SIFF 2017: The Fabulous Allan Carr

Enter the fabulous world of flamboyant Hollywood producer Allan Carr, a legend for his lavish, star-studded private parties, whose fraught career went from the ultimate highs (Grease!, La Cage Aux Folles) to the lowest lows (1989’s infamous Oscars® ceremony).

Showtimes
Friday, May 19, 2017

SIFF Cinema Egyptian
7:00 PM
Director Jeffrey Schwarz scheduled to attend
Saturday, May 20, 2017

SIFF Cinema Egyptian
11:00 AM
Director Jeffrey Schwarz scheduled to attend

Academy Award® camp followers cherish the memory of 1989’s infamously wrong opening number, starring Snow White, Rob Lowe, dancing tables and chairs, and cameos by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Its mastermind, Allan Carr, and his glittering pink disco ball of a career are affectionately recounted in Jeffrey Schwarz’s doc. After growing up gay in the suburbs in the ’50s—already in high school a legendary party-thrower—the budding impresario bounced from theater producer to manager (Marvin Hamlisch, Mama Cass, Ann-Margret) to Hollywood, where he made his first fortune repackaging a Mexploitation cheapie for Americans; Survive! (Andes, plane crash, cannibalism) enabled him to buy Ingrid Bergman’s house, and he was off. Record-breaker Grease! made him La-La-Land’s beloved clown prince, but the failures of Can’t Stop the Music, Grease 2, and Where the Boys Are ’84 were poleaxe blows, and that Oscar ceremony finished him off. Former beneficiaries of his Auntie-Mame-ian bon vivantisme—a generosity as expansive as his trademark caftans—now turned their backs, and Carr descended nearly alone to the grave a decade later. The Fabulous Allan Carr is an appreciation, not a reappraisal; it celebrates him as the kitschmeister he was always (more or less) content to be. Like Oscar Wilde, Hollywood’s last great showman could say “I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my work.”
Director Biography

Filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz has had a long career since the 1990s, with over 300 credits as producer and over 120 credits as director to his name. For his documentary The Fabulous Allan Carr (2017), he did both.

Sponsored by Greater Seattle Business Association

Director: Jeffrey Schwarz
Principal Cast: Allan Carr, Robert Osborne, Maxwell Caulfield, Steve Guttenberg, Randal Kleiser
Premiere Status: World
Country: USA
Year: 2017
Running Time: 90 minutes
Producer: John Boccardo, Jeffrey Schwarz, David Permut, Larry Spitler
Cinematographers: Jeff Byrd, Matt May, Keith Walker
Editors: Carl Pfirman, Jeffrey Schwarz
Music: Michael Cudahy
Website: Official Film Website
Filmography: Tab Hunter Confidential (2015); I Am Divine (2013); Vito (2011)
Language: English
Format: DCP
US Distributor: The Film Collaborative