“It’s a long way from the ghetto to the No.1 spot on the musical charts,” promises a hard-to-mistake Casey Kasem in the trailer for “Sparkle.” “But Sparkle, Delores, and Sister had to start some place.”
That place was Harlem in 1958. And Sparkle and her siblings begin their trek toward the “big time” (another trailer boast) when they begin performing at local talent shows and smoke-enveloped clubs as R&B trio Sister and the Sisters.
In a canny bit of remora marketing, Warner Home Video is releasing the music-infused 1976 drama in the wake of “Dreamgirls” (out on DVD today, $19.98).
Irene Cara got top billing for her part as the youngest, sweetest sis, Sparkle. (Four years later, she’d star in the cult fave “Fame.”) Philip Michael Thomas, years before “Miami Vice,” plays nice-guy Stix. He’s the faithful and gentling force behind the group’s rise. Small-time, big-ego hood Satin (Tony King) contributes to their stumble.
As smooth as sandpaper, Satin courts then roughs up vivacious lead singer Sister (Lonette McKee).
Not unlike Dreamgirl Jennifer Hudson, second-billed McKee steals the show here. She remains a vision of gritty glamour. When the film came out, Pauline Kael wrote Mc-
Kee “has the sexual brazenness that stars such as Susan Hayward and Ava Gardner had in their youth.”
With her choice of a bad man and a worse drug (heroin), Sister’s also a knockout example of what folks in African-American studies programs call the “tragic mulatto.”
But don’t seek out this DVD for sociological extra credit. Curtis Mayfield’s score has some fab songs (En Vogue covered “Giving Him Something He Can Feel” on their 1992 “Funky Diva” album) and Warner has included a CD with Aretha Franklin’s version.
I first saw “Sparkle” at the Crest theater in Park Hill long before it became the Korea Smyrna Presbyterian Church. I also saw “Buck and the Preacher,” “Coolie High,” “Car Wash,” “Uptown Saturday Night” and “Let’s Do It Again,” when the theater changed its programming from second run to movies for audiences now identified as the “urban market.”
Even now, thanks to McKee – but also the compelling presence of Mary Alice as the girls’ Mom – “Sparkle” remains a rough but natural gem.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
