[REL] Hey Babe! (1983)

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loverboy
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Re: [REL] Hey Babe! (1980)

Post by loverboy »   0 likes

This looks very interesting & one I totally missed first-time. 'Pretty Baby' but even better?
I think we need our American friends here, either a rich one to buy the VHS & rip, or one to capture as/when/if it's ever aired on TV. Sadly, the content means this is unlikely to appear on the UK channels although if somebody spots it I'll be happy to oblige.
FLL wants an English version of any quality? :think .............do I smell a possible audio graft-on? I think we need infiniter back again........he was here a couple of days ago.

lb
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Hieronymus
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Re: [REL] Hey Babe! (1980)

Post by Hieronymus »   0 likes

I've got to wonder about the enthusiastic comparisons to "Pretty Baby" - is that an accurate equivalent, or were the previous posters just letting their enthusiasm get the best of them? Has anyone currently on the forum actually seen this film to be able to confirm the OT content alluded to above? With Brooke Shields and her oeuvre so prominently a part of the established OT mythos, it just makes me wonder how this film and Jasmine Bleeth (if the descriptions above are accurate) managed to fall so completely off the radar. :think

Not that I'd mind in the least to have my suspicions disproved ... ;)

- Hieronymus
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loverboy
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Re: [REL] Hey Babe! (1980)

Post by loverboy »   0 likes

Isn't the fact that it's so spectacularly plopped off the radar half of the attraction? Let's face it, despite the obvious interest here, 'Pretty Baby' is not exactly hard to source unless you're looking for a fairy-tale non-existent 'director's cut' whereas until very recently this has simply been unobtainable.
Other than the well documented OT scenes I don't actually think this would need to be THAT good to be the better of 'Pretty Baby'.............. :biggrin

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Quickone
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Re: [REL] Hey Babe! (1980)

Post by Quickone »   0 likes

There's a "Directors Cut" of Pretty Baby???. Where have I been :wall :wall . Is it on the site?
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ptguardian
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Re: [REL] Hey Babe! (1980)

Post by ptguardian »   0 likes

merging audio is exactly what i was thinking. in due time i am sure a hybrid should appear. ;)

:)
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loverboy
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Re: [REL] Hey Babe! (1980)

Post by loverboy »   0 likes

quickone wrote:There's a "Directors Cut" of Pretty Baby???. Where have I been :wall :wall . Is it on the site?
Of course it is! It's in the Director's Cut/Unedited/Super OT thread but unfortunately the thread's only visible to those who've made over 1000 posts! :icon_biggrin2

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ptguardian
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Re: [REL] Hey Babe! (1980)

Post by ptguardian »   0 likes

yes the directors cut is definitely only visible to the few in the know. but you have your post count wrong it is 800 not 1000. :icon_cool2

those here perhaps thinking of spending a lot for an old vhs of Hey Babe!. should buy wisely as there is an edited version and then the version we want. :think

:)
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Phuzzy4242
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Re: [REL] Hey Babe! (1980)

Post by Phuzzy4242 »   26 likes

I found a clip of this awhile back if anyone's interested.

Like this post to see ed2k links  [46.65 Mb]
FLL
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Re: [REL] Hey Babe! (1980)

Post by FLL »   0 likes

loverboy wrote:FLL wants an English version of any quality? :think .............do I smell a possible audio graft-on?
That was my thought, but i wasn't going to say it, since I know from painful experience that that may be very difficult and/or time consuming to do. TV versions are often cut to fit a timeslot, a few seconds here and there for many different scenes. But we'll see, if we can get an English language source...
Hieronymus wrote:I've got to wonder about the enthusiastic comparisons to "Pretty Baby" - is that an accurate equivalent, or were the previous posters just letting their enthusiasm get the best of them? Has anyone currently on the forum actually seen this film to be able to confirm the OT content alluded to above?
In terms of OT-ness you just have to look at the rarefilmfinder page and see that it doesn't list any categories for this film... the "striptease" isn't complete. So in that respect I don't think it compares to Pretty Baby.

I think though that Yasmine Bleeth is sufficiently pretty and the theme of the movie is sufficiently odd and FLM-relevant that it would be quite fun to watch. A 54 year old Buddy Hackett and a 12 year old Yasmine Bleeth together? Definitely worth checking out, even if (especially if?) it's as cheesey as it sounds.

There's a funny description of it along with other "tacky" movies at http://www.mediafunhouse.com/pages/medi ... ites2.html
Spoiler:

Babe! (1980; Metropolitan Entertainment; no American HV release. Aka Hey Babe!) Yes, this one's all about a talking pig. But it doesn’t take place in a barnyard--the porcine performer in this case is a very unsavory-looking Buddy Hackett. Hackett plays a a broken-down ex-vaudevillian who becomes the mentor of a rambunctious twelve-year-old played by future "Baywatch" lifeguard Yasmine Bleeth. Babe! veers off, though, in an uncomfortable direction as its very young heroine is dressed up in different disco-glitz and glam new-wave outfits and placed in a number of more-than-slightly-suggestive situations.

In fact, despite its hoary old-fashioned show-biz storyline, the film can best be decribed as a pedophilic fantasy. (Still, even most convicted child molesters look more respectable than an unshaven, sweaty Buddy Hackett—he’s a long way from The Music Man). Bleeth looks disturbingly young than her character's stated age, and for some reason, sports large bags under her eyes. Perhaps writer-director Rafal Zielinski felt this would convey her worn, "aged" status. In any case, the poor kid is so desperate to get into the Academy of Performing Arts that she decides to get money by performing a striptease for the boys in her youth hostel (both the Academy and the hostel are supposed to be NYC institutions, but are obviously located in Montreal, where most of the film was shot). She is stopped before she gets down to the bare essentials by the hostel's concerned coordinator.

The strip sequence is a blatant example of the movie's pedophilic attitude; far scarier are the scenes that take place after Bleeth flees the hostel to shack up with Buddy (an earlier moment where a broadly-smiling Hackett haunts her on a city bus provides enough nightmarish imagery to make adult viewers cringe in disgust for the duration). When Buddy arrives late for a candelit dinner the little girl complains that she's been slaving over the meal all day. The two have fantasies of dancing together in a theatrical show: Buddy dreaming of them as Astaire and Rogers; Bleeth seems them as a glittery disco phenomenon. The duo perform in Central Park (or Montreal's equivalent thereof) with the child wearing bizarre KISS-like face makeup (an outtake shown under the closing credits has her in full blackface!). The kid takes a bubblebath out in the middle of Buddy’s apt., and in an even more disturbing twist, scrubs Buddy's back as he takes one. The relationship between the two reaches a head after Buddy compliments her on her progress at the Academy one night and she says in a tone of starstruck adulation, "I love you, you old goat...and I want to prove it to you." The heavily made-up little girl (wearing a vaudeville outfit complete with garters and heels) begins to take down the sleeves of her dress, saying, "I want you to be the first." The broken-down old stumble-bum refuses her offer, giving her a speech about waiting until the right guy comes along; in the process, of course, any viewer who hasn't hit the fast-forward button has either collapsed from laughter or is experiencing serious nausea.

I don't have the space to elaborate the film's other enjoyably tacky elements, including director Zielinski's artsty lighting schemes which bathe the characters in primary colors and a chase down supposed NYC streets involving a motorcycle with a sidecar! Despite its frantically happy ending, this is one of the scariest movies ever to come out of Canada.
Some pics from the German version...
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Phuzzy4242
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Re: [REL] Hey Babe! (1980)

Post by Phuzzy4242 »   0 likes

FLL wrote:
Hieronymus wrote:I've got to wonder about the enthusiastic comparisons to "Pretty Baby" - is that an accurate equivalent, or were the previous posters just letting their enthusiasm get the best of them? Has anyone currently on the forum actually seen this film to be able to confirm the OT content alluded to above?
In terms of OT-ness you just have to look at the rarefilmfinder page and see that it doesn't list any categories for this film... the "striptease" isn't complete. So in that respect I don't think it compares to Pretty Baby.

I think though that Yasmine Bleeth is sufficiently pretty and the theme of the movie is sufficiently odd and FLM-relevant that it would be quite fun to watch. A 54 year old Buddy Hackett and a 12 year old Yasmine Bleeth together? Definitely worth checking out, even if (especially if?) it's as cheesey as it sounds.
I do think there's a comparison to be made with "Pretty Baby", though Brooke Shields was trying to be sexy (and failing) and Yasmine just couldn't help it. The main goal of "Babe!" wasn't to present an underage girl as a sex object, but rather as a fun romp in improbable situations with an unlikely pair-up of old and young - they were going for laughter, not erections. The directors weren't taking the low road, with child exploitation or the "shock" value of a nude underage girl, which I think was a BIG part of what the directors of "Pretty Baby" were after.

Though not my most favorite movie and not one of the best ever produced, "Hey Babe!" was fun and I'm not sorry I watched it (even with the German dubbing). :thumbsup
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