User Reviews

"The Grasshopper" is a little-known melodrama in the spirit of "Valley of the Dolls." The similarities between the two films are many. 'Valley' was made in 1968, 'The Grasshooper' in 1970, and both films tell the story of young and vibrant women who find themselves lost in the overwhelming world of show business. However of the two films, this 1970 film starring Jaqueline Bisset is more focused, and more in-depth, as it is telling the tale of one woman, while "Valley of the Dolls," followed at least three different women on their road to oblivion. Christine leaves home at the age of 19 to find excitement, and a better life. She seems to be driven by the terrifying thought that she might end up as an ordinary woman, with a boring life. Chris, wonderfully played by Bisset, wants it all, and she wants it now, before it is too late. She realizes that she has no real talent, and not much to offer besides her beauty, so she plays that card, with expected results. Jumping from man to man, in search of something that even she doesn't quite know what, always believing that she is the smart one, and the one in control. But when she slowly realizes that it is she that is being used, she finds herself a hard and jaded young woman indeed, turning to drugs, and a succession of 'wrong guys'. Because of the films age, and flashy style, "The Grasshopper" holds much camp appeal. But when you bother to look beyond the kitch, you might find a story filled with some pretty important life lessons, for Christine made all the choices that we don't want to make. And most everyone has known a person like this girl, living for the moment, with no thought of next week, until the time comes when it is too late to realize any dreams of success or happiness. This is a glitzy, excessive film, bursting with eye popping late 60's fashion and music. Jaqueline Bisset sports a different hairstyle every 10 minutes, and she is at her most beautiful here. And oddly, this is the film that showcases her acting ability, far more than any of her well known, later films. Featuring a finale that is both outrageous, and surprisingly downbeat at the same time, this one is quite entertaining, and worth a look, if you can track it down.

Although this film has quite a bit going for it, it ultimately feels like one of those 1970's ABC movies of the week turned up a notch. Perhaps that television feel is a result of director Jerry Paris and coproducer Gary Marshall's direct involvement with the project. Paris is best known for the Dick Van Dyke show, but not many may know he was a prolific television director. And Marshall was successful in both film and television.

What saves this film, in my opinion, is the acting. Bisset does a great job, and the supporting cast are all believable. However, what probably looked good on paper as a final script draft does not necessarily translate successfully to the screen. It's not erotic enough to be considered soft porn/exploitive and too melodramatic to be labeled a hard drama.

It's a delight to see Joseph Cotten, but be warned that despite his co-billing, he has minimal screen time. He looks terrific. He either aged more gracefully than I ever will, or he had the best face lift in Hollywood history.

There are some fun tidbits. For those who are fans of Vicki Lawrence from the Carol Burnett Show, you'll catch her singing "Used To Be", one of the songs featured in the film. Marshall's wife Penny has a bit part. The location shooting in Vegas is definitely sort of its own time capsule.

I agree with other reviewers that his movie mimics Valley Of The Dolls. If you are not afraid to admit you liked that film, you may very well like this one. Otherwise, not really recommended.

Well-scrubbed Canadian girl leaves home for Los Angeles, but gets sidetracked and ends up working as a topless dancer in Las Vegas. Both a cynical and sentimental take on the old she-went-down-the-wrong-path scenario. If it were more of a character study instead of a bad example picture it may have been more interesting and memorable. Still, there are insightful scenes and Jacqueline Bisset does a fine job in the difficult lead (she's playing a woman who is never allowed to be happy, so it's to Bisset's credit that we never tire of her). Directed by future sitcom maven Jerry Paris, who actually does wonders with the spotty screenplay (by comedy writers Jerry Belson and Garry Marshall, from the book "The Passing of Evil" by Mark McShane). Penny Marshall has a tiny role as a groupie, and Jim Brown is terrific in an unusual love-interest role. **1/2 from ****

This is undoubtedly the best performance of Jacqueline Bisset's career. Unfortunately, it's in an over-the-top trash-fest that is so audaciously (and probably tongue-in-cheek) cheesy that it's pretty damn good. I saw this thing about a hundred times working as a movie usher in the early 70s, and practically any other film would have become dull after that many viewings -- not "The Grasshopper"!

The plot is completely implausible, but in a nutshell it has Jackie starting out as a fresh-faced farmgirl and, after being used and betrayed by gigolo boyfriends, horny old businessmen and the Mob, ending up an embittered prostitute. And all within the space of one year! The final skywriting scene would have become a classic had an audience of any size actually seen this film. Definitely worth a look!

Christine Adams (Jacqueline Bisset) hitchhikes from Canada to L. A. to be with her boyfriend. Comedian Danny Raymond drives her on a detour to Vegas. By the time she gets to L. A., her boyfriend is more interested in getting a promotion than having a family with her. She decides to leave him for Danny. She becomes a showgirl. She marries ex-football player Tommy Marcott (Jim Brown).

The story meanders around and hits some big points. There are some turns that I don't like and I would like other turns that aren't there. After the shooting, I want her to get revenge against Dekker. The movie could have made a dramatic turn there. I'm fine with the final turn but it's more humorous than high intensity. In the end, it's a character study of Christine. She's a woman of the 70's trying to find her path. She keeps looking and changing but can't stay settled. At times, she's aimless. At other times, she has plans but that never lasts long. I get the theme and her progression. I really want to settle the score with Dekker.

***SPOILERS*** The movie "The Grasshopper" is just like it's title says with it's star the 25 year-old drop dead gorgeous Jacqueline Bisset, Christine Adams,on grass as well as in bed with a whole batch of men hopping from one to another as she self-destructs in the wild life-style of swinging Las Vegas and L.A.

Leaving her hometown Kingman in Canada Christine travels to L.A to live with her banker boyfriend Eddie, Tim O'Kelly. When her car breaks down she get a lift from comic Danny Raymond, Corbett Monica, who instead takes Christine to Las Vegas where he's doing a gig at one of the hotels.This single event in her life sets the stage to what happens to Christine during the entire movie with her getting hooked on the wild life-style of swinging Vegas. Christine leave her boyfriend Eddie and a job at the bank that she had with him in L.A and goes back to Vegas to become a showgirl. Later on she gets involved with this band, the Ice Pack, and one of it's members Jay, Christopher Stone, who turned innocent and pretty Christine on to drugs.

Later Christine meets and falls in love with former football super star Tommy Marcott, Jim Brown, who works as a greeter at one of the Vega hotels and

the two get married. Things turn sour for the happily married couple when a construction tycoon with mob connections Roosevelt Dekker, Ramon Bieri, makes a move of Christine. Bieri getting Christine in his hotel room to discuss her husband Tommy's career ,yeah right, brutally beats her up when she refuses to go to bed with him; what on earth did Christine expect by being alone with this creep. This gets Tommy real mad and he later rearranges Dekker's face when he chases him down and traps him in a sand trap at a local golf course.

Tommy & Christine end up leaving Vegas in fear of mob retaliation and go to L.A where Tommy is offered a high paying job from former football player and friend Marion "Movin Marion" Walters. Having a talk with "Movin Marion" about his new job and playing a game of basketball with him at a local park Tommy is later gunned down by mobster and henchmen Aaron, William H. Bassett, of the Dekker mob; did "Movin Marion" set Tommy up?

Christine just falls apart after Tommy's murder and gets heavily involved on to drugs with Jay being her supplier as well as her live-in boyfriend. Christine's luck turns around when, as a call girl, she meets the very wealthy Richard Morgan, Joseph Cotton, who's crazy about her and wants to marry her.

Even though Richard offered Christine everything that she longs for, financial security, she turns him down for the creepy violent and drugged out Jay, love is strange isn't it? Jay getting her to sell her body as a streetwalker poor Christine is just about burnt out and useless to that sleazily lowlife when he leaves her and takes whatever money that she had left.

Broke alone and dejected Christine come up with an idea that's pure genius who with the help of Elroy, Bill Callaway, a mechanic as well as pilot at the airport where Richard keeps his plane who, like everyone else in the movie, fell for the beautiful Christine. The two skyjack a plane for a ride and sky afternoon riding adventure. Now airborne Elroy with Christine spells out or sky-writes over the friendly and innocent skies of L.A for the whole city to see just what Christine thinks of life as well as those of us watching in the theater or on TV think of the movie "The Grasshopper".

This film begins with a young woman living in British Columbia named "Christine Adams" (Jacqueline Bisset) leaving her parent's house in the middle of the night and driving away. Although she had hoped to drive directly to Los Angeles to be with her boyfriend "Eddie Molina" (Tim O'Kelly), her car breaks down and she starts hitchhiking instead. Eventually, she ends up in Las Vegas where a comedian by the name of "Danny Raymond" (Corbett Monica) provides her temporary accommodation before continuing on to Los Angeles to be with Eddie. Unfortunately, things don't work out and she returns to Las Vegas where she falls in love with a former football star named "Tommy Marcott" (Jim Brown). Yet, even though they both love one another, she continues to feel bored and restless and she soon drifts from one man to another in search of something more fulfilling. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a rather slow-moving drama which benefited somewhat from decent performances by both Jacqueline Bisset and Jim Brown. The main problem, however, was that it failed to deliver the eroticism or romantic passion necessary for a film of this sort. That said, I don't believe that this was a bad film by any means. However, it wasn't nearly as good as it could have been and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Quite interesting 1970 movie. Jacqueline Bisset is very, very good, the movie itself is very dated, but also fairly risque for the time. It also presented an interracial marriage, drugs and prostitution, but in a "70s" way. The acting is pretty bad, except for Ms. Bisset and the music, especially the lyrics, is so bad, it is campy good.

You can get a quick glimpse of a Vegas Review from the '70s, if that appeals to you.

Besides that, the cliche'd theme of a restless small town girl aimlessly 'escaping' to the big city to find excitement and then falling in with a 'bad' crowd, the only other asset here is Jackie Bissett.

Now that we're in the 21st century, there's no reason to wait 27 years; I suggest you look for something far, far better like Boogie Nights (1997) and skip the last 60 minutes of Grasshopper and consider it a failed attempt.

Don't get me wrong, other important film makers have had early failed films, like Peter Bogdanovich with Targets. It's just that Marshall, Belson and Paris only graduated to making TV sitcoms.

I saw the Grasshopper as an 11 year old back in 1969. All I really remembered was the skywriting scene at the end. Now, some 30 years later, I just bought the DVD. Boy, what a depressing movie. Of course the acting was impressive, and it was fun to see Vegas of the 1960s. However, seeing how a young soul is corrupted by life is not a pleasant thing to watch. Somewhat shocking for its time, the Grasshopper seems to have predicted the future for the youth of America....sex, drugs, and rock and roll. When there's no love, no dreams, or hopes, just a good time, the end results are self-destruction and depression. A bleak film with a symbolic ending, the Grasshopper is worth a look, but it leaves the viewer less then entertained.

I first knew of this film 30 years ago when it was showing on HBO and I was just keeping the TV on that channel late at night just curious about what a movie called The Grasshopper was about. Actually, at the time, as a young teen, I only stayed passed the opening credits and turned it off at the end of that segment. I later read a review that spoiled many of the scenes but that didn't make me want to watch this right away. So it's now with my looking online browsing through various movies before stumbling into this one that I finally watched this. Jacqueline Bisset is quite a beautiful young woman and the role she plays here takes quite a few advantages of that face in many close-ups. She plays someone from a broken home running away at 19 as she hopes to meet her long distance-boyfriend and start a family with him in LA. But while hitching several rides, she temporarily is shown Las Vegas. All I'll say is that she experiences quite a few tragedies along the way in just a few years and leave it at that. Screenplay by Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson and directed by Jerry Paris, all of whom had previously collaborated on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" so it's not surprising there's some humorous scenes. Also, Garry's sis, Penny, is recognizable in one scene by her now-familiar voice. I also noted one song written and sung by a Bobby Russell and later found out another one was also written by him and sung by his then-wife Vicki Lawrence who was also on "The Carol Burnett Show" at this time. In summary, The Grasshopper was quite an enjoyable drama about how a woman's choices affect her life.

Darling with Julie Christie came out in 1965 and this looks like an unofficial remake that takes place in the U.S instead of Britain. However, no one would think it would fall into the hands of TV hacks like Garry Marshall and Jerry (The Dick Van Dyke Show) Paris. It's a combination Showgirls and Valley of the Dolls. It's funny bad, though and worth hunting down. It's also worth the price to pay to see Jackie Bissett in bed with none other than Corbett Monica! True, it does show the gay lifestyle and interracial marriage in a blase fashion which is good. There's this funny scene where Jackie's having a shouting match with her boyfriend Jay. It's about money and he says, "We can even afford the mailblox." That's not a typo. He says mailblox. Also funny are the intrusive vocal songs that dominate a lot of the scenes. They pretty much stop the show and were probably considered groovy back in 1970. Enjoy!

Jacqueline Bisset is a girl from a small town in Canada. She's on her way to Los Angeles to make something of herself when she finds herself i Las Vegas. There she becomes a showgirl and gradually falls into the pill-popping demimonde, with occasional efforts to lead a more normal existence.

It all seems superficial as directed by Jerry Paris and brightly lit by cameraman Sam Leavitt, but here's an example when that seemingly annoying contradiction actually works. Vegas is beautiful, the showgirls are beautiful, the costumes they wear are beautiful, it's the people's souls that are ugly. With Jim Brown and Joseph Cotten.

This forgotten (considered exploitation film) almost, partly because Jim Brown (the great football player had a lead) and because Bissett since the mid-60's was eye-candy (not because of her roles in dopey, sexy spoofs), but because she was too pretty and had an English accent, she had a chance of respect like Potsy on HAPPY DAYS.

This is a story (which SHOWGIRLS; already "cult classic") which achieved this kind of status for "seemingly" glorifying a beautiful young woman taking advantage of the System. Nobody ever saw this film (even the Frat boys with the J. Bissett poster from The Deep LATER). She was always looked in a very generic way (that's why she teamed with Candice Bergen in that Cukor film) that NO ONE every respected. This is a gritty early 70's film about (I think she's from Canada) just trying to get happy (IN A VERY STRANGE TIME PERIOD), while adjusting to circumstance, without becoming a whore, or a scumbag, or a yuppie, or a cheat. It's a real story! Even if you don't think Ms. Bissett is attractive (I pity you) She could act and this wasn't the only one, but....it was early, although she'd worked in films with Polanski and Audrey Hepburn and used to have a cool boyfriend back then (Michael Sarrazin; he probably cheated on her..who knows?), she made an effort in 1970 and watch her now in Sleepy Time Gal (couple of years ago) and you'll see she was never a "Bimbo" and is very interesting. A 7 out of 10. Best performance = Jacqueline Bissett. Joseph Cotten is also very involved and performs. Try to find this flick!

So this movie is a slice of Life In 1970 Las Vegas. Kind of depressing. Goes from mildly depressing to very depressing. But it has the funniest ending of any movie I have ever seen.

Surprised that none of my IMDB colleagues have seen fit to comment on the deeply sexist message of this deeply sexist film, namely that if you are an attractive young woman of ordinary talents and ability the best you can hope for is a dull domestic life with hubby and kids and if you strive for more, as does the film's protagionist, a late teen runaway named Christine Adams, you will end up an unhappy floozie shuttling between LA and Vegas. Would they have made a similar cautionary tale about a male with limited skills and big ambitions? Don't think so. ("Rocky", anyone?) Oh well, at least my fellow IMDBers have nailed the embrace of the cliche (How many times in movies about Vegas have we seen that sleazy, quickie wedding chapel? About a thousand?), the gratuitously ugly (a four year old kid calling a character a "fag" to his face) and the self consciously artsy (the shot of a basketball in slow mo bounce to alert us to the fact that a great athlete has been cruelly murdered) that grace the screenwriting of Jerry Belson and Garry Marshall and the directorial style of Jerry Parris.

And yet there are some good things about this dreary pic, chief among them the performance of Jacqueline Bisset. She is in 95% of the film and the fact that I did not tire of her has as much to do with her ability to imbue Christine with likability and even at times empathy than it does with her undoubted physical charms. Indeed, the only knock I have on Ms. Bisset's acting is that she makes no attempt to lose the posh English accent that no self respecting middle class child of BC would employ. I also liked Ed Flanders as a vulgar but oddly perceptive Vegas strip club owner, plus it's always good to spend time with Joseph Cotten (even if Belson and Marshall have him lay on the old geezer schtick a little too thickly) and I could be crazy but Jim Brown actually seems like he's actually trying to disappear into character for a change.

Bottom line: If you can stomach the male chauvinism and the unintended irony of a film that purports to explore the tragedy of ordinary people itself being relentlessly average then you'll have a pretty good time. C plus.

This film may have been dismissed as a showcase for Jacqueline Bisset's beauty when it was initially released, but viewing it thirty-two years later reveals not only that directors should have recognized Bisset's brilliant performance and given her the type of film career which Julia Roberts has had, but also it dared to present the issues of interracial marriage and homosexuality as simple facts of life without any intentional shock value.

In a time when films had presented gay and lesbian characters as victims and victimizers, Christine's gay friend Buck (Roger Garrett) is her joyful sidekick who is accepted by his coworkers, at least until a friend's little boy reveals what his mother says when Buck is not around, to which Buck replies with a rebuttal which is sensitive to the child but conveys his true feelings to the mother.

Speaking of Julia Roberts, The Grasshopper was written by Garry Marshall, who went on to direct Roberts in Pretty Woman. While Pretty Woman was justly criticized for its message to girls that if they run away to Hollywood and become a hooker they will find the man of their dreams, The Grasshopper is a realistic portrayal of how women who gamble on financial security provided by men can ultimately suffer severe consequences.

This badly-done movie comes across as a 1970s porn film--without porn! It has the same 1-dimensional, slimy characters that populated porn films of that era, and it is very hard to believe that this was actually a Hollywood production. The story is insulting to adults--everything is predictable and trite. Jacqueline Bisset is gorgeous, but she does not get to show the front of her body off, despite a bunch of teasing scenes that suggest she might.