Steven Berkoff film 1980s-4
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Under the Cherry Moon, the black and white film directed by Prince in 1986 following the success of Purple Rain.
Prince plays Christopher Tracy a gigolo.
Steven Berkoff plays Mr Sharon a rich criminal with the expensive house, dogs, wife, daughter and minders. Berkoff got the part when Terence Stamp walked off. Stamp had the judgement, Berkoff got the money.
Prince falls for Sharon's daughter Mary- Kristin Scott Thomas in her debut film. The father disapproves and it does not end well.
Prince's death scene- death by over-acting.
As the film progresses the acting gets worse, presumably as everyone lost interest. The film is so bad, it ends with an up-skirt shot. Alexendra Stewart playing the wife would next do Sins, also with Berkoff. Other actors Sam Karman and Victor Spinetti would also be back shortly with Berkoff in Sins and The Krays respectively. The film editor is credited as Rebecca Ross (some sites such as imdb.com add Éva Gárdos) and the director of photography is Michael Ballhaus (imdb states he was also uncredited co-director). "Taking advantage of the power he possessed at this time in Hollywood, he used it to produce and make his directorial debut with 'Under the Cherry Moon' (1986), one of the strangest and craziest movies of its time. It’s a film so utterly defiant of what one might have rightfully expected from a Prince vehicle that even his loyal fans stayed away in droves and it immediately went down in the annals of screen history as a disaster that more or less killed Prince’s viability as a screen icon" (Peter Sobczynski, 4 May 2016 on Roger Ebert website, click here). "The screenplay by Becky Johnston is an adolescent's notion of sophisticated badinage: 'Christopher, do you love me?' 'Define love.' Or, 'He likes to collect things - including people' (Walter Goodman, 3 Jul 1986, New York Times).
All images from the DVD of the film.
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