MYSTERY TRAIN

1989 - USA - 115 min. - Feature, Color

Director - Jim Jarmusch

Box office - Domestic gross: $1, 541, 000

Set In Memphis, TN

Produced by JVC / Mystery Train Incorporated / Orion

Release Nov 17, 1989 (USA)

PLOT SYNOPSIS:

Written and directed by the ever-unpredictable Jim Jarmusch, Mystery Train is comprised of three short anecdotes involving foreign tourists in Tennessee. Each story is set in a fleabag Memphis hotel which has been redressed as a "tribute" to Elvis Presley. Story #1 involves two Japanese tourists whose devotion to Elvis blinds them of everything around them. Story #2 finds eternal victim Nicoletta Braschi sharing a room with stone-broke Elizabeth Bracco and having her problems solved by a spectral vision of The King. And story #3 offers the further misadventures of Bracco, her no-good boyfriend and her dysfunctional family. Any film that features Screamin' Jay Hawkins as a hotel clerk has us squarely in its pocket. - Hal Erickson

REVIEW:

Mystery Train is one of Jim Jarmusch's wittiest and most perceptive examinations of how America looks to outsiders, as a variety of visitors, from overseas and out-of-town, arrive in Memphis, the birthplace of rockabilly music, Sun Records, and Elvis Presley, whose high-octane music and languid rhythms make it seem exotic even to folks from neighboring states. To a young Japanese couple (Masatoshi Nagase and Yuki Kudoh), Memphis is a promised land, where their heroes Elvis and Carl Perkins once walked, and their awe overwhelms their romantic problems. To an Italian widow (Nicoletta Braschi), it's a place of loss yet new hope, as the spirit of Elvis appears to comfort her. And to Johnny (Joe Strummer), the rockabilly-coiffed small-time crook from England, Memphis is a place of excitement, danger, and contradiction, as guns keep going off at the wrong times and the city's largely African-American population must keep confronting the legacy of a white man who became famous playing black music. Mystery Train never resolves the contradictions of Memphis (and, by extension, America), instead revelling in them and finding beauty and wonder in their inexplicabilities - in Jarmusch's world, as good a reason as any for staying. - Mark Deming

CAST:

Masatoshi Nagase - Jun

Yuki Kudoh - Mitzuko

Nicoletta Braschi - Luisa

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Night Clerk

Cinque Lee - Bellboy

Elizabeth Bracco - Dee Dee

Rufus Thomas - Man in Station

Joe Strummer - Johnny

Rick Aviles - Will Robinson

Sy Richardson - News Vendor

Tom Noonan - Man in Diner

Steve Jones - The Ghost

Steve Buscemi - Charlie

Vondie Curtis-Hall - Ed

Tom Waits - Radio D.J/Voice

Jodie Markell - Sun Studio Guide

Jim Stark - Pall Bearer

Marvell Thomas - Dave, Pool Player

Charles Ponder - Pool Player

Beverly Prye - Streetwalker

Lowell Roberts - Lester

Rockets Redglare - Liquor Store Clerk

Elan Yaari - Pall Bearer

Darryl Daniel - Waitress

Sara Driver - Airport Clerk

Reginald Freeman - Conductor

D'Army Bailey - Pool Player

Calvin Brown - Pedestrian

Richard Boes - Second Man in Diner

Karen Longwell

Winston Hoffman - Wilbur

Royale Johnson - Earl

William Hoch - Tourist Family

PRODUCTION CREDITS:

Jim Jarmusch - Director / Screenwriter

Rudd Simmons - Producer

Jim Stark - Producer

Robby Müller - Cinematographer

John Lurie - Composer (Music Score)

Melody London - Editor

Dan Bishop - Production Designer

Dianna Freas - Set Designer

Carol Wood - Costume Designer

Robert Laden - Makeup

Meredith Soupios - Makeup

Gary King - Special Effects

Kathie Hersch - Production Manager

AWARDS:

Best Artistic Contribution (win) - Jim Jarmusch - 1989 Cannes Film Festival

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MOVIES WITH THE SAME PERSONNEL:

Night on Earth (1991, Jim Jarmusch)

Down by Law (1986, Jim Jarmusch)

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Manhunter (1986, Michael Mann)

Wolfen (1981, Michael Wadleigh)

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Night on Earth (1991, Jim Jarmusch)

Joki (2001, Jarmo Lampela)