The Buddy Holly Story is a 1978 biographical film on Blu-ray, telling the life story of rock musician Buddy Holly. It features an Academy Award-winning musical score and Oscar-nominated lead performance by Gary Busey.
At 20 years old, Buddy Holly became one of the most important men in America, his musical legacy credited with changing the future of a whole generation. This Academy Award® winning film tells his story – from its explosive beginning to its tragic end. Gary Busey (INSIGNIFICANCE) stars in an electrifying Oscar nominated performance as the self-taught musical genius from Texas who forever changed the tune of rock ‘n’ roll.
With a groundbreaking combination of country music and rhythm & blues, Buddy Holly and his band The Crickets (Don Stroud and Charles Martin Smith) catapulted to stardom with such hits as “That'll Be the Day”, “It's So Easy” and “Peggy Sue”.
Despite opposition from his conservative hometown and his straight-laced family, Holly had it all… but the trials and tribulations of fame began to take its toll, and his brilliant career ended in heartbreak all too quickly. Though his professional career spanned just three short years, Holly’s recorded material is credited in influencing the likes of ELVIS COSTELLO, BOB DYLAN, THE ROLLING STONES and THE BEATLES.
Winning the 1978 Academy Award for Best Score Adaptation, THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY is a classic rock n’ roll biopic on one of the most influential and intriguing rock n’ rollers of all time.
Special Features
- Audio Commentary with Gary Busey and director Steve Rash
The Buddy Holly Story Movie Review
"..this is the all time greatest portrayal of a dead Rock star.“The Buddy Holly Story” plays a little hard and fast with the truth, but it makes for a great myth, and most importantly gets the music absolutely right. Although Busey would have dwarfed the real Holly in size, the actors all play their own instruments and the vocal similarity between the two Lubbock boys is eerie.
Buddy Holly was the geek’s rock star. He wore big black horned rim glasses, had a silly perm, and a goofy smile. He also had the audacity to threaten the subject of his first hit “That’ll Be the Day” that, “If we ever part I’ll leave you.” Holly died in a tragic plane crash at the age of twenty two, but had by that time amassed a huge catalog of classic songs with styles ranging from the pure Rockabilly of “Rave On,” to the Bo Diddly beat of “Not Fade Away,” to the lump in the throat romance of “True Love Ways”. The Beatles took their name from a variant of Holly’s Crickets and super fan Paul McCartney owns every piece of music he ever recorded.
Rash’s film has great fun with the mistaken perception that Holly and the Crickets were black, especially in the retelling of his breaking the color barrier at the previous all Black Apollo in Harlem. “Well, we weren’t expecting you all either.” Although it may overstate Holly’s command of the studio at the expense of real life collaborator Norman Petty, it probably doesn’t do so by much. There is a joyful recreation of Holly’s overdubbing techniques and a wonderful amused reaction by Busey in response to a studio violinist’s claim that Holly’s song “Raining in My Heart” has striking similarities to Beethovan’s techniques. Try to forget for a moment that Holly’s record label is run by Conrad Janis of “Mork and Mindy” fame, and enjoy the performances. Aside from Holly’s career, the film chronicles the singer’s whirlwind romance with Maria Elena Santiago, to whom he is said to have proposed to on their first date. Busey pulls off an awkward grace and humor in a wonderful scene where the singer asks Maria’s Aunt for courting permission as his alter ego, Charles Hardin.
Accurate portrayals of ’50s Rockers as diverse as Sam Cooke and Eddie Cochran make the picture a joyous experience for true connoisseurs of the era. Until they get that epic version of The Big Bopper’s life and career off the table, this is still the best Rock and Roll biography ever filmed." Film Threat
Songs Include: Rock Around with Ollie V, That'll Be the Day, Words of Love, Oh Boy, Peggy Sue, Rave On, Maybe Baby, Not Fade Away and True Love Ways.