Aretha Franklin, her cinematic legacy and "Sparkle"

With the death of Aretha Franklin, I looked back at her contribution to the cinema world. Her finest film moment was being married to Matt "Guitar" Murphy in The Blues Brothers (1980). Chewing out her cinema husband ("You better think about what you're saying. You better think about the consequences of your actions.") and his "white hoodlum friends." Plus The Queen of Soul curses! All this and then bursting into a fun version of her song "Think," complete with dancing ladies and dancing Jake and Elwood.

When it comes to the use of her music in film, two moments come to mind. "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" was used in The Big Chill (1983), when Mary Kay Place and Kevin Kline are about to consummate a birthing for her (Kline's wife Glenn Close offers her husband as seed-bearer) and she says "I feel like I got a great deal on a used car." Then there's the use of "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" in the background while Robert Deniro seduces Juliette Lewis over the phone in Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear (1992).

According to IMDB, Aretha's music has appeared in over 220 films and television shows. She did one soundtrack (sort of, not really) in 1976 with Sparkle.

The Aretha album was written and produced by the great Curtis Mayfield. It's not Superfly, but it did well, hitting number one of the R&B album charts and earning a number one R&B single for "Something He Can Feel." The music does suffer a cinematic disease of mostly not sounding like music from the era.

It's a good '70s soul album, but it doesn't sound like 1958.

By the way, the album features the original instrumentation and back up singers from the film with Franklin's vocals recorded for the album. Franklin's voice does not appear in the film.

Sparkle is an underwhelming backstage drama that is better known for it's resume of now-familiar faces compared to the final product itself. Released in 1976, the film owes more to the nostalgia films of the era (American Graffiti, Cooley High) than the Blaxpolitation films of that era.

Starting in Harlem in 1958, there are three sisters who sing pretty well. The oldest and sassiest Sister (Lonette McKee, her film debut), shy Sparkle (Irene Cara, four years before Fame) and Delores (Dwan Smith), the other one. Also hanging out are Levi (classic That Guy Dorian Haywood) who has a crush on Sister and Stix (Phillip Michael Thomas, eight years before Miami Vice) who has a crush on Sparkle. They have a dream of becoming a succesful singing group, calling themselves The Hearts, or as a wise-ass emcee calls them on their very first live performance The Farts.

That first performance was a talent contest, which they won. Soon after, the boys are out of the group and it's just the sisters. This leads to a regular gig in a nicer venue. A venue where local "businessman" Satin '(70s Blaxploitation staple Tony King) has his eyes and other body parts on Sister. What kind of man is Satin? With his date behind him, Satin asks Sister out to attend a party. When his date gripes and Satin tells Levi to get her a cab, he drags her out of the hallway and belts his date. Sister must have not heard this and becomes his lady, much to Levi's chagrin.

Musical success leads to a slew of cinematic clichés. Sister's relationship with Satin leads to her becoming his punching bag and a serious drug user. One of Satin's back alley deals goes bad and lands Levi in prison. Stix gets a loan with heavy interest from other businessmen to record a demo. There will be a fall, there will be a rise.

Making his cinema screenwriting debut on Sparkle was Joel Schumacher. That same year, he would also write the ensemble comedy Car Wash. Later he would be known for D.C. Cab, St. Elmo's Fire, Flatliners, Falling Down, two good films based on John Grisham novels and two awful Batman films. The film's director was Sam O'Steen, better known for being the editor for Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, The Graduate and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

The film did underwhelming at the box office and among the critics, but it did earn a cult following in the African-American community over time. After the success of the film musical Dreamgirls (another story so-not-about-The Supremes and Motown) in 2006, Warner Brothers gave Sparkle a Dreamgirls-like repackaing on home video a year later. The film was later remade in 2012 (a box office and critical meh) starring Jordan Sparks (in the Irene Cara role) and featured the final film appearance of Whitey Houston as the mother. The remake moves the story from 1958 Harlem to 1968 Detroit, so the comparisons to The Supremes can be more obvious.

Franklin's recorded career would drop after Sparkle and later recover in the early '80s with Arista Records. Everyone involved with the film would go on to bigger and/or better things. O'Steen would later direct three TV films, but did edit a number of noted films, including Straight Time, Frantic, Night Falls on Manhattan and several Mike Nichols pictures (including Silkwood, Heartburn, Working Girl and Postcards from the Edge).

An intriguing but flawed film that's not a Blaxploitation picture not about The Supremes with a soundtrack not featuring the vocals of Irene Cara and Lonette McKee. A collaboration between Aretha and Curtis, so there's that. Thanks, Aretha.

Matthew Socey is the host/producer of FILM SOCEYOLOGY for WFYI radio in Indianapolis.