Story of movie Bagdad Caf%c3%a9 : Bagdad Cafe (sometimes Bagdad Café, titled Out of Rosenheim in Germany) is a 1987 English-language German film directed by Percy Adlon. It is a comedy-drama set in a remote truck stop and motel in the Mojave Desert in the US state of California. Loosely based on Carson McCullers' novella The Ballad of the Sad Café (1951), the film centers on two women who have recently separated from their husbands, and the blossoming friendship that ensues. It runs 95 minutes in the U.S. and 108 minutes in the German version.
| Bagdad Cafe | |
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| Directed by | Percy Adlon |
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| Music by | Bob Telson |
| Cinematography | Bernd Heinl |
| Edited by | Norbert Herzner |
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| Distributed by | Island Pictures |
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Running time | 108 minutes (German) 95 minutes (US) |
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Screenplay
German tourists Jasmin Münchgstettner (Sägebrecht) from Rosenheim and her husband fight while driving across the desert. She storms out of the car and makes her way to the isolated truck stop, which is run by the tough-as-nails and short-tempered Brenda (Pounder), whose own husband, after an argument out front, is soon to leave as well. Jasmin takes a room at the adjacent motel. Initially suspicious of the foreigner, Brenda eventually befriends Jasmin and allows her to work at the cafe.
The cafe is visited by an assortment of colorful characters, including a strange ex-Hollywood set-painter (Palance) and a glamorous tattoo artist (Kaufmann). Brenda's son (Darron Flagg) plays J. S. Bach preludes on the piano. With an ability to quietly empathize with everyone she meets at the cafe, helped by a passion for cleaning and performing magic tricks, Jasmin gradually transforms the cafe and all the people in it.
- Marianne Sägebrecht – Jasmin Münchgstettner
- C. C. H. Pounder – Brenda
- Jack Palance – Rudi Cox
- Christine Kaufmann – Debby
- Monica Calhoun – Phyllis
- Darron Flagg – Salomo
- George Aguilar – Cahuenga
- G. Smokey Campbell – Sal
- Hans Stadlbauer – Herr Münchgstettner
- Alan S. Craig – Eric
- Apesanahkwat – Sheriff Arnie
The film had positive reviews. It holds an 88% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The film was successful at the box office, with a US gross of $3.59 million.
- 1988: won Best Foreign Language Film at the 23rd Guldbagge Awards
- 1988: won Bavarian Film Award Best Screenplay (Eleonore & Percy Adlon)
- 1988: won Ernst Lubitsch Award (Percy Adlon)
- 1989: nominated for the Oscar for Best Music, Original Song (Bob Telson for the song "Calling You")
- 1989: won Amanda Best Foreign Feature Film (Percy Adlon)
- 1989: won Artios Best Casting for Feature Film, Comedy (Al Onorato and Jerold Franks)
- 1989: won César Best Foreign Film (Percy Adlon)
In 1990 the film was re-created as a television series starring James Gammon, Whoopi Goldberg, Cleavon Little, and Jean Stapleton, with Stapleton as the abandoned tourist, and Goldberg as the restaurant operator. In the TV version the tourist was no longer from Germany. The series was shot in the conventional sitcom format, before a studio audience. The show did not attract a sizable audience and it was cancelled after one season.
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The setting, Bagdad, California, is a former town on U.S. Route 66. After being bypassed by Interstate 40 in 1973, it was abandoned and eventually razed. While the town had a "Bagdad Cafe", the film was shot at the then-Sidewinder Cafe in Newberry Springs, 50 miles (80 km) west of the site of Bagdad. The cafe has become something of a tourist destination; to capitalize on the movie, it changed its name to Bagdad Cafe. A small notice board on the cafe wall features snapshots of the film's cast and crew.
The soundtrack has the song "Calling You", by Jevetta Steele, and has a track in which the director narrates the story, including the film's missing scenes.
The principal piano pieces heard, performed by Darron Flagg, are preludes from Book I of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier: the C major, no. 1, BWV 845; the C minor, BWV 846, no. 2; and the D major, no. 5, BWV 850.
Harmonica was performed by William Galison.
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