Songwriter

Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson bring a lot of lived experience to this comedy/drama about two friends and former bandmates navigating the music industry. Nelson plays country western singer Doc Jenkins, caught in a legal entanglement with a Nashville gangster (Vanishing Point director Richard C. Sarafian in a terrifically sinister turn). Sarafian's Rodeo Rocky owns the rights to all of Doc's songs and collects all the money from his sales and performances. To get even, Doc retires from the road and becomes the producer of his former bandmate, Blackie Buck (Kristofferson).

The situation is drawn loosely from Willie Nelson's life, career, and financial difficulties, but typical of the iconic singer's easygoing style, it never feels bitter or self-pitying. Rather, the movie makes light of the fact that many music stars, artists, and creatives are not great at business. Kristofferson plays his usual charming, laid-back, mildly drunk and irresponsible persona but always straight-shooting and gentlemanly screen persona. Melinda Dillon plays Doc's ex-wife, Honey Carder, a great singer herself before retiring after they had kids. She creates a realistic and sympathetic portrait of a road musician's ex that we rarely see on screen. Rip Torn is lots of fun as blowhard promoter Dino McLeish.

The film was produced by Sydney Pollack (his first credit as producer only on a movie) and written by Texas-based journalist, sportswriter, novelist, biographer, and screenwriter Bud Shrake. The original director, Steve Rash (The Buddy Holly Story, Under the Rainbow, Can't Buy Me Love), left the project right before production started, and Alan Rudolph was brought in at the last minute to take over the picture. This was right before Rudolph's breakthrough movie Choose Me came out, but it's possible he got the job because of Choose Me star Lesley Ann Warren. She co-stars here as Gilda, a singer Doc takes on as an additional client to ghost-write his songs as a way for him to keep the money they generate. While the project may not have originated with Rudolf, it turned out to be a good fit for his style and approach to filmmaking. Like many of his pictures, it meanders from beat to beat, character to character, unconcerned with maintaining much narrative drive, which matches Nelson and Kristofferson's singing style and the late-night vibe of the music showcased in the film.