Sparkle
                                     
Director: Sam O'Steen
Year: 1976
Rating: 6.5
Irene Cara is such a sweetie in this. I always thought that this film came after Fame, but it was produced four years before Fame. It was a minor hit mainly with black audiences - a refreshing change from the Blaxploitation films. It has an unknown black cast at the time though many of them went on to solid careers. When Cara passed away a few years ago, it hit me harder than I would have expected. For me and many others she was still that youthful jolt of pure joy and talent from Fame. I don't know if I had seen her in anything since then but her singing "I'm going to live forever" stuck with me all these years. This film doesn't have the spark of Fame - a more realistic film with ups and downs - more downs than ups. It touches on racism, abuse, misogyny, but mainly family and music. The songs were written by the great Curtis Mayfield.



It is Harlem in the 1950s and music is one of the few ways to pull yourself out of poverty. African American girl groups such as The Cookies, The Bobbettes, The Chantels and the Shirelles all broke through in the late 1950s.  Mrs. Williams (Mary Alice) is bringing up three daughters on her wage as a maid to a wealthy white couple. The older sister is just called Sister (Lonette McKee in her debut) who isn't averse to using her beauty and sex appeal to attract men. Delores (Dwan Smith) is the middle sister who in the end goes off to fight for racial justice. And Sparkle (Cara) is the baby - fifteen in the film - Cara was 17 at the time.  One of the neighborhood boys Stix (Philip M Thomas - Miami Vice) thinks they should put together a vocal group - initially with the sisters, him and his cousin Levi (Dorian Harewood). Stix has a crush on Sparkle and Levi on Sister. The two boys soon drop out of the act though Stix continues to manage them - and they have some success with Sister taking the lead.



But it all goes sour - Sister takes up with a nasty thug Satin (Tony King) who gets her hooked on cocaine and beatings. The men in the film don't come off very well - Levi steps aside for his Boss Satin, Stix disappears for a while when things go south, there are a bunch of gangsters as well. A black woman trying to keep her family together against the beast that is Harlem, Cara really doesn't get to shine as a singer till near the end - and there is no song as good as Fame or her later hit What a Feeling from Flashdance - but still a good film but not as joyous as one might hope.  Directed by Sam O'Steen.