A Texas teenager cuts her hair short and becomes an outlaw martyr with her brother and friends.A Texas teenager cuts her hair short and becomes an outlaw martyr with her brother and friends.A Texas teenager cuts her hair short and becomes an outlaw martyr with her brother and friends.
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaJanet Smalley, the actress who played Putter's mother, slapped Yeardley Smith for real. Smith remarks on the DVD commentary that her face was numb after that particular scene was shot.
- GoofsThe majority of characters are depicted to have heavy southern accents. However, in the South Texas region where Corpus Christi is located, not many residents have an accent.
- Quotes
Boy: Did you rob that liquor store in Galveston?
Binx: Yep, that was us.
Billie Jean: We did not.
Guy: What about that school in Laredo? You burn it down?
Binx: No way, guy. We don't do schools.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Pat Benatar: Invincible (1985)
- SoundtracksInvincible (Theme from The Legend of Billie Jean)
Music and Lyrics by Holly Knight and Simon Climie
Performed by Pat Benatar
Produced by Mike Chapman
Courtesy of Chrysalis Records
Featured review
Billie Jean, "social bandit"
The British historian E. J. Hobsbawm developed the idea of the "social bandit," the peasant youth who becomes an outlaw after his honorable resistance to some outrage by the landlord ends with a landlord henchman dead. He calls to others who share his anger at injustice to follow him to the hills where they will lead the outlaw life, stealing only from those whose wealth comes from oppressing the poor, respecting the peasants and righting wrongs on their behalf, and seeking to restore a former condition when the great and powerful behaved decently and treated the poor equitably. (This equitable treatment is also close to what E.P. Thompson called "the moral economy of the poor:" the Honest Loaf, the Fair Day's Wage for a Fair Day's Work--a slogan of early labor unions--etc.)
The social bandit *isn't* a revolutionary--he has no vision of a transformed society, because his horizons are too narrow. He wants the Good Old Days back. He doesn't have a social or political theory; he wants simple decency and justice. He isn't Joan of Arc, fighting to restore a legitimate King, he's much closer to Robin Hood, resisting the oppression of a King who's forfeited the loyalty of the people by not acting as a good King should.
Billie Jean is a social bandit. The events that launch her "career," the actions she performs, and above all her simple watchword "Fair is Fair" clearly put her in the category that includes the Brazilian Lampiao, the Sicilian Salvatore Giuliano, and others. Hardly surprising, since this teenage cult script was written by a formerly blacklisted old Lefty in his seventies, Walter Bernstein, who surely had read Hobsbawm and Thompson and found, I think, a very ingenious way to illustrate their ideas in a 1980's US setting.
The social bandit *isn't* a revolutionary--he has no vision of a transformed society, because his horizons are too narrow. He wants the Good Old Days back. He doesn't have a social or political theory; he wants simple decency and justice. He isn't Joan of Arc, fighting to restore a legitimate King, he's much closer to Robin Hood, resisting the oppression of a King who's forfeited the loyalty of the people by not acting as a good King should.
Billie Jean is a social bandit. The events that launch her "career," the actions she performs, and above all her simple watchword "Fair is Fair" clearly put her in the category that includes the Brazilian Lampiao, the Sicilian Salvatore Giuliano, and others. Hardly surprising, since this teenage cult script was written by a formerly blacklisted old Lefty in his seventies, Walter Bernstein, who surely had read Hobsbawm and Thompson and found, I think, a very ingenious way to illustrate their ideas in a 1980's US setting.
helpful•3111
- paulet
- Oct 25, 2005
- How long is The Legend of Billie Jean?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- Fair Is Fair
- Filming locations
- 10539 South Padre Island Drive, Corpus Christi, Texas, USA(Sonic Drive-In)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $3,099,497
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $1,466,884
- Jul 21, 1985
- Gross worldwide
- $3,099,497
- Runtime1 hour 36 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
Top Gap
By what name was The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) officially released in India in English?
Answer