MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985, 104 minutes)
Roberta Glass, a suburban New Jersey housewife, is dreaming her life away at the hairdressers by reading a Haiku soap opera that appears every day in the personals section of a New York City tabloid. “Desperately Seeking Susan” reads the tiny headline above the latest amorous adventures of Jim and Susan. “Keep the faith. Tuesday at 10 a.m. in Battery Park, gangway one,” details the current episode. “I really love the word ‘desperate,'” sighs Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) circling the entry in lipstick before being jolted back to reality. “I just want a trim,” she tells her hairdresser but is overruled by the shop’s proprietress. “No, this is your birthday present, Roberta. Give her something different, Adrian, but not too weird.”
At the same time, Susan (played by Madonna) is taking Polaroid snapshots of herself, lying on the carpet of room 1313 in an upscale New Jersey hotel. She picks up a newspaper from the floor and glances at the same listing in the personals that Roberta has locked onto, then draws a heart around the item in eyeliner. And that’s it for her current boyfriend, snoring like an asthmatic weasel on the bed. “Bye bye, Bruce, it was fun,” she whispers as she lifts the folding money from his wallet along with a pair of heavyweight, dangler earrings and jams her worldly possessions into a round, African-motifed suitcase.
Heading straight for the Magic Club, she borrows a set of apartment keys from a near-sighted magician’s assistant, just to catch a little shut-eye. Next morning, while nibbling on Puffed Cheez Doodles to stay nourished, she catches the bus headed for the southern tip of Manhattan, clutching the morning edition of her favorite tabloid, The Mirror.
Meanwhile, Roberta is up early, watching a grainy Larry Olivier film in bed while eating cake from last night’s party. The highlight of that occasion was to see her hubby star in a 30-second TV spot for Gary’s Oasis, a spa and hot-tub installer. With her heart beating fast, Roberta drives Gary’s generic Ford convertible across the George Washington Bridge with the top down. An African conga-drummer provides the only soundtrack when she sits down on a Battery Park bench just as the clock strikes 10.
The guy sitting next to her suddenly yells out, “Hey Susan!” at an approaching girl. Within a heartbeat, there they are: Jim and Susan wrapped around each other like Gable and Harlow. Roberta tags along behind the pair to overhear Jim tell Susan, “I can’t see you tonight. The band’s got a gig in Buffalo.” She snaps back, “Well, next time don’t put an ad in the paper!” It’s Roberta’s big dilemma: Does she make contact with this crazy girl who displays all the symptoms of everything she wants to be? Or does she go back to New Jersey?
