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MOVIE CRITIQUE & SYNOPSIS:
"Beyond the Sea" is another example of a movie that was not very well received by the critics but was enjoyed
immensely by the movie fans. This movie has a surprisingly low, and entirely undeserved, score of 41% on the RottenTomatoes
web site. However, the viewing public's rating of this film is more than double that very low score at a much more favorable
rating of 87%.
In this case, the critics are wrong and the public has gotten it right. For once. While "Beyond the Sea" is
not as good, nor as powerful, as "Ray," it is still a very fine movie and probably would have been much better received
by the nation's film critics had it not come out so soon after "Ray" came out with that movie receiving so much
favorable attention along with the considerable Oscar buzz for the sterling performances of so many of its stars, not the
least of which is that by Jamie Foxx as the blind singer and composer.
Without question, both of these performers were talented singers and musicians, but Bobby Darin is just a singer and a
teenage idol while Ray Charles is a musical genius who excelled in many different musical formats throughout his long and
illustrious life. Whether Darin would have aged as well as Charles is open to question since he died well before his time
at a very youthful age of 37 due to congestive heart failure brought on by his having suffered a case of Rheumatoid Fever
as a young boy.
At 45 years of age, Kevin Spacey is a bit long of tooth to pull off the early scenes where Darin first meets the sixteen
year old Sandra Dee on a film shoot in Italy for the movie, "Come September." However, even then Darin was prematurely
balding. This made him look older than his actual age, so Spacey is still able to pull this off.
He is much more convincing with his singing ability as he even sounds like Bobby Darin used to sound. And as a Broadway
hoofer of considerable experience and talent, Spacey has all the moves of a performer nailed down pat in his portrayal of
this singing legend.
The very young Kate Bosworth is just perfect as the 16 year old starlet and female teenage idol in those faraway times
of great innocence where a sweet and virginal girl next door like Sandra Dee could become a successful movie star without
appalling her fans, and their parents, in public like so many of the young stars today are wont to do. Sandra Dee was already
an established star and teenage idol when the two first met on the movie set in Rome. Knowing her age, which is not mentioned
in the movie, it is a lot easier to understand her mother's futile objections to their marriage.
Dee's idea of a fairy tale marriage was not to be since her husband was a man driven to succeed, a man who always knew
that because of his bad heart the Grim Reaper would never be far away. She wanted to be first in Darin's life, but she was
always second and sometimes even third when his friends from the old neighborhood came over for a party. Darin was right as
the Grim Reaper did finally catch up with him, but his death at age 37 was almost 20 years after the age when he was told
that he would die by his doctors.
So the man with a bum ticker from a lower working class neighborhood in the Bronx married a movie star and settled down
to life in a Hollywood mansion while singing new chart busting songs, performing in Las Vegas, and starring in a few movies
along the way.
Little is shown of his wife's long time battle with the bottle, and the story has it that Dee, who never married again
after her husband passed away, was thrilled when she was recently given a private showing of this film made 31 years after
his death.
Neither is much made of their divorce in 1967 after seven years of marriage and the birth of one son, Dodd. Bobby Darin
went on to marry Andrea Joy Yeager six years later in 1973, the same year he died after a heart operation.
Another interesting factual tidbit found on IMDB is that Bobby Darin initially fell in love with another famous young
singer of that era, Connie Francis, but her father chased Darin away with a gun. Their brief love affair occurred in 1952
when they appeared together in a television episode of "This is Your Life." This episode about American Bandstand
impresario, Dick Clark, was also devoted to pop singers and both young stars played themselves. Connie Francis later admitted
in an interview that not marrying Bobby Darin was one of the biggest mistakes that she had ever made in her life. Of course,
once again her father's ire is understandable as she was only 14 years old at the time.
Another point of great interest and awesome sadness is that Bobby Darin and Jack Nicholson share the same shocking past
in that both had a horrible revelation about their true parentage, a revelation that was not known to either of them until
they were well into their adult years.
Bobby Darin was 32 years old at the time when he found out that his sister was really his mother and that she had him
out of wedlock while still a very young teenager. The father was never known or never admitted to Darin, but the shock of
finding out that his much beloved and deeply revered mother was not his real mother at all, but was instead his grandmother
would be almost inconceivable to the rest of us.
She was the woman who had raised him and had encouraged his musical ability. She also was the woman who had given him
all the confidence that he ever needed to reach for whatever goal that he wished for in life. At the time their shared dream
was to have him sing at the Copacabana Club in Manhattan and outdraw Frank Sinatra, who was then drawing record crowds.
Bobby Darin went on to achieve that goal and to set many others as yet undreamt of by this poor, sickly kid from the Bronx.
The fact that his beloved mother/grandmother had passed away while he was still a young man only raised her in his esteem
as the best mother that anyone could ever wish for. Hearing the truth years later from his own sister, his real mother, long
after her death must have been truly heart wrenching.
Bobby Darin will live forever in our hearts, and at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, as the star singer of such
great hits as "Splish, Splash," "Mack the Knife," "Dream Lover," "Beyond the Sea"
(which inspired this movie's title), "If I were a Carpenter," "I Got Rhythm," and "Moon River."
Later in life the award that he most wished for, an Oscar for a Best Supporting Acting role in 1963's "Captain Newman,
M.D.", eluded him when he was passed over at the awards ceremony in 1964 for Melvyn Douglas.
In spite of the setbacks, this was not a bad life for a poor kid born in the Bronx named Walden Robert Cassotto and nicknamed
"Bobby" while still a child. Legend (and this film) has it that while still young he picked out "Darin"
from a Mandarin restaurant neon sign in the neighborhood with the first three letters on the fritz.
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