In the interest of full disclosure: I was a student of Baby It’s You editor Sonya Polonsky at the North Carolina School of the Arts School of Filmmaking. She was a great teacher. I still use her lessons when I’m hacking together videos to throw up on YouTube. Polonsky was part of the New York scene having worked on the editing staff for Woody Allen’s Annie Hall and Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. I didn’t get to talk too much with her since most of the time in the editing classroom trailer involved me restraining my temper. The D-Vision editing program was painful enough to manage, but it got worse when Microsoft Windows Whatever delivered a Blue Screen of Death when I was about to save my project. There were many sessions where I fought the impulse of going to my car to retrieve the tire jack bar and beat the crap out that cranky computer. She would share stories about working with John Sayles (she also cut his Matewan). She made sure we knew John Sayles’ reputation was real and not created by a studio’s PR department.
John Sayles in the late ’70s and early ’80s straddled both sides of indie filmmaking as a force in both the drive-in and the arthouse. He was the screenwriter of Piranha, Alligator and The Howling. He even wrote Battle Beyond the Stars for Roger Corman’s New World. But he lived a double life, He used the money from these exploitation films to write and direct the art house hit Return of the Secaucus 7 about a group of activists reuniting. Next he’d made Lianna featuring a married woman having a lifestyle awakening. Sayles had the unique talent to create films about the human condition and giant man-eating monsters that were equally convincing. This makes sense when watching Baby It’s You that’s about high school love affair that has quite a few scary moments.
Jill Rosen (Desperately Seeking Susan & The Linguini Incident‘s Rosanna Arquette) is a high school student aspiring for a leading role in the play in 1966. While she’s focused on her lines, she finds The Shiek (Alphabet City‘s Vincent Spano) has decided to make her his girlfriend. She doesn’t really know this classmate who likes to call himself The Shiek. He doesn’t look like a student since he wears a suit and tie and roams the hallways like he’s faculty. He worships Frank Sinatra. He lures her into a wild ride in the Ratmobile (it’s truly the Batmobile for a Rat) and then gets her to go on a date. They visit Joey D’s Cocktail Lounge that seems to be a future location of Goodfellas and not a high school hang out. The Shiek wants her to go all the way, but Jill has limits. She wants to go to Sarah Lawrence College and doesn’t want to be stuck in Trenton, New Jersey. Shiek has no real plans for his future. Is she really going to derail her future for him?
Baby It’s You is a top tier ’80s Teen Film as it deals realistically with a high school couple that are not just from different cultures, but with different future plans. Can they stick together? Should they stick together? The Shiek has his little moments of losing his cool with he gets frustrated with her. These are red flags. But he is a sharp looking guy in his suit so you can see why he tempts her. The film also shows the big way life can change between being in high school and going off to college. In the movie, the shift is even more dramatic with the explosion of the ’60s with the arrival of hippie culture. Jill’s wardrobe changes abruptly.
While Baby It’s You features a lot of music from the 1966-67 era there are also key moments with Bruce Springsteen songs from the ’70s. The time jumping selection makes sense in that whoever is recounting this story in the ’80s would be feeling Bruce’s songs. The film does look great since this was one of the first American films for cinematographer Michael Ballhaus. He had been working with Rainer Werner Fassbinder in West Germany. Ballhaus would go on to shoot After Hours, The Color of Money, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York and The Departed for Martin Scorsese.
While John Sayles made a great film in Baby It’s You, he had a lot of frustrations with Paramount executives who wanted more of a comic teen flick like Valley Girl. The studio took away the film and recut it to make it more “funny.” The suits cut scored low with test audiences, so the edit Sayles made with Sonya Polonsky was released to theater. The studio was halfhearted in the promotion since it was a low budget film compared to its other films like Flashdance. The film didn’t even make it out onto VHS until 1989 because the studio didn’t lock down music rights for home video (which was around in 1983). They had to replace a few tracks. The frustrating treatment is probably why John Sayles went back to the indie art house to make Brother From Another Planet, Matewan and Eight Men Out. Baby It’s You was a film you read about in articles about John Sayles or Rosanna Arquette in the ’80s and never actually saw. Between getting the complete film in a top-notch transfer and the interviews in the bonus features, Fun City Editions finally lets us fully appreciate Baby It’s You.
The Video is 1.85:1 anamorphic. The transfer is a remastered 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. Rosanne Arquette looks ravishing on screen. The Audio is DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono. You’ll be able to hear The Shiek’s lines along with Bruce Springsteen’s songs cleanly. The movie is subtitled in English.
Illustrated Booklet with new essays by Gavin Smith and Caroline Madden about the movie and soundtrack.
Audio commentary by Bill Ackerman has the podcast host going deep into the film. He points out how the film opens with “Wooly Bully” which is the same song that plays at the school dance in Fast Times At Ridgemont High that opened at end of the previous summer. Universal had faith in their high school movie unlike Paramount with Baby It’s You. He points out that John Sayles received a McArthur Genius Grant during production.
This Is Very Familiar To Me (33:02) catches up with director John Sayles. He was approached by Amy Robinson and Griffin Dunne producers to make Amy’s story after Return of The Secaucus 7. He didn’t know Dunne was a producer since he knew him from American Werewolf in London. He liked how Amy’s story had a plot that went from high school to college to show the changes in the changes in Jill. How she goes form feeling cool to feeling uncool. He didn’t have to do much research since he knew girls who went to Sara Lawrence. He talks about the confidence of Vincent Spano in his suit. We learn about his issues with Paramount.
From Triple Play to Double Play (29:57) allows Amy Robinson and Griffin Dunne a chance to explain how they developed and produced the film. Griffin’s roommate when he got to New York was Carrie Fisher. They met up with actor Mark Metcalf and decided to become a producing team at the team called Triple Play Productions. They made Chilly Scenes of Winter. Mark split to focus on acting and they became Double Play Productions. Amy talks about how much in the film was about her real life. There was a Shiek.
A Little Magic (9:55) lets Rosanna Arquette recount how she met Griffin Dunne when he played her brother in the movie The Wall about the Holocaust. He told her about the film. She talks about what attracted her to playing Jill. She let us know what John Sayles did to help her acting in a difficult scene. Turns out Bruce Springsteen still loves the movie. She also explains how she thinks the movie ended after the credits. She feels that Paramount tanked Baby It’s You to put more attention on Flashdance.
Like A Glove (19:49) has Vincent Spano not wearing a necktie. He auditioned for the part with a cassette while he was in Morocco making Return of the Black Stallion. He also included his screentest for The Outsiders. He landed a screentest for Baby It’s You.
I Was In The Right Profession (8:04) admits Matthew Modine. He was working at a restaurant as a cook and attending acting school when he landed the role. He wasn’t supposed to audition while taking classes. He landed the role after two visits with the casting director. Sayles expanded Modine’s role after his first scene with Rosanna Arquette. He felt rewarded.
Image Gallery (7:19) is a montage that includes the poster art, press photos, behind the scenes shots of John Sayles working with the actors, press kit photos, Japanese press kit and a signed laserdisc cover.
Fun City Editions present Baby It’s You: Limited Edition. Directed by John Sayles. Screenplay by John Sayles. Starring Rosanna Arquette, Vincent Spano, Joanna Merlin, Jack Davidson, Liane Curtis, Tracy Pollan, Frank Vincent, Matthew Modine & Robert Downey Jr. Running Time: 105 minutes. Rating: Rated R. Release Date: April 15, 2025.
