for forty-six days and concluded with the scene in which a nude and gibbering Dorothy Vallens stumbles out of the shadows into Jeffrey's arms to the mutual horror of several witnesses. Interviewed after the completion of principal photography, the Spencer family matriarch stated that she didn't regret their decision to allow filming in their home but that they wouldn't do it again "unless the filmmaker were Disney."
Producers: Fred Caruso, Richard Roth
Director: David Lynch
Screenplay: David Lynch
Cinematography: Frederick Elmes
Production Design: Patricia Norris
Music: Angelo Badalamenti
Film Editing: Duwayne Dunham
Cast: Isabella Rossellini (Dorothy Vallens), Kyle Maclachlan (Jeffrey Beaumont), Dennis Hopper (Frank Booth), Laura Dern (Sandy Williams), Hope Lange (Mrs. Williams), Dean Stockwell (Ben), George Dickerson (Detective Williams), Priscilla Pointer (Mrs. Beaumont).
C-120m.
by Richard Harland Smith
Sources:
Lynch on Lynch, Chris Rodley (editor)
David Lynch by Kenneth C. Kaheta
The Impossible David Lynch by Todd McGowan
"That Damnable Robotic Robin," by Marty Garner, Wrapped in Plastic, Vol. 1, No. 27, 1997
The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, http://www.movie-locations.com
The Gist (Blue Velvet) - THE GIST
Blue Velvet
If Blue Velvet's answer to Michael and Jane Banks is its young adult protagonists Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan, the boy hero of Dune, Lynch's 1984 adaptation of the classic Frank Herbert novel) and Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), then its Mary Poppins is the villain of the piece, Frank Booth. As played by Dennis Hopper, Frank is, for all his profanity, brutality, nitrous oxide abuse and predilection for cheap beer, a mentor to Jeffrey. It is Frank who takes Jeffrey and Sandy through the figurative sidewalk chalk to the other side of dreamland. It is Frank who (like Mary) propels the story both by commission (his various crimes, among them homicide, rape and dope peddling) and omission (the dropping of clues for Jeffrey to follow like bread crumbs). It is Frank who gets Jeffrey dirty (as Mary Poppins and her confederate Bert the chimney sweep did for Michael and Jane) and in so doing makes a man of him. One of many iconic moments from Blue Velvet finds Jeffrey concealed inside a walk-in closet, peeking through the slats of the louvered door, to witness Frank brutalizing Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), a nightclub singer whose husband and child he holds hostage. Apart from its folkloric resonance, the image of Jeffrey spying on this primal scene recalls the voyeurism of Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). Kyle MacLachlan even bears a passing resemblance to Anthony Perkins, while Blue Velvet suggests, with its marriage of the saccharine and the sick, that madness is more than just a sometimes thing.
Just as Psycho had polarized audiences and critics at the time of its release so did Blue Velvet, which also has become a cult classic, if not an outright American classic. Like so many other classics, the whole thing might just as easily never have come together. Smarting from the box office failure of Dune, producer Dino De Laurentiis pulled the plug on Blue Velvet's original January 1985 start date. Lynch had already begun casting when he was given the ultimatum to cut the budget or see the project die on the stalk. Slashing his own salary and getting his actors to work at just above union scale, Lynch cut thirty percent out of the budget and got cameras rolling on Blue Velvet that summer. Recently rehabilitated from decades of alcohol and substance abuse, Dennis Hopper was risky casting as Frank Booth. Lynch had in fact wanted to use British actor Steven Berkoff, at the time a familiar villainous face from such films as Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985). Lynch had also wanted Helen Mirren for Dorothy Vallens and only met with Isabella Rossellini because she had just worked with Mirren in White Nights (1985) and Lynch hoped the ex-model would put in a good word for him. Val Kilmer also reportedly turned down the chance to play Jeffrey in Blue Velvet. It's difficult to imagine Blue Velvet being as memorable as it remains a quarter century after the fact if even one of these casting decisions had come to fruition.
Blue Velvet was shot on location in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, where the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group had been headquartered since the 1970s. To keep costs down, standing locations were used as settings in the film. Arlene's Restaurant, the small town diner where Jeffrey and Sandy discuss the abiding mystery, was in reality the storefront office of New Hanover Human Resources. Both the Wilmington Police Department and New Hanover High School contributed cameos, more or less playing themselves, while Market Street's Carolina Apartments stood in for Dorothy Vallens' creepy walk-up. Scenes involving Sandy's home were filmed at a two-storey Tudor dwelling located at 128 Northern Boulevard in nearby Sunset Park, North Carolina. Shooting there displaced the Spencer family for forty-six days and concluded with the scene in which a nude and gibbering Dorothy Vallens stumbles out of the shadows into Jeffrey's arms to the mutual horror of several witnesses. Interviewed after the completion of principal photography, the Spencer family matriarch stated that she didn't regret their decision to allow filming in their home but that they wouldn't do it again "unless the filmmaker were Disney."
Producers: Fred Caruso, Richard Roth
Director: David Lynch
Screenplay: David Lynch
Cinematography: Frederick Elmes
Production Design: Patricia Norris
Music: Angelo Badalamenti
Film Editing: Duwayne Dunham
Cast: Isabella Rossellini (Dorothy Vallens), Kyle Maclachlan (Jeffrey Beaumont), Dennis Hopper (Frank Booth), Laura Dern (Sandy Williams), Hope Lange (Mrs. Williams), Dean Stockwell (Ben), George Dickerson (Detective Williams), Priscilla Pointer (Mrs. Beaumont).
C-120m.
by Richard Harland Smith
Sources:
Lynch on Lynch, Chris Rodley (editor)
David Lynch by Kenneth C. Kaheta
The Impossible David Lynch by Todd McGowan
"That Damnable Robotic Robin," by Marty Garner, Wrapped in Plastic, Vol. 1, No. 27, 1997
The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, http://www.movie-locations.com
Blue Velvet
Quotes
Trivia
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States Fall September 19, 1986
Released in United States August 30, 1986
Released in United States August 1997
Released in United States June 2007
Shown at Montreal World Film Festival August 30, 1986.
Shown at Locarno International Film Festival (50 Years of American Film) August 6-16, 1997.
Shown at CineVegas Film Festival (Area 52) June 8-16, 2007.
Began shooting August 19, 1985.
Re-released in United Kingdom December 14, 2001.
Released in United States Fall September 19, 1986
Released in United States August 30, 1986 (Shown at Montreal World Film Festival August 30, 1986.)
Released in United States August 1997 (Shown at Locarno International Film Festival (50 Years of American Film) August 6-16, 1997.)
Released in United States June 2007 (Shown at CineVegas Film Festival (Area 52) June 8-16, 2007.)
Voted Best Picture of the Year (1986) by the National Society of Film Critics.