By FilmInk Staff
Henry Jaglom’s 1983 cult comedy Can She Bake A Cherry Pie? gets restored courtesy of Hope Runs High Productions and the late Jaglom’s daughter, Sabrina Jaglom.
Nobody made films like the late Henry Jaglom. Loose, free-form, funky and freewheeling in tone, his films were also occasionally perverse and willfully obscure. A writer, director and true auteur whose idiosyncratic, outsider status comes gold-plated in some cinematic circles and wholly ignored in others. Though experimental in tone, Jaglom always managed to lure big names to his projects through his vast Hollywood connections, with the likes of Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Tuesday Weld and Orson Welles all appearing in his works.
Though many of Jaglom’s fans would argue for 1971’s A Safe Place as his key work, or perhaps 1980’s Sitting Ducks, while others might champion the madness of 1976’s Tracks, the most charming and sweetly accessible of Jaglom’s 1983 comedy Can She Bake A Cherry Pie? Jaglom’s winningly droll fourth feature stars cult goddess and 1970s figurehead Karen Black (Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Born To Win, Nashville, The Day Of The Locust, Come Back To The Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean) as Zee, a New York divorcee who embarks on an unlikely romance with divorced social worker Eli (Jaglom regular Michael Emil). A charming picture of 1980s New York, Can She Bake A Cherry Pie? is all of the good Jaglom, and none of the often frustrating.
As well as great performances from the two leads, the film also features eye-catching supporting turns from Frances Fisher, Michael Margotta, Orson Welles and, wait for it, Larry David. Everyone’s favourite Curb Your Enthusiasm misanthrope appears late in the trailer, and you literally won’t know it’s LD – lost under a swathe of dark frizz – until he speaks in that unmistakable tone of his.
This restoration was completed from a 4K, 16-bit scan of the 35mm interpositive by cult DVD outfit Vinegar Syndrome, with the late Henry Jaglom’s daughter Sabrina Jaglom – a writer and director in her own right with the 2022 thriller Jane, starring Madeline Petsch, Chloe Bailey, and Melissa Leo – also involved in the process.
