Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean was written by Ed Graczyk and directed by him on stage at the Player's Theater in Columbus, Ohio in 1976. The play, and movie, concern the story of a group of James Dean fans, The Disciples of James Dean, who meet on the twentieth anniversary of the death of James Dean. They come together, as the title suggests, at a five and dime where some of them used to work in a small Texas town a few miles outside of Marfa, where the James Dean classic, Giant, was filmed. One of the fans even had a part as an extra in the filming of Giant, or so she says. The fan club had one male member, Joe, who surprises the rest of the fans by arriving, in 1975, transformed through a sex change operation into Joanne. The story takes the friends back and forth in time as they tell their stories and come to grips with who they are, what the made of themselves, and what their futures hold.
Ed Graczyk got the inspiration to write the play years earlier while working at a community theater in Texas. He went out to Marfa one day and saw the old, battered, and worn down façade of the ranch used in the making of the movie Giant. Barely standing and supported by rotting telephone poles, the isolation, loneliness, and dying past on display before him, contrasted with the community around it, led him to write a play about characters connected, however tenuously, to that decaying monument and the memory of James Dean.
Robert Altman had both an interest in James Dean and the theater which led him to helm the play's eventual Broadway production. Altman had worked on a documentary about Dean back in 1957, The James Dean Story, in which still photographs were used with pans and zooms, an effect later made famous by Ken Burns. The documentary examined Dean's life a mere two years after his death and, in many ways, Graczyk's play examined his death two decades later by examining the effect it had on his fans and their lives. The play and movie aren't actually about Dean, of course, but his present is felt throughout. Altman was very interested in exploring the lives of lonely individuals in an isolated environment, both geographically, in a desolate and remote area of Texas, and architecturally, within the confines of the five and dime that represents their work, home, and common ground.
The casting of the play and movie, since the casts overlapped, was instrumental to its success. The great Tony and Oscar winning actress Sandy Dennis took on the central role while Altman found someone unlikely as the character that acts as an anchor for the others, Sissy. He had planned on going with Shelley Duvall, an actress he had worked with before but when Cher expressed interest in the play, he told her to read for it. Cher wasn't known as an actress yet, still thought of primarily as one half of the famous singing/variety show duo Sonny and Cher. After she read for it, Altman was convinced he'd found his Sissy and cast her in the role. Later, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for it and her illustrious, and eventual Oscar winning career as an actress, was off to a fantastic start.
The play and movie also touched on themes of youth and regret. Dealing with this in flashbacks, Altman chose to have the actors, without any makeup or costume changes, simply revert to playing themselves younger for the flashback scenes. While that seems confusing, it is handled expertly by Altman and his cinematographer, Pierre Mignot, with surprising success. The only character that does actually change for the flashbacks is Joe/Joanne, played by Mark Patton as a young man in the flashbacks and Karen Black as an adult woman in the present day.
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean wasn't the success Altman hoped it would be, either on stage or film. The low budget film, mainly distributed into art house cinemas, got a tepid response from some, like Vincent Canby in The New York Times, and raves from others, like Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times. Altman thought it was his best work and in many ways, it just may be. Certainly, it's a different work for Altman. Gone are the familiar scenes of overlapping dialogue and multiple, shifting points of view with characters drifting in and out of the plot. Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is more rooted in dramatic monologues than overlapping dialogues but, like most Altman, it challenges and illuminates rather than plays for the easy connections. Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean meets the viewer halfway because, like all Altman, it expects the viewer to complete the journey. And when the viewer does, Altman , as always, provides a rewarding destination.
By Greg Ferrara
