Eddie and the Cruisers
Eddie and The Cruisers, the movie is occasionally on TV and despite it being a “B” movie I usually watch. What many people might not realize is the movie is based on P.F. Kluge’s 1980 novel Eddie and the Cruisers. After a recent viewing of the movie I decided to read the book to see how it compares to the movie. Did the screenwriters just adapt what was in the book? Or was the book a starting point for them? And, of course, it adds to the eternal debate which is better, the book or the movie?
Frank Ridgeway is a high school English teacher who is getting a divorce and pretty much doesn’t like the students he teaches or his life. In his past he was a guitar player and lyricist for the 1958 era band Eddie and the Parkway Cruisers, whose lead singer, Eddie Wilson, died mysteriously. After one of Frank’s classes he’s contacted by a reporter, Elliott Mannheim, who is doing a retrospective story on The Cruisers because their song “Far Away Woman” has been getting some airplay, and there‘s a rumor of undiscovered recordings Eddie made right before he died. After the interview with Mannheim, Frank is contacted by Doc Robinson, the former manager of The Cruisers who was somewhat of schemer/scammer but now is making a living as a DJ at a college radio station. Doc tells Frank there may be tapes, he doesn’t know if there any tapes but he started the rumor there were to flush them out. This is where the plot starts to get a little implausible. Doc tells Frank he needs to seek out all the old Cruisers and see if they know about or have the tapes. Why doesn’t Doc just do this himself? No good reason is given but of course Frank agrees to do this, at the very least he believes he may be able to make peace with his past.
As Frank visits all the old Cruisers, Salvatore “Sally” Amato, Kenny Hopkins, now a Reverend, Wendell Newton, and finally Joann Carlito, he starts hearing how Eddie, the month before he died rented a Quonset hut in Lakehurst, New Jersey ostensibly to record music that would bring together black and white music. Wendell, who is in a mental institution swears that Eddie brought together ‘the kings” of black and white music and they had jam sessions. But the characters and their motives seem forced like actors trying to make an unwieldy script work. Frank and all the other Cruisers suspect the reporter of trying to steal the tapes (if they exist) with no real evidence or actions by the reporter to suspect him of that.
This is where I find more implausibility. The Parkway Cruisers are described as a small local New Jersey band that released one album and they playing small bars and Eddie is able to summon rock legends “the kings” of music? Eddie for no stated reason abandons The Cruisers, he doesn’t take any of them to the jam session except Wendell. As in the movie Eddie considers Frank important to the band because he’s “The Wordman,” and Eddie also tells everyone it’s ‘words and music” that make the band. If words and music were so important to Eddie and Frank is the “Wordman,” why didn’t Eddie take Frank to Lakehurst?
Another shortcoming of the novel is that Kluge introduces characters that go nowhere, and don’t really add anything to the understanding of Eddie or the music, such as Eddie’s wife and parents. The characters of the reporter Elliott Mannheim and his girlfriend appear in the beginning, disappear, only to reappear at the end. Joann Carlito appears as an after-thought, her position is never really defined, she’s “Eddie’s girl” other than that we don’t know if she’s in the band and a back-up singer, like in the movie, or someone just hanging out with Eddie and the how and why of that aren’t explained with much conviction or resolution. Finally, the relationship with Eddie’s wife isn’t explained and its somewhat of a mystery why Kluge had Eddie married at all except maybe the person Kluge had in mind when writing Eddie’s character was married?
The world that Kluge is familiar with is what stands out. He knows schools and the academic life. The scenes at Frank’s prep school ring the truest, the descriptions and the motivations of the kids at school, even the Toby Tyler scene works much better in the book and isn’t as awkward as it is in the movie. What Kluge doesn’t know or isn’t able to render is a feeling for Eddie and The Parkway Cruisers, their music or even rock and roll.
There’s a lot of ambivalence in the characters starting with Eddie, there’s not much of a mystery if Eddie is dead or how he died. The Lakehurst tapes, did Eddie make any tapes or not? In the beginning Doc admits he put out the rumor of there being tapes but no one in the story has any idea if there are any tapes or if they should be looking for them? I think Kluge wasn’t clear whether this was supposed to be a detective story, or a murder mystery, there’s a double murder towards the end but it’s cleared up within a half a page, or if Kluge was trying for something else all-together.
There’s also a sub-text of a racial element brought up in the novel that’s not in the movie, but like much else doesn’t end up anywhere. It’s hinted that part of Eddie’s plan in the Lakehurst recording sessions is to create a music that heals the racial divide, that music, rock and roll in particular can cross the divisions we have in race and heal them, but it doesn’t get much past the idea stage in the book and doesn’t add any insight into whether that’s part of the magic of music.
Movie vs. Book — As you can tell the screenwriters of Eddie and the Crusisers, Martin and Arlene Davidson stripped the novel down to the bones of the story and refleshed it for the movie with what they considered to be a more plausible plot (that has its own problems). In the eternal struggle and question of which is better the book or the movie I think, in the case of Eddie and the Cruisers, the movie is a little better than the book.
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