Here’s what happened: a friend texted me from a thrift store recently and asked me if I wanted a copy of Crossroads on VHS. I immediately said yes because I thought he was referring to the Britney Spears vehicle from 2002. I have never seen that film but I’m sure it’s just the bull’s bollocks. Just look at that cast!? Dan Aykroyd, Kool Moe Dee, Jesse Camp of MTV “fame,” and Brit’s little sis Jamie Lynn. Did you know that I worked at a restaurant that made me serve Janie Lynn Spears a margarita when she was only 13? Well you do now! Sadly, that is not the Crossroads that arrived in my mailbox this week. Today we are going to talk about the 1986 film Crossroads, which was directed by the great Walter Hill, who made 48 Hrs., which is awesome, and also Another 48 Hrs., which is less awesome. I think my parents tried to force me to rent this movie every single time we went to the video store in the late 80’s and my reply was the same then as it is now: I’m sorry but I just don’t buy Ralph Macchio as a badass blues guitarist. Mostly because....and this is true...he is not a blues guitarist. Or any kind of guitarist. Apparently he CAN tap dance like a motherfucker...so he’s got that going for him. I would just lie and tell my mom that I shouldn’t watch it because it’s rated R...and then turn around and make her rent me Sleepaway Camp.
What happens is this: the title Crossroads refers to the legend of apparitional blues legend Robert Johnson, a man about whom little is known but who influenced thousands of white British guitarists decades after his death nonetheless (oh my god...is the Britney Spears movie about Robert Johnson too?? I never even considered this!). The story goes—Johnson was a passable guitarist who made his bread playing cover tunes in juke joints around the Mississippi Delta. You know—listlessly plucking away at Brown Eyed Girl and Santeria while people picked at plates of nachos and watched SportsCenter on mute. One night while on a walkabout Johnson ran into the devil at the intersection of two roads that have never been properly identified. You know—a crossroads. Old Beelzebub presented Johnson with the deal of a short lifetime—sign away his soul and the devil would gift Johnson supernatural guitar playing abilities. Johnson said “cool” and the rest is highly suspect history. When Johnson got back to town he pulled out his axe and said “check THIS out, fuckers” and tore into Van Halen’s Eruption and people fainted because it was 1936. Johnson recorded just 29 songs across two sessions and died as mysteriously as he lived. If you want to know more about Johnson, I don’t know, maybe read a book or some shit. Listen to that one Cream song. Definitely DO NOT watch the 1986 film Crossroads though!
Most of the events I just mentioned are acted out in a tidy, sepia-toned montage at the start of the film. We then jump ahead to the 1980’s. We know it is the 1980’s because Ralph Macchio is there and he’s listening to cassettes on a Walkman. There’s some Johnson tunes on the soundtrack but they are re-recorded by Ry Cooder. I have no beef with Cooder. He’s got lifetime brags for Paris, Texas in my book....but the music here is smothered in 80’s gloss. Like...is that a friggin’ Linn drum?? On a blues standard?? Anyway, Macchio plays 17 year-old Juilliard student Eugene Martone, which leads me to believe that Macchio has some sort of lifetime clause that specifies that he will only play characters with super Italian-sounding names (kind of like how Tony Danza will only play Tonys). He oversells the shit out of his Italian-ness too. He’s all “ehhh...I’m You-Gene Maww-TONE, vaffanculo!” I’m not sure if Ralph Macchio is actually super Italian or if he learned how to act from watching John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Answer: both. I do know that he’s woefully miscast in this movie. He was prolly the golden boy over at Columbia because of that whole Karate Kid business, but I can think of a lot of other young 80’s actors who could’ve done a better edgy bluesman. Like...literally all of them. Corey Haim even! Sure he was only 14 when this movie went into production...but that kid could RAGE!
Anyway, Eugene Martonioni is studying classical guitar and the kid can shred but his jerkoff professor with a non-specific, vaguely Eastern European accent is always dunking on him. “You cannot play zee Mozart if you haff no respect for zee Mozart!” The professor then calls on a female Asian student to get up and play the piece the proper way, because this movie only has 100 minutes to work through every stereotype in the book. It’s cool though cuz Eugene’s true love is the blues...which he can also play like a bastard. He spends all of his free time at the library researching Robert Johnson-ology on the microfiche. Through his research he begins to suspect that there’s a contemporary of Johnson’s by the name of Willie Brown (stage name: Blind Dog Fulton) wasting away at a minimum-to-no-security prison hospital up in Harlem. He heads to the hospital and asks after Willie Brown but the lady at reception says “I know this doesn’t look like a prison because the filmmakers couldn’t afford to film in a prison but it is, in fact, a prison and no you cannot see Willie Brown.” Eugene is all “madonna mi, well hire me as a janitor then.” So they do. Like....that very same day. Kid is mopping the floors and doing a piss poor job of it. Somewhere in California Mr Miyagi is waxing both on and off and shedding one tiny tear. Eugene locates Willie Brown right away because, like I said, this is an open plan prison where janitors are free to fraternize with inmates whenever they please. Willie Brown is playing the harmonica so Eugene figures he has found his man. He busts into the room all “Hey paesan! Ain’t you the cat who used to rock with Bobby Johnson back in the day??” Willie Brown says that he is not that Willie Brown and that Eugene should go shit in his hat. “How come you’re such a good harmonica player then?” Eugene asks. “You don’t blow no harp...you don’t get no pussy,” comes the reply. Yikes, folks. Yikes.
The kid keeps right on janitoring away undeterred...and Willie Brown continues to insist that he is just some rando Willie Brown. After failing to charm Willie with his charmlessness, Eugene decides to simply bring his axe into the hospital and start wailing away. His supervisor hears this and says “hey John Mayer--put your toy down and go change some urinal cakes.” Seriously though--Willie likes what he hears enough to admit that he is the real Willie Brown....which is a relief because god knows where this movie would be headed if he WASN’T! So what now? Eugene says that he’s a bluesman and Willie Brown laughs his friggin’ ass off cuz look at the kid: mullet...oversized blazer and shoulder pads....white British Knight high tops...white FACE. “Man, you ain’t a pimple on Robert Johnson’s ass!” Willie Brown says. “You can’t play the blues....you ain’t got no miles on you!” Eugene says that he heard a rumor that Johnson actually recorded THIRTY songs, not 29. Which, of course, means that there’s a lost song out there somewhere. Eugene wants to record the song so he can become the next Johnny Lang or some bullshit. “So another white boy ripping off black folks, then?” Brown asks, which is a valid fucking question. Let’s say there IS a lost Robert Johnson song--why should Jimmy Bagadonuts here be the one who gets to record it?? Some 17 year old guinea from Bayonne? Why would he assume this song would A--be any good and B--an automatic smash hit. I was alive in 1986 and I can personally assure you that people were listening to a ton of Cutting Crew back then and not much else. Wille is just as skeptical but Eugene is like “nah, I’m really good...check it out (plays blues lick) is this Son House?”
Brown: “No, it’s bird shit!” Eugene says he’ll just bring his laptop to the hospital and Willie can hum the lost tune into GarageBand. Willie says they need to go to Yazoo City, Mississippi to find the song. They also need to stop by the titular crossroads because Willie Brown also sold his soul to the devil (represented here by Brother from Another Planet star Joe Morton) and needs to see about getting it back. I’m not entirely sure what Willie Brown got out of his deal with the devil as he is spending his twilight years wasting away anonymously in a prison hospital.
So now Eddie Spaghetti has to break Willie Brown out of prison, which is no big shakes as there is no security of any kind. Eugene promises Willie that they’re gonna ride in style and then brings him to the Port Authority and shunts him onto a Greyhound. To MEMPHIS! If there’s a hell worse than prison it’s a Greyhound ride from NYC to Memphis. When they arrive in Tennessee Eugene asks Willie how it feels to be “back in the land of cotton?” Willie asks Eugene how it feels to be a racist motherfucker. Willie had promised to pay for the second leg of the trip but when they go to purchase their tickets for Yazoo City (where busses are no doubt leaving every hour on the hour) Willie pulls out two pennies and a ball of lint. Eugene only has $40--more than enough to go to Graceland and maybe grab a tour of the Stax Museum. Or they could probably busk on Beale street and make enough to bus it to Anchorage in like half an hour. 80 year old black man and the karate kid?? I’d throw down a tenner! Instead they start to hobo through the south and engage in a little road movie, gettin’ to know ya banter. Willie says that he had four wives but that he “wore ‘em all out!” Eugene says that he thinks the crossroads story might be a bunch of hokum and Willie slaps him in the face. And so on. Willie decides that Eugene needs a proper gee-tar so he takes him to a pawn shop and buys him a choice Fender Telecaster and a portable Pignose amp. Oh, and a fedora too, so now he can look like a REAL asshole. How do they pay for all of this swanky gear, you ask? Willie simply trades in his $11000 wristwatch. Wha?? This guy has been holding out like a sonofabitch! They could’ve been cruising through the south on an air conditioned coach, feasting at rest area Sbarros like a couple of goddamn kings!
Instead they keep right on riding the heel-toe express. They find an abandoned house to bunk down for the night, which would be fine if Lost Boys star Jamie Gertz wasn’t waiting inside, naked save for a T-shirt and a switchblade. My first thought is...wow...I haven’t seen Jamie Gertz in a movie since Twister! I figured she was probably bumming around Boca Raton doing dinner theater with Daphne Zuniga. But oh no, dudes--she’s a friggin’ billionaire and part owner of both the Milwaukee Brewers and the Atlanta Hawks. Ain’t that some shit! Good on her, right?? Anyway, Gertz is a 17 year-old runaway by the name of Frances. After some unpleasantries she inexplicably decides to join the this 80 year-old escaped convict and his bougie blues buddy out on the road. I guess someone realized we were quickly running out of movie with no female characters in sight. So now: meet Frances. The trio happen upon a roadhouse/brothel and start busking in the parking lot outside. The crowd seems to love it but the club owner shows up and calls Willie and mud duck. Eugene hears this and says “oh man! I didn’t realize racism still existed!” Oh honey...just you wait! The owner guy asks Frances if she’d like to start whoring in his brothel and she says that she would like to, yes. He takes her to his private cabin and says that he likes showering with young girls and that 17 isplenty old enough to give consent in the south and GARRRROOOSSS!!! Come on, y’all! The guy gets in the shower and I assume that Frances is going to rob him but she just starts getting naked! She was totally gonna shower with this pedo! Eugene and Willie arrive just in time to save me from destroying my own VCR. Eugene tries to kick the owner dude’s ass but he’s literally half his size. Maybe try that crane movethat worked so well for you that one time? Luckily, Willie is strapped cuz “blues man always gotta have a pistol.” In 1986? Whatever you say, grandpaw.
They rescue Frances and steal the club owner’s convertible and drive further on down south. At the next bunk down Frances tells Eugene that she’s afraid that Willie’s an impostor and that there is no 30th song. She also tells him that she likes him, even though there has been less than zero (get it) chemistry between them thus far. They ball. The next night they check into a hotel in a town where the bars are still racially segregated...but on the same street...which must get awkward. Eugene parades around on the black side of the street with his Tele slung around his neck just begging to get his ass kicked. Willie tells him to go into the black juke and to “use your dick!” So that’s exactly what he does. He gets up on stage and plays the kind of chickenshit licks Stevie Ray Vaughn would dissolve in his whisky and cocaine-laced morning coffee. He also makes the most punchable raunchy guitar O faces I have ever seen...made all the more punchable by the fact that he is not really playing the guitar. The black folks love him, because of course they do, and hand him an envelope with $300 cash money because why? Back at their hotel Eugene is just feeling the shit out of himself. “I’m red hot, baby! I’m gonna record that song and go straight to the toppa the charts!” (Note: the #1 song in the country the day this movie was released was Kyrie by Mr Mister sooooo). Frances tells him to pump the brakes...that he’s good but he’s still no Johnny Lang. Willie enters the room and is even less impressed. Tells Eugene that he was playing “pussy chords.” Frances defends Eugene, even though she was JUST dunking on him like 15 seconds ago. They all hit the hay but Willie wakes Frances up just before dawn and offers her $100 if she will leave the movie forever. She totally accepts. 86 Jamie Gertz. Eugene is wicked upset. One might even say he has....drum roll....THE BLUES!! His guitar playing is suddenly markedly improved though. Seriously, that’s all it took. Some gal he knew for less than 60 hours ran out on him and now he’s Howlin‘ Wolf?? Lord have mercy on us all!
The following morning Eugene asks Willie if he’ll finally give up that goddamn lost song so we can get this movie over with already. Willie tells him that the song doesn’t exist. Willie says “blues in here (points to heart) not in here (points to head).” They wend their way down to the crossroads and try to flag a ride. Willie is like “where the devil at” so Eugene plays the “may I help you?” riff and the devil comes rolling up in a mint ass Trans-Am with t-tops. I’m still kind of fuzzy on what happens next and why. Willie wants his soul back, even though he seems fairly undisappointed with the way his life turned out. The devil will not release Willie’s soul but does present him with an option: cutting heads...which is the name of a John Mellencamp album that most people do not own. It also refers to a guitar duel of sorts. Basically, Eugene can take part in a guitar battle with the devil’s right hand session guitarist, the nefariously named Jack Butler (shudder). If he wins, the devil will release Willie’s soul. If he loses, Eugene’s soul will belong to the devil. I have SO MANY questions! Shouldn’t Willie be the one who has to play for his own soul?? What kind of venue can host a netherworld guitar battle on such short notice?? (Tonight: The Devil presents: Cuttin’ Heads @ 7. Puppet Show @ 9). How does one even judge such a contest? Will this club have an applause-o-meter or something??
They show up to the club to find that Jack Butler is actually 80‘s guitar overlord Steve Vai! Bah hah hah what was Yngwie Malmsteen all booked up that week?? The Steve Vai whose name your older cousin (the one who still lives in his mom’s basement at 48) threw at you every time you mentioned any guitar player ever. “Frank Zappa?? Slash?? Not as good as Steve Vai!” The same Steve Vai who played a triple neck heart shaped guitar in David Lee Roth’s “Just Like Paradise” video. Here I should note that I actually saw Steve Vai play with Whitesnake on the Slip of the Tongue tour in ’89 and I thought he was siiiiiick. He broke out that heart guitar too! ANYWAY, Eugene gets up and starts trading licks with Steve Vai and it makes absolutely no sense. Eugene is playing the blues and Vai is playing his super speedy metal riffs (binninininininininNEHHH!). What’s the criteria for this showdown? Just play stuff? Eugene realizes that he can’t match him with his blues so he decides to show off his classical chops. So now we are watching two white men, neither of who are playing the blues, competing for the soul of an old black man. Seriously, WHO thought that any of this was a good idea?? What’s that? The guy who wrote the Young Guns movies? Well...there you go. Vai hears Eugene play his Pagliacci riffs and his fingers turn into concrete sausages. He completely loses the ability to play the guitar in a way that no one would ever lose the ability to play the guitar unless you suffered a stroke on stage. He hits the strings but all that comes out is “neep...deet neet....nee....eeep.” Eugene wins by TKO! Willie Brown is reunited with his soul and you know what that means!? Absolutely nothing!! Eugene asks Willie what he’d like to do now that he is re-souled. Willie says that he would like to visit Chicago. Eugene says that he would like to visit Chicago as well. They go. And that’s the ENTIRE MOVIE! Shit man--if you’re looking for an authentic blues movie you’d be better off just watching the blues club scene from Adventures in Babysitting. “Ain’t nobody get outta here without singin’ the blues!” The end.