Ode to Billy Joe (film)

Ode to Billy Joe
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMax Baer Jr.
Screenplay byHerman Raucher
Based onOde to Billie Joe
1967 song
by Bobbie Gentry
Produced byMax Baer Jr.
StarringRobby Benson
Glynnis O'Connor
CinematographyMichel Hugo
Edited byFrank Morriss
Music byMichel Legrand
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • June 4, 1976 (1976-06-04)
Running time
105 min
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
BudgetUS $1.1 million

Ode to Billy Joe is a 1976 American drama film, directed and produced by Max Baer Jr., with a screenplay by Herman Raucher, and starring Robby Benson and Glynnis O'Connor. It is inspired by the 1967 hit song by Bobbie Gentry, titled "Ode to Billie Joe."[1]

Made for $1.1 million, the film grossed $27 million at the box office, plus earnings in excess of $2.65 million in the foreign market, $4.75 million from television, and $2.5 million from video.[citation needed] However, reviews were mostly negative.[citation needed]

Gentry's song recounts the day when Billie Joe McAllister committed suicide by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge on Choctaw Ridge, Mississippi. When Gentry discussed the screenplay with Raucher, she explained she did not know why the real person who inspired the character of Billie Joe had killed himself.[2] Raucher thus had a free hand to pick a reason. His novelization of the story, published the year of the film's release as a movie tie-in, used the same rationale for the suicide.

  1. ^ Eder, Richard (August 19, 1976). "'Billy Joe' Leaps From Southern Romance to Dirge: The Cast". The New York Times.
  2. ^ Wayne Studer (1994). Rock on The Wild Side: gay male images in popular music of the rock era. Leyland Publications. pp. 97–98. ISBN 0943595460.