By Erin Free
In this regular column, we drag forgotten made-for-TV movies out of the vault and into the light. This week: Ron Howard’s 1978 teen flick Cotton Candy, starring Charles Martin Smith and Clint Howard.
When eager cineaste completists rifle through the collected works of their favourite film directors, they often make the very big mistake of ignoring the early-stage vintage telemovies that sit curiously on said director’s career resumes like long forgotten, cruelly abandoned children. Most major directors have at least a few made-for-television flicks rattling around in their career closets, and more often than not, they’re well worth checking out. Is any appraisal of, for instance, Steven Spielberg really complete without making mention of his mighty 1971 telemovie Duel?
Most examinations of the career of highly successful actor turned director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code, Hillbilly Elegy) begin with his directorial debut for producer Roger Corman on the 1977 actioner Grand Theft Auto and then jump right to his commercial breakthrough with the surprise 1982 comedy hit Night Shift, starring Michael Keaton and Henry Winkler. But wedged between these two career-starters is a small collection of now largely forgotten major network telemovies, including the family films Skyward (1980) and The Time Crystal (1981). The most interesting of the bunch, however, is 1978’s Cotton Candy, not just a lost teen flick brimming with simple, near-naive energy, but also something of a Howard family affair, with a script by then-24-year-old Ron and his brother Clint, who also co-stars, and their father, Rance Howard, on board as a producer. It was also the first production for Major H Productions, the company set up by the trio the previous year.
Premiering on October 26, 1978 as NBC’s Movie Of The Week, Cotton Candy is the story of George Smalley (winningly played by the wonderful character actor Charles Martin Smith, who starred opposite Ron Howard in George Lucas’s American Graffiti, and featured in other classics like The Untouchables and Never Cry Wolf), a put upon but plucky high schooler who gets dumped from the football team, and then lurches into a momentary lapse of self-pity. On the suggestion of his quick-thinking buddy Corky McPherson (Clint Howard, who gets a rare co-lead role here, and makes the most of it with a snappy, energetic performance), however, George refocuses his energies on a new pursuit: forming a rock group to enter a local Battle Of The Bands competition.
After placing an ad around town, George soon has a new musical crew, and three new pals in the form of funky bass player Julio Sanchez (Manuel Padilla Jr.), and bickering guitarist and keyboard playing brothers Barry and Bart Bates (Kevin Lee Miller and Dean Scofield). Even more excitingly, George also has a potential new flame in the form of sassy, level-headed drummer Brenda Matthews (Leslie King). Fast-talking ideas man Corky McPherson, meanwhile, takes on the job of managing the band that eventually christens themselves Cotton Candy, and starts the task of getting them out there. After hours of garage practice, Cotton Candy hit on a primitive but effective sound, and start churning out catchy songs in preparation for the Battle Of The Bands show. Their main competition is high-school-hot band Rapid Fire, led by the arrogant and wonderfully named Torbin Bequette (played by Mark Wheeler, who looks about as much like a high schooler as Stockard Channing did in Grease), a bullying poseur who appears intent on crushing George’s rock’n’roll dreams.
Filmed in Dallas, Texas, at Lake Highlands High School and at The Town East Mall, Cotton Candy often feels more like a regional indie flick than it does a network telemovie, which gives the film a loose, authentic vibe. The plot is endearingly simple – the back-and-forth between Cotton Candy and Rapid Fire is pretty much it, with only a little parental disapproval thrown in to add some flavour – and the film almost feels like the polite, nerdy, perennially overlooked cousin of cooler teen-hang flicks like 1982’s Fast Times At Ridgemont High and 1979’s Rock’n’Roll High School, in which Clint Howard also appeared, playing a character not too dissimilar to Cotton Candy‘s Corky McPherson. This, however, is no insult. Though not as cutting and funny as those two teen movie classics, Cotton Candy is certainly justified in being mentioned in the same heady breath.
Energetic and upbeat, you can practically feel co-writer/director Ron Howard’s love for his characters (particularly George Smalley) radiating outward from the screen. The excitement of getting together with new friends and finding a sound as a band is also palpable, and the scenes of the kids playing together in the garage are a true joy to behold. The young actors have great chemistry, and feel like a real band, while the burgeoning romance between George and Brenda is played for maximum sweetness; disappointingly, appealing actress Leslie King only made a few middling films after this one, featuring in 1979’s Gas Pump Girls and The Great American Girl Robbery.
Clint Howard, who would go on to appear in many of his brother’s films in small roles, has only had a few major leads throughout his lengthy career (1981’s nutty Evilspeak and 1995’s equally deranged The Ice Cream Man are perhaps the most notable), so it’s great to see him almost front-and-centre in Cotton Candy, consistently stealing scenes with his oddball facial expressions and finely tuned comic timing. Considering the fresh scripting done here, it’s a disappointment that Cotton Candy stands as Howard’s only feature film screenplay credit.
The only real obvious fail in Cotton Candy is the rival band Rapid Fire. Though the wonderfully feather-haired and handsome Mark Wheeler (who would go on to feature in many of Ron Howard’s subsequent films in supporting roles, most notably playing Neil Armstrong in Apollo 13) is fantastic as the swaggering Torbin Bequette, Rapid Fire are too profoundly awful to be believable considering their feverish popularity with the film’s sweaty, over-hyped teens. All strut and no substance, Rapid Fire is principally seen performing multiple on-stage versions of a truly dire cover of “I Shot The Sheriff”, which would have had Bob Marley spinning in his grave and Eric Clapton shaking his head in disbelief. Cotton Candy are such a superior band to these guys that the rivalry between the two groups never works up the weight it should. This, however, is a very minor quibble.
Cotton Candy is a sweet, zippy, entertaining delight, though Ron Howard’s relationship with the film through the years has been somewhat fraught. The film has never been released on DVD, and is rarely screened commercially. According to The Lakewood East Dallas Advocate, when a former Lake Highlands High School student wrote to Ron Howard Productions requesting a copy of the movie, he was met with a decidedly unenthusiastic response. “That film is deep in the vault and will never, ever, let me say again, never see the light of day again,” said a rep from the company. Cotton Candy, however, has developed something of a small cult over the years, with the novelisation of the telemovie (written by Ron and Clint Howard) currently listed on Amazon for the rather impressive asking price of $US49.68. Cotton Candy did screen, however, at the famous Alamo Drafthouse in Texas back in 2019 for its fortieth anniversary, in a 35mm print no less, and with Clint Howard himself in attendance. That’s certainly promising, and maybe we will one day see Cotton Candy receive a proper release…this nostalgic, big-hearted, engagingly goofy time capsule of a movie certainly deserves it.
Availability: Though never officially released on DVD, Cotton Candy is very easy to find online. The version we watched was in pretty muddy but watchable shape. As an added bonus, it was charmingly culled from an old TV broadcast and came complete with ads of the era, including a shampoo spot with a young Kim Basinger and a slot from McDonald’s featuring veteran character actor Stephen Tobolowsky…with hair!
If you enjoyed this review, check out our other vintage telemovies Gargoyles, Short Walk To Daylight, Trapped, Hotline, Killdozer, The Jericho Mile, Death Car On The Freeway, Mongo’s Back In Town, Tribes and And The Band Played On.
