Great Balls of Fire

Buy This Item Great Balls of Fire by Orion Pictures Corporation  Available from Amazon  $19.98  on 11-4-2008     Dennis Quaid's delightfully over-the-top performance dominates this 1989 biopic about the life, times, and music of rocker Jerry Lee "the Killer" Lewis. It's all here: his snazzy threads, his devil-may-care Southern charm, his mane of golden hair, his underage girlfriends (Lewis's infamous marriage to his 13-year-old cousin, played here by Winona Ryder, and its effect on his career is a big part of the story), his fascination with "the devil's music" (much to the chagrin of cousin Jimmy Swaggart, portrayed by Alec Baldwin), and of course the classic tunes like "Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On." Director Jim McBride plays the whole thing broadly, for laughs, much like Quaid plays Lewis. The result is tongue-in-cheek entertainment with a strong musical component, made all the more so by the fact that all the singing and playing on the soundtrack is done by Lewis himself. <I>--Sam Graham</I> Reader Reviews This comic book like biopic about singer Jerry Lee Lewis (Dennis Quaid) rise to fame and subsequent fall from grace after his marriage with his 13 years old cousin Myra (a very young and very good Winona Ryder) was discovered, is probably not terribly true to life, but it is still very entertaining. Quaid happily hams it up in an over the top performance that has to do more with caricature than with acting. Alec Baldwin adds to the fun in his cameo as Jerry Lee's cousin, preacher Jimmy Swaggart. There is a nifty, idealized pop reconstruction of small town America in the 1950s. And the music, of course, is great. Best scene: staid English journalists raising a scandal when the singer and his teen wife arrive.

Great Balls of Fire Available from Amazon Price: $19.98 Updated on 11-4-2008.

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