Page 2 - JIMMY REARDON LETTER TO CHICAGO CRITICS

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Most notable of all was that our movie was to be the irst starring role for young

River Phoenix and introduce Matthew Perry in a co-starring

role. The picture was based entirely on my semi-

autobiographical novel “AREN’T YOU EVEN GONNA

KISS ME GOODBYE,” which I wrote at 19.

When we inished principal photography in Chicago in 1986

my young stars and I were totally enthralled with the footage

we’d shot, and after the usual period of editing, our irst (and

only) screening at Island Pictures of what we all thought was

the inal cut was so successful that everyone involved felt the movie was destined

to break out from the indie world into the very big time.

A breakout from the art house circuit, that smaller segment of devoted ilmgoers

that Island Pictures had captured in that period, seemed a genuine possibility be-

cause while we were ilming in Chicago and Evanston, River Phoenix had become

a national teen idol from his performance in STAND BY ME.

Not only that, we had terriic performances from other sensational young actors

from Disney ilms like co-star Meredith Salenger (recently named Maxim’s “hot-

test teen of the 80’s”) and indie favorites like Ione Skye and Louanne. I should add

that I discovered the droll comic talents of Matthew Perry, casting him from seeing

him in a restaurant, as he tells on Oprah.

And better than any special effect, we even had that Lower East Side sizzler Ann

Magnuson giving a performance so funny --and intimate and raw –that even today

she’s reluctant to talk about it.

The great and powerful mostly jazz score by Elmer Bernstein and the London

Philharmonic embodied, I thought, the portentous scope of teenage travails and ob-

sessions, showing the epochal behind the silly and profane and almost uncontrolla-

ble acts of teeangehood.

From what dizzy heights our lights of fancy fall.

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