Smile movie

SmileIs a 1975 satirical comedy-drama film directed by Michael Ritchie with a screenplay by Jerry Belson about a beauty pageant in Santa Rosa, California.

It stars Bruce Dern and Barbara Feldon and introduced a number of young actresses who later went on to larger roles, such as Melanie Griffith. The film satirizes small-town America and its peculiarities, hypocrisies and artifice within and around the pageant.

The film was subsequently adapted into a 1986 Broadway musical with songs by Marvin Hamlisch and Howard Ashman.

Plot Synopsis[edit]

In separate subplots, the film focuses on Andy's unhappiness, as he is about to be inducted into a fraternal society, which requires a humiliating ritual, Little Bob (Shea), Big Bob's son, who conspires with his friends to photograph the contestants in various states of undress, and the activities of the contestants themselves.

Wilson Shears (Lewis), the pageant producer, clashes with a choreographer brought in from Hollywood, Tommy French (Kidd), who is cynical and blunt.

Andy refuses to go along with the induction ceremony, which involves kissing the behind of a dead chicken. He shoots his wife, who is wounded, and is jailed. But she refuses to press charges and he is released, and Big Bob tries to convince him to not move from town.

The show becomes more expensive than was anticipated, and Shears pressures French to remove a ramp, because it is taking up seating. This results in an injury to a contestant, and French agrees to reinstate the ramp and to make up the difference out of his fee.