I was curious how the film did commercially, unfortunately IMDB has no info on it's box office take, and I don't expect that it was a major blockbuster, but anybody know how well it did at the box office, or it's initial reaction among movie critics?
shareI'm not sure how well it did, but I read a review in the Los Angeles Times when the film originally came out, and the critic didn't like it. He said it was too derivative of other films, like Summer of '42 and similar movies. Roger Ebert, though, did give it a sympathetic review, but he thought the ending could have been better.
shareI have a box office report from the 70's from Variety, and it suprisingly did $8 million, which for a film made less than $1 million, is something (and when taken inflation into account, it would be about 24 million today). Not bad at all!
shareIt's important to note that at the time this came out, the box office was reported in rentals. So that 8 million translates into a much higher gross. Sounds like the movie was a hit.
shareMy father wrote the movie and it did quite well in the box office. I will try and get some figures for you next time I speak with him. I love all of the great comments about the movie. It will always be near and dear to my heart.
shareI watched it again last night after so many years.
It is so powerful because it reveals itself suddenly and it grabs you by the neck.
It is also tender at the same time.
Congratulations to your father,rainy-24,he knows how to write.
The director is also worth congratulations,too bad he is no longer with us.
I remember seeing this movie in 1978 and I have not seen it since. But although as an 8 year old seeing this film, I liked it very much. And I would love to see it again and own it on DVD !!
shareSome of the initial box office had to do with people going to see Jan-Michael Vincent in his frontal nude scene, a rarity at the time, and still today.
shareCan't find any concrete information on its box-office take. However, according to the Neilsen Ratings, it was the #1 program for the week when it was first broadcast on ABC in March 1976, with 19.5 million homes tuning in. Critical reaction was mixed, leaning more toward the negative. Most critics praised the actors, but many were turned off by the final-act-twist. Below are some related reviews/articles. First up, click the link for an ad that features some positive critical blurbs (which I didn't reproduce below):
http://www.imagebam.com/image/8bcf80135534309
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Brutal Outcome All Too Possible
By RICHARD BENKE
Pasadena Star-News: October 27, 1974
Buster and Billie were sweethearts. The trouble was none of the other guys could
remember that they weren't Billie's sweethearts... Any more.
Although for boys who think they are sweethearts they certainly prove unfriendly at the end of the film called "Buster and Billie," which is now showing at the Rialto and Eagle Rork theatres.
Buster (Jan-Michael Vincent) is a rural high school hot rodder cast in the mold of the '50s, which is popular now but by no means necessary to the plot. It could happen anytime, anywhere.
Billie (Joan Goodfellow) is the buxom child of poverty who has no social entree except her sex. Since that is all most of the boys are interested in, and since she hasn't been taught the dangers of promiscuity, she is led into it by the gang of boys with little if any resistance.
Buster looks, inside her heart and her mind, instead, and finds beauty, joy, quietude and a kind of serene sadness. With him she is more than a passive victim. Buster attempts to help Billie escape her incompetent if not malevolent upbringing, and he largely succeeds.
Where he fails, though, is in convincing the townspeople to regard her differently. They still think of her as a mental retard (despite her modest
academic success), community property and a community joke... The social pressure on Buster is hateful, but what happens to Billie when for the first time she resists that old gang of hers... well, it's a hard responsibility
to admit, but too many men share that guilt, even if the error lies only in their viewpoint. The guilt exists, so Billie's fate hits home as all too
possible a result.
Despite some opinions that the ending is uncalled for, and despite its unexpected brutality, I found it sadly in keeping with too many of our great American traditions, which even our founding fathers would have told you are only useful up to a point. Everybody can't fit the mold and it isn't always their fault they can't, and what a nation needs even more than I radii inn is lo be flexible in its view of man and how man ought to behave.
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(Ah, you know this headline guaranteed extra ticket sales!)
'Buster and Billie' is soft-core pornography
By JOSEPH P. BOON
Courier Times Entertainment Editor
Bucks County Courier Times
August 18, 1974
Can a good-looking farmboy find permanent love and happiness after he leaves his "good" girl friend, because she will not satisfy his sexual desires, and finds one who will?
The answer — which is no in a movie called "Buster and Billie" — becomes obvious even before Jan-Michael Vincent leaves Pamela Sue Martin for Joan Goodfellow. After all, when the ads proclaim with a bold straight face that, "It should have been a love story," you know that something unsettling is going to happen.
"Buster and Billie." in its mercifully short 90 some minutes, ranges from triteness to trashiness. This teenage love story about a boy from the right side of the road and a girl from the wrong side in rural Georgia circa 1948 is a clean-cut case of soft-core pornography — and a bad excuse for a movie. It is the kind of film one would expect to see at a drive-in with so-called skin-flicks, and perhaps it is too much for audiences accustomed to films of a less explicit sexual nature in a walk-in, sit down theatre. There were gasps throughout the audience when Jan-Michael Vincent was shown from the front in the nude.
Director Daniel Petrie exploits to full advantage the good looks and youthful body of Jan-Michael Vincent, who was last seen in the soap opera "Paul and1 Michelle." Now Vincent has a pornographic soap opera to his credit. Ron Turbeville's attenuated screenplay about one-dimensional stereotypical characters seems to have been badly chopped up in the final editing of this film which brings to mind "Summer of '42," "Class of '44," "Red Sky all Morning" and "Our Time" in its pseudo-nostalgic exploration of young love. But "Buster and Billie" never approaches the level of artistry and craftsmanship those films aspired to and, in some instances, attained. There is very little about "Buster and Billie" that appeals to the romantic and compassionate within us.
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'BUSTER AND BILLIE' A REAL TEARJERKER
By Barbara Bladen
The San Mateo-Times: August 20, 1974
I was led down the rosy path of melodrama last week and succumbed to the oldest trick in the world. "Buster and Billie starts out as a simple, bucolic ostalgia film about rural kids growing up in Georgia in 1948. But the joys of childhood and the learning experience about loyalty, fair play and the discovery of sex in both its beauty and degradation soon explodes into a savage and or survival vengeance and cruel heartbreak.
It s near impossible to be unaffected by its twisted and devious plot. I was clutched in the throes of its overwhelming tragedy. Others wiser and more cynical might have seen what was coming when the handsomest boy in the class turns away from the close friendships he has with his schoolmates and his pretty, well brought up girlfriend (Pamela Sue Martin) who the whole town expects him to marry after high school graduation for the pudgy, painfully shy barefoot town tramp from the wrong side of the tracks.
But I couldn't pull away from the vortex of the story by Ron Turbeville and the haunting theme written and performed by Hoyt Axton for this most memorable and classic account of a beautifully pure love soiled and spoiled by petty jealousy and savage passion from those once trusted.
The tears flowed early and never subsided until I reached my car in the parking lot. The kind of cheap emotion this moving story that director Daniel Petri obviously encouraged by his manipulation of Jan-Michael Vincent as first an arrogant and popular high school jock into a sensitive young man captivated by the enigma of an unsmiling and vulnerable girl (played with a gentle and touching nature by Joan Goodfellow) who allows herself to be repeatedly sexually misused by a' gang of boys every Friday night because it's the only way she can be accepted and establish some abstract contact with the human race wrings the heartstrings on the most primitive level. That's what makes the sickening brutality of the finale so devastatingly justified.
The mystical mutual attraction that these two isolated youngsters conjure up amid the humdrum and all too familiar teenage regime reaches deeply on many levels making a strong point for compassion and forgiveness on religious and social grounds.
Behind the poignancy of Joan Goodfellow's compelling plainness, her soft compliance and the radiance of her long awaited smile of trust and simple joy (Buster buys her a dress to wear to her first dance and takes her to church where his peer group and parents are angry and embarrassed) is a flash of the essential purity and goodness of the human spirit.
Country music, the boys discussing their dates in the men's room, meetings of the Future Farmers' clubs and skinny dippy in the woods are the atmospheric settings and romance may be pure literary fiction but the characterizations are as real as if I had known all those people in my own life. That's what got to me. I felt too close to what was being flashed on the screen and when a viewer gets that suckered into a melodramatic snare I say the picture fulfills its intention. It is rated R for obvious reasons.
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'Buster and Billie' Stumbles Over Its Ending
by Mike Deupree
The Cedar Rapids Gazette: July 27. 1974
For an hour, 'Buster and Billie' seems on the verge of becoming an exceptionally good film. Unfortunately, it runs 98 minutes and the last 20 present an incongruous, violent ending that pretty much shoots down the whole movie.
It takes place in 1948 and (did you ever wish "The Last Picture Show" and "Summer of '42" had bombed?) and centers on the relationship between Buster, played by Jan-Michael Vincent, and Billie, played by Joan Goodfellow.
Frustrated Buster is semi-engaged to Margie (Pamela Sue Martin) , but he's frustrated because they aren't married yet, and Margie doesn't let him forget
it.
So he makes a date with Billie, a rather plain blonde from the wrong side of the tracks. Next to playing pool, talking dirty and drinking Black Label beer, she's apparently the main form of group activity for male members of the Greenwood high school senior class.
Anyway, Buster finds himself, after a few dates, falling in love with her, which creates some pretty obvious problems.
How does he handle the situation? Differently than he would in most other movies, and well enough to get the viewer really interested.
Will He Marry?
Is he actually going to marry her, or get back together with Margie, or is one of the lovers going to contract a fatal illness? Just exactly what kind of relationship do they have? How about the changes in his relationships with the rest of his friends?
These last questions are never answered, because the film gets untracked and stumbles to a wholly unsatisfying conclusion.
The performances of Vincent and Goodfellow are exceptional in roles that could easily lead to triteness, and Robert Englund is particularly good as Buster's friend Whitey.
That and the good, although routine, photography make the film worth a look but it could have been so much better.
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(This one's most likely a blurb reproduced from the press kit)
'Buster & Billie' blends love, 1948
Idaho State Journal: November 8, 1974
HOLLYWOOD—"Buster and Billie" is a highly unusual and special love story of two high school seniors, a boy who is the class leader and a girl from "the other side of the tracks," that takes place in a small rural community in Georgia, in 1948.
The film, now at the Chief Theatre, is a Ted Mann Production directed by Daniel
Petrie, produced by Ron Silverman, and starring Jan-Michael Vincent as Buster and Joan Goodfellow as Billie. Also starring are Pamela Sue Martin, Clifton James and Robert Englund.
Filmed on location in the rural community of Slatesboro, Georgia. "Buster and Billie" is a unique film experience with many facets: a tender love story, a savage human drama, a gritty slice of 1948 rural America nostalgia, a comedy
and a tragedy.
Jessie Lee Fulton is featured, with local townspeople playing the remaining characters. Music for "Busier and Billie" was composed and conducted by Al DeLory with "Billie's Theme" song written and performed by Hoyt Axton. Ted Mann served as executive producer and Terry Morse, Jr., associate producer.
"Buster and Billie" has a new exciting approach, a feeling of being different. It has a strong, moving story that cannot be forgotten, not because it shocks, but because of the sensitive human relationship and love that grows between two unlikely people.
Whitey and the rest of Buster's friends—Warren, Smitty, Phil, Mole and Arland—- deal with their frustrations through Billie who submits to them because it is the only way she knows of "making someone like her."
After an unhappy argument with Margie, Buster also goes to Billie, obviously seeking the same satisfaction enjoyed by his friends. But Buster and Billie discover a powerful fulfillment, and thus begins an unexpected, tender love experience.
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'Buster and Billie' bust
By CHRISTENE MEYERS
The Billings Gazette: November 10, 1974
..."Busier and Billie" at the Babcock is another in the "looking back" genre of films designed to give a glimmer of real-life emotions. BUT because of the film's penchant for the melodramatic, it comes off more sweet and cuddly than meaningful.
It is a southern romantic tragedy, which takes place in the rural parts of-Georgia in post World War II days. It stare Jan-Michael Vincent as Buster, quietly good looking with lots of muscle, and a naive smile. The object of his affections is a shy, completely vulnerable country kid named Billie, whose reputation in the community seems to be her guarantee.
THERE appears to be some moral message here, as Buster befriends the improbable Billie, ,who apparently has comforted the masses with the only gift she has to offer. And while she doesn't', seem to understand Buster — or the problems he's getting himself into — she allows him to escort her and face the disapproving citizens. Buster seems, to "need" Billie — or the challenge a relationship with her will bring. And the plot evolves around his courting Billie, to the great distress and indignation of the townsfolk.
WHERE "Last Picture Show" focused on people in transition, "Buster and Billie" is about people unable to change and cope. There is nothing in the film to attract viewers — no common ground or universal appeal. And where "Last Picture Show" was understated, "Buster" — as its name implies — is~exaggerated and ultimately sinks into the depths of its own cliches and excesses.
It's rated R for the sexual implications, and is directed by Daniel Petrie, who makes the most of Joan Goodfellow's character, the sadly quiet and misunderstood Billie.
In short, it's a 1940's "Love Story," long on obvious mechanics and short -- very short -- on the genuine or believable. All of which ultimately gives us a picture that's boring, boring, boring.
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Hollywood Hotline
by Marilyn Beck
SUN-NEWS, Pasadena: October 18, 1974
Jan Michael Vincent has turned down four motion picture offers in a row — to concentrate on becoming a better actor.
The handsome young man, who has scored solidly in such films as "The World's Greatest Athlete" and the currently-in-release, "Buster and Billie," thinks it's time he gives serious thought, "To stretching my acting muscles. When I first started in this business, it was just a fun chance to goof around and get paid for it. But now I'm really serious about the commitment — and terribly seriously about the acting class I'm taking."
The talented Jan Michael (who is outstanding in Columbia's haunting, gripping "Buster and Billie" nostalgia tale) is also about ready to commit himself to a new way of life. He and wife, Bonnie, have been living in a two-bedroom, frame-sided cottage in the rugged Santa Monica Mountains, but Jan's finally decided, "It's no place to raise a child."
Their daughter Amber is just approaching toddler stage and Jan and Bonnie realize, "She should be around playmates. It's hard to find them here in
Topanga Canyon."
Until recently, the Vincents were planning to convert a discarded redwood water tank into two-story living quarters on property they own in Santa Barbara, but Jan's come to the conclusion, "With interest rates zooming, it's hardly the time to build."
And I imagine hardly the time to convince a bank to lend money on a home made out of a tank. Even a tank large enough to have once been used to provide water for the entire community of Topanga.
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(This Vincent interview came a little later, but he talks about his nude scene and suing Playboy for printing a still from the movie. I found this in two papers -- one seemed to have a segment from another article plopped in the middle of the interview; the other was missing three paragraphs, including the one that was misprinted in the other paper, so the first vegetarian comment is a bit askew.)
Dorothy Manners' Hollywood
JAN-MICHAEL VINCENT: Bracing for Stardom
The Register: Danville, Va., Sunday, June 29, 1975
HOLLYWOOD (KFS) — He's been compared with the late, rebellious James Dean, both on and off-screen. "I don't know why, or what we had in common except a love of acting and youth," says Jan-Michael Vincent who is barely discernible across a table in the dimly lit restaurant on the Sunset Strip.
"I guess the key word to the comparison is rebel. I was kicked out of the drama class at high school and I was dropped by one studio after six months for 'not conforming to contract requirements' — whatever that meant. Probably they thought that I was wearing my hair too long."
Jan-Michael clicked first about six years ago in "Tribes" (an ABC Movie of the Week) followed by good reviews as Robert Mitchum's son in "Going Home"; then a comedy role in Disney's "The World's Greatest Athlete" and last year in "Buster and Billie" in which he was the first male performer to do a full-frontal nude scene in a major film. "The scene was in good taste and I don't think I sprang any surprises on anyone," he says with an impish grin on his face. "Just standard equipment."
I first met him early in his career when he was in his rebel and vegetarian appetites. We had lunched at a health food restaurant featuring a great deal of wheat germ and herbs sprinkled over everything.
"I was a vegetarian, too. And my girl and I were living together in a canyon and got married in Mexico in a ceremony where we made up our own words and where an Indian officiated." It was a long speech, which he cooled off with a beer.
One thing there will be no argument about is that he will be a top star after "Bite the Bullet" gets circulated among the teenagers. Next to the magnificent horses, the race scenes and breathtaking photography, Jan-Michael Vincent is the news about "Bullet."
He plays a troublesome, disruptive fake cowboy and he plays the hell out of it. This smashing performance should lift him to immediate recognition among critics and fans although he is not new to mood and vegetarian appetites.
We had lunched at a health food restaurant featuring a great deal of wheat germ and herbs sprinkled over everything. This day, he was having a steak sandwich. "In a world where passion, aggression and violence thrive, I figured I ought to get over into the passionate, aggressive and violent foods," he comments, tongue-in-cheek.
Has he tapered off in other ways? "If you mean if I've changed radically, perhaps in minor things. I don't fight for long hair anymore or for vegetables. I'm suing Playboy magazine for daring to print that brief nude scene of me from "Buster and Billie" without my permission, which I would never have given. It had definite meaning in the film. It was nothing but sensationalism in the magazine.
"But in one real things, the important things, I don't think I've changed much. Bonnie (the girl he married in the improvised ceremony) and our two-year-old daughter, Amber, and I still live in a rambling old house with a lot of animals around. We don't go out much except to the beach for swimming and surfing. We don't travel in any social set. I still love to sing and play the guitar. And I still don't like rules — studio or no studio."
His distaste for conformity he feels is based on his father's career. Jan-Michael was born in Denver, Colorado, the eldest son of Lloyd Vincent, a former Army pilot. "My earliest memories were of my father having to do this and having todo that because it was Army regulation. One of the happiest days of my life was when: my father was discharged and he and my mother, younger brother Chris and sister Jacquie, moved to Hanford, California, near Fresno. But when the time came and I was Army bait, I enlisted in the National Guard rather than wait to be drafted. I had rather enlist for responsibilities than be pulled into them."
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Cumberland Evening Times: March 31, 1976
The latest A.C. Nielsen ratings are in, and, to no one's surprise, ABC is No. 1 in the weekly averages for the 11th straight week.
Last 'week's audience estimates, made public Tuesday, show 12 ABC programs among the nation's 20 most popular shows. Topping the list was ABC's Monday night airing of the movie, "Buster and Billie." It was seen in an estimated 19.5 million homes, while the week's lowest-rated show, a new ABC cop series called "Superstar," only was able to attract fans in 6.9 million homes.
Despite the ratings success of "Buster and Billie," the movie still was seen in 2.6 million fewer homes than the week's previous top-rated show, a repeat of "Starsky and Hutch" on ABC. Which could mean an early arrival of the summer viewing blahs across the nation.
For those who keep track of such things, last week's 20 most popular shows, according to the Nielsen estimates, were "Buster and Billie," "Happy Days," "Baretta," "Lords of Flatbush" and "Laverne and Shirley" (all ABC); "M-A-S-H" (CBS); "Six Million Dollar Man" fABC); "Kojak" and "One Day at a Time" .(both CBS); "Bionic Woman," "Starsky and Hutch," "Welcome Back, Kotter" and "Streets of San Francisco" (all ABC); "Sanford and Son" (NBC); "Pinocchio" (CBS); "Barney Miller" and "Good Heavens" (both ABC); "All in the Family," "Mystery of the Andrea Doria" and "Sonny and Cher" (all CBS).
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Former Florentine Finds Success in Script Writing
By STEVEN BAKER
Florence Morning News: July 17, 1974
(Since this one's of interest to Turbeville's family, here's the full newspaper page: http://www.imagebam.com/image/807644135536856)
Ron Turbeville, on the ascendant as a versatile film maker, will appear at a local theater to celebrate the "hometown opening" of a feature movie he wrote.
"Buster and Billie" begins at the Crown Theater Thursday night, and Turbeville well meet patrons from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday. The Florence native, who spent eight years in Hollywood breaking into television acting through a series of "bit" parts and eventually meatier roles, is now enjoying a string of contracts to both write and direct films in addition to continuing his performing.
"Buster and Billie" is the product of Turbeville's first effort in script writing — as a result he's already filled two more contracts with Motown and Warner Brothers with ideas that will become new movies during the coming year.
This is not the "real" opening for "Buster and Billie" but part of the usual tryout showings across the country to aid the producers in planning the subsequent publicity and New York-California opening. But already Turbeville and his film have received good reviews from the likes of "Newsweek." "Seventeen," and "Family Circle" in addition to several favorable reviews in Oregon, Minnesota and other states where it has screened.
But in addition, Turbeville will be showing his home town a second film playing with "Buster and Billie."
"It's a 34-minute "long short" movie, written, directed and starring Turbeville — a social satire titled "All You Need Is Money." The shorter film has won the Gold Medal Special Jury Award at the Atlanta Film Festival, and will be entered at the coming international film fests in New York City, Berlin and Cannes.
Born and raised here, he finished high school in Columbia and followed a business major for two years at the University of South Carolina. Then Turbeville left for two years' study in acting schools in New York City, supporting himself on part-time jobs, until finally 20th Century Fox sent him west to test for a possible tv series role.
That part didn't come through, but it landed him in the heart of the entertainment industry where his agent and new contacts led him to his first line on national television — "You bet your bird," he said wearing a hippie wig on "Dragnet."
Turbeville estimates he found 15 "bits" during his first three years in Hollywood while selling hotdogs and waiting on tables.
"But you're tickled to death to get anything in that competition, and even the smallest credits add up and help — they know you've been in front of a camera and probably won't freeze up,"he said.
Slowly, after countless auditions, the better parts began coming his way, and over the next five years he appeared, sometimes co-starring, on some 15 major television series, including "Hec Ramsey," "Adam-12" and "The Name of the Game."
But "I never thought of being a writer,' Turbeville says of those days.
Yet the time came when he spent an evening telling "pseudo-friend" producer William Castle about a film idea called "Black Creek Billy"-a quasi-factual story inspired by the life and times of Florence people in 1948 which is now set in rural Georgia and renamed "Buster and Billie."
There's still a little in the film that only Florentines will find familiar, such as references to Black Creek and Second Loop Road. "Ron, you're a writer — if you'll write it, I'll make it," Castle told Turbeville.
And after a few weeks' hesitation the South Carolinian tried it — and like it. After a month of writing 20 hours a day, it was written. Immediately, one script led to another; Warner Brothers contracted him to write "Miller's
Funeral Home" and then Motown, a recording company diversifying, bought another
new script.
"These last few years have been fantastic." says the new writer who is now commanding in excess of $50.000 per work in addition to a nice share of profits and still more acting offers.
But his personal favorite is the short film - his first experience as a director, having already won one prize, will possibly be calling card for future "one-man-show" productions. "I'm simply a film maker — I'm involved in editing, photography and the other arts as much as writing, directing and acting." he said, adding he hopes his career may lead in the multivarious direction exemplified by John Huston and John Cassavetes.
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No more dawn-to-dusk surfing
Jan-Michael Vincent is enjoying a succession of good movie roles
By KIM GARFIELD
Salina Journal: September 22, 1974
A couple of years ago, Jan-Michael Vincent said that being an actor enabled him to live the kind of freeform life-style he enjoyed. Then came a succession of fine roles, in which the 5'11" blond played opposite John Wayne and Rock Hudson ("The Undefeated"), Robert Mitchum ("Going Home"), Charles Bronson ("The Mechanic"), followed by the title role in Disney's "The World's Greatest Athlete" and the starring role in the soon-to be released "Buster and Billie" for Columbia. With all that going on, we wondered if the acting profession was still affording
him his freedom "to just be."
"At the time I said that I was probably getting a lot of time off between jobs — which is probably why I said it," he laughed. "But it isn't the case right now."
Not that he wants to hang out at the beach, sunning, swimming and surfing from dawn to dusk, thought he readily admits that if the "pressure of work wasn't there" that would he his tendency.
"I'm a person who gets energy from change." Vincent explained during a stopover in New York to help promote "Buster and Billie" in which he plays Buster — the high school class leader in a small rural Georgia community in 1948.
"Now I'm getting some productive, positive things done — which feels pretty good. And when I do get time off. it lets me get myself back together again." Is it difficult "keeping oneself together" in the motion picture industry? "Only if you have trouble adapting to change," he answered. "Every day is a whole new adventure. You never know what it's going to hold, whether you're working on a film or whether you're on tour talking about it with people. And if you're not able to adapt quickly to it, it makes it hard not only to stay together but also to keep your perspective about it all."
Beats pumping gas
Vincent has his own method for maintaining his perspective as an actively working movie star. He just keeps thinking "it's a lot better than pumping gas."
Not that he ever did. Born in Denver, Colo., he grew up on a 20-acre farm in California's San Joaquin Valley with his parents and a younger brother and sister, Chris and Jacquie. Following high school graduation, he attended Ventura City college where he majored in art until his fondness for surfing and a less disciplined routine won over his academic endeavors.
Did he ever regret not pursuing a career in commercial art? "No, not really. If you have any artistic inclinations you don't ever really give that up. I don't paint or anything like that, but art is something you live, it isn't something you produce, so to speak."
Nor was he pursuing a career as an actor when he was introduced to Hollywood agent Dick Clayton who saw a potential in the young man and rushed him off to Universal Studios to meet the head of their new talent program. Small roles in westerns, followed by more small roles in a variety of television shows, led to his first major break — the made-for-TV movie "Tribes."
Vincent won tremendous critical acclaim for his finely-drawn study of a hippie flower-child drafted into a confrontation with Darren McGavin and the U.S. Marine Corps in the TV movie.
Favorite role
It remained his favorite role — until "Buster and Billie" came along. Slated
to be a small budget picture, he chose the script over 3 others — all from major
studios and all representing handsome fees — because of the "strong story and characters."
"Buster is older than the other kids in his class. He's missed a lot of school because of crop failures on his dad's farm. He's a beer-drinking, hell-raising guy who's always supporting the underdog. And he causes a furor when he dumps his pat romance with the prettiest girl in school, of whom the whole town approves, for the bad girl from the other side of the tracks.
Attention seeker
"Billie is a gal who is promiscuous because she thinks that's the only way people will pay attention to her. Buster is the first person in her life to treat her like a lady."
Having completed "Buster and Billie," as well as another Columbia release, "Bite The Bullet" (about a 750-mile endurance horse race in 1906), Vincent is hoping to get enough time off to build a new house for himself, his young wife Bonnie and their 1 1/2-year-old daughter, Amber. He bought 100 acres on a peninsula north of Santa Barbara that juts out into the Pacific and offers "the best surfing in California."
The house, by the way, is an abandoned water tank that's been lying around Topanga Canyon for years, which he and friends will haul up to its new location.
"It's a giant, 2-story redwood tank and we'll build a house out of it by adding windows, doors and decks," he explained with a burst of enthusiasm.
Dangerous neighbor
But he and Bonnie plan to keep their modest ($100 u month) Topanga Canyon house which is located in the "ghetto area of Malibu" — complete with trees, mountains and a passageway to the beach. Interestingly enough, their nearest neighbor a couple of years back was a man named Charles Manson. Manson and his "family" were ensconced in a house some 1000 feet from Jan and Bonnie and when the place burned to the ground the "family" moved on to the Spahn Ranch. H wasn't until Vincent saw the pictures in the newspapers following the Manson massacres that they realized how close to danger they were living.
But that's all in the past now and the future is looking good for Jan-Michael Vincent.
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Buzz of the Berg
By ING
Idaho State Journal: September 25, 1974
READING TIME MAGAZINE for Sept. 16, we found a review in that issue of a motion picture, "Buster and Billie" in which the leading feminine role is played by Joan Goodfellow, who we are told is the daughter of the son of the late Col. and Mrs. Preston Goodfellow. Both Col. and Mrs. Goodfellow and their son and his wife lived in Pocatello when the colonel was publisher of the Idaho State Journal and the son was connected with the paper. At the time the son and his wife had no children.
The screenplay is by Ron Turbeviile and it is directed by Daniel Petrie.
The following is a slightly censored report on the Time review of the motion picture:
This is a wistful little period piece about a gang bang. The film makers — and especially the screenwriter, who based his script on real people from his high school days was nostalgic for delicate love and ruined innocence. These commodities were evidently to be found right after World War II down in rural Georgia, where some kids on the way to being good ole boys conduct puberty rites. Billie (Joan Goodfellow) is acquiescent, but not responsive to the rites
Billie may not be quite all there.
The only member of this group of friends who does not take advantage of Billie's availability is Buster (Jan-Michael Vincent), steady and sensitive beyond his years. He is the most popular and respected boy at the local high school.
When a friendly storekeeper asks Buster why he does not go along on the Billie expeditions, he replies that he is "the Lone Ranger" and he likes moments of intimacy to be private. Since the title of this movie is Buster and Billie, it is a pretty sure bet that Billie is going to meet the most popular boy in school. Indeed, Buster soon asks her out and has his way with her—privately, to be sure—in the front seat of the family pickup. Romance and Billie blossom, more or less in that order. The pair pass a great deal of time making love, going skinny-dipping and observing the photogenic glories of nature, while Buster's buddies become increasingly irked.
The love affair violates the tenets of what the film makers see as ingrained redneck bigotry, swinishness and evil. The boys decide to do something about Buster and Billie, almost as if acting out "Last Summer." That was a movie they
could never have seen, of course. But it almost seems as if the screenwriter caught it.
"Buster and Billie" contains some good acting—by Vincent and Goodfellow and, most especially, by a boy named Robert Englund, who plays Buster's best friend-and some well-observed Southern ambience. But mostly the film makers work efficiently against what small quality they manage to generate. Graduation day seems a long way off for everybody.
Two fine films for the week
By STEVE BOWLES
Greeley Daily Tribune: October 28, 1974
After George Lucas's remarkable "American Graffiti" won the hearts of Americans and filled the cashregisters of theaters, nostalgia seems to have become a popular genre in itself. Well, nostalgia time is here again.
With Roman Polanski's recent "Chinatown" we readied a high point, and with Daniel Petrie's "Buster and Billie" (rated R), at the Cooper II, we seem to have hit a low mark.
"Buster and Billie" takes place in Georgia in 1948. Careful attention has been given to provide all the detailed ornaments of the era: from references to Reader's Digest to an appearance by Slim Mims, from a bottle of Crush to a clip from Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, from atmospheric poolrooms to authentic cars.
All the meticulous research fares well in the film, but what "Buster and Billie" sorely lacks is the substance which all the details ought to embellish. Beyond a few brief moments of touching characterization, "Buster and Billie" is as utterly dry as powdered eggs. With the exception of Robert Englund (as Whitey) and the cow who kicks over the milk pail, the acting is almost universally empty. The direction is equally erratic —occasionally inspired, but generally dull. And the plot, which so obviously strives for pathos, succeeds only as a transparency.
"Buster and Billie" is marked by an ending that is as inevitable as if signaled by roadsigns. The conventionally violent and tragic ending has now become too standardized to be effective. Yet, despite all its failings as a dramatic film,
"Buster and Billie" manages a few brief but certainly inconsistent moments of genuine.
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Bill Crawford's Column
Lawton Constitiution: October 23, 1974
The wave of nostalgic movies about teens growing up started with "The Last Picture Show," followed by "Summer of '42" and "American Graffiti." Now comes "Buster and Billie," set in 1948 in rural Georgia, current at Video II.
SCREEN IN REVIEW
The film deals with young sex and is rated "R." There are a couple of semi-explicit scenes, including a skinny-dipping episode, but they shouldn't offend adult audiences.
"Buster and Billie" is a beautiful film even though the plotline, in cold print, may sound a little crude.
Billie is the "available" girl in the high school. She's shy, sensitive and friendless, except for the nocturnal visits by a gangbang carload of boys. Buster is the only guy in the group who doesn't take advantage of Billie's availability.
He goes steady with the prettiest girl in the school, and besides he's the "Lone Ranger," preferring his petting sessions to be more private in the family pick-up truck.
BUSTER, of course, finally takes Billie out and has his way with her. He later ditches his girl friend to develop a more meaningful relationship with Billie, who by now has blossomed as a person.
There's a violent ending to the affair, which has the film-goer clawing the chair arm. Jan-Michael Vincent and Joan Goodfellow in the title roles turn in sterling acting performances. Robert Englund is amusing as Buster's best buddy. There are some excellent cameo bit roles, too, of Georgia's countryfolk, apparently cast on location. Color photography is excellent. There also are some nostalgic scenes about teen life in a small high school, including a brief sequence of picture-taking time on the auditorium stage. Screenwriter Ron Turbeville apparently based his script on real people from his high school days.
"Buster and Billie" had such a somber effect on the audience last weekend that moviegoers filed down the stairs in almost a funeral-like manner, parading silently past a crowd-waiting for the next screening, who stared in wonderment for a clue to the stunned reaction.
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'Buster And Billie' Overwhelming
By WHITNEY CLAY
Charleston Daily Mail: July 29, 1974
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following review was written by Whitney Clay, a college freshman who is a summer employee of the Daily Mail.
"Buster and Billie", opening Wednesday at the Cinema South Theater, is a powerful, well done movie that tells the story of a high school romance.
The scene is rural Georgia in 1948. The movie, while reminiscent of "American Graffiti," is based on nostalgia of another era. But the movie is much more than a lot of old songs and dress.
Buster (Jan-Michael Vincent), a popular high school senior, and Billie (Joan Goodfellow), the school tramp, have a unique and beautiful relationship.
Anyone who has gone through the adolescent stage can understand Buster's frustrations when his fiance, Margie (Pamela Sue Martain) defends her purity. The reason Buster turns to Billie is obvious. Why he continues to see her is another reason. As the theme song says, "If I could paint you a color, you'd be a rainbow on a summer day." Billie's quiet ways-and sincerity cause Buster to come to love her, even though, to everyone else, she is the scum of the earth.
Vincent is superb. He makes Buster more than the stereotyped popular teenager. He makes Buster sensitive and vulnerable and easy for anyone to relate to. Joan Goodfellow plays her role to the hilt. She makes Billie, a pathetic little creature, blossom and even become quite pretty as the movie goes on.
These actors are definite factors in making this movie what it is, and the local Statesboro, Ga., townspeople used in the movie add authenticity to help make the picture complete.
"Buster and Billie" is an overwhelming movie that begins by tugging at your sleeve and leaves you limp, feeling that you have exhausted every emotion.