MovieChat Forums > Eddie and the Cruisers (1983) Discussion > The One Thing that Bugs:

The One Thing that Bugs:

posted 11 years ago by bethrose918
3 replies | jump to latest

I've loved Eddie and the Cruisers since I was five years old and saw it for the first time. Every year on my birthday since I watch the movie, and smile not only for the movie itself which I think holds up well even 30 years later, but the memories of being a child and instead of playing house playing Eddie and the Cruisers.

Eddie was always imaginary, then my best friend Doreen and I would always fight about who got to play Joann (who I thought was the epitome of cool), and who got to play Diane from the second movie (I personally didn't like her, but she got Eddie so of course I wanted to be her.)

There are still pieces of the movie I can repeat word for word, even now 25 years after first seeing it.

Little today even makes me cringe when watching the movie. (Well the almost inexplicable grief for a character Eddie never seemed to even speak with before he died makes me raise my eyebrows, but you know what I just explain it away as it happened off screen.) I mean this movie single-handedly made me afraid of heroin even before I knew that's what killed him.

But there is one thing that bothers me, it bothered me then at five years old, it bothers me now at thirty one. Why, when the body was never found, did they just accept Eddie was dead? I mean even now no body murder cases are hard as heck to prove, back then it seems no body death cases would be even harder to prove. The bridge Eddie went off looked like it was barely over a creek much less a river. I know in the book Eddie is really dead, there was a funeral, wife that wasn't Joanne and everything, but in the movie where I can even accept Joanne forgiving Doc because she saw how pathetic he'd become, I just can't get past this one tiny little thing.

Then when he's watching TV and you see him walking away (and you never really know where he was, it doesn't say.) well let's just say for me, the disguise didn't work out that well. So wouldn't someone, anyone would've known it was him, especially even if he was just locally famous at the point of his death?

[–] he88 9 years ago

I don't know what the time limit is in NY, but I think most states have a four to seven year span before they declare someone dead. They basically do that to settle the estate. This story was supposed to be 18 years after the event so it'd be natural for him to be declared dead going back to the time of the crash.

[–] he88 9 years ago

I just watched both one and two again for the first time in years. The stories really could have used some tweaking. Eddie comes off as this somewhat tortured artist who basically can't seem to find balance between his wants and needs. He wants everyone to ride his vision, but seems unwilling to take the long journey to get there. It's very rare that an overnight sensation wasn't many years in the making. This is why the opening premis of him totally freaking out and throwing away his future in music because of some record company exec is crazy. Mi love the story of one of those guys after listening to an Elvis demo said: "I understand your a truck driver. That's good because it don't think you have a future in music." Anyone who'd give an executive's opinion so much weight that they'd throw away what they love......Really shouldn't have tried in the first place. My point is someone with as much passion for the music as he had would never just tossed it all away like that.

[–] britwrit 9 years ago

I can see them declaring him dead after a while. His car goes off the Raritan Bridge (which, I just found out through Google, was the Ocean City - Longport Bridge.) His body isn't found and he isn't seen. Eventually, they'd probably assume he was swept out into the ocean.