Themes: Rags To Riches, Ladder to the Top, Musician's Life
Main Cast: Rodney Bingenheimer
Release Year: 2003
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
Plot
When Rodney Bingenheimer was just a teenager -- a diminutive, long-haired kid who was picked on a lot -- his mother, a divorced autograph hound, dropped him off in front of the home of actress Connie Stevens and essentially said, "Good luck." Stevens was on location shooting a movie and Bingenheimer says he didn't see his mother again for five or six years after that. The Mayor of the Sunset Strip, a documentary by George Hickenlooper (Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse), tracks Bingenheimer's rise from the 1960s, when he was a groupie -- eventually landing his first show-business job as a double for Davy Jones on The Monkees -- through stints as a successful club owner and influential DJ to his current status as a fading musical icon. The film takes us from the innocent pop of Brian Wilson and Sonny & Cher through the raucous heyday of L.A.'s punk scene and beyond. Hickenlooper also delves into Bingenheimer's relationships, showing him mourning his neglectful and unbalanced, but beloved, mother and visiting with his father, who never attempted to make contact with Bingenheimer after his mother abandoned him. He also pines for a close friend, Camille Chancery, and helps out a seemingly hopeless middle-aged wannabe rock star, Ronald Vaughan. While Bingenheimer used his skills as a consummate hanger-on and his genuine enthusiasm for rock & roll to become a central figure in the L.A. music scene for a couple of decades and is lauded in the film for his good taste and good nature by celebrities from Cher to David Bowie to Gwen Stefani, his current life is shown to be somewhat sad and lonely. The Mayor of the Sunset Strip is chock full of cameos and features a star-studded soundtrack. It was shown at the 2003 New York Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
George Hickenlooper's The Mayor of the Sunset Strip is a fascinating examination of fame and celebrity worship -- a sporadically amusing, wonderfully entertaining, but inexorably sad portrait of L.A. music scene demi-legend Rodney Bingenheimer. Early on in the film, asked if there's anything he wishes he could change about his life, Bingenheimer forlornly says, "Yeah, actually." His obsession with celebrity started at a young age and seems to have been the driving force behind his life. We live in a culture where knowing people who are famous, even if they patronize you the way many of Bingenheimer's celebrity friends seem to, makes you worth knowing. Bingenheimer used his connections to musical stars to meet girls and make his living (as a gossip columnist, club owner, and DJ) but he seems to have operated pretty guilelessly. This is made clear when the filmmakers interview him alongside the sleazy music producer Kim Fowley (whom former Runaways lead singer Cherie Currie calls "a beast" in the film). Bingenheimer clearly has genuine respect and admiration for those he's glommed onto and sincere enthusiasm for the music. This has translated to a genuinely trailblazing career as a disc jockey. Bingenheimer seems hesitant to put any but the most positive spin on his troubled family relationships and his ephemeral friendships with stars and those who want to get close to them. But he's still a compelling film subject. The filmmakers treat him with obvious respect and affection (one of the producers, Chris Carter, was a member of Dramarama, a band Bingenheimer discovered) and he seems like a genuinely nice person, but there's something tragic in this story of an odd little guy who has basically lived his entire life vicariously and no little irony in a film that critiques our obsession with celebrity while simultaneously exploiting it. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Julie Janata - Co-producer, George Hickenlooper - Director, Julie Janata - Editor, Donald Zuckerman - Executive Producer, Anthony Marinelli - Composer (Music Score), Charles Raggio - Musical Direction/Supervision, Chris Carter - Musical Direction/Supervision, George Hickenlooper - Cinematographer, Kramer Morgenthau - Cinematographer, Chris Carter - Cinematographer, Igor Meglic - Cinematographer, Donald Zuckerman - Producer, Chris Carter - Producer, Greg Little - Producer, Tommy Perna - Producer, Clint Bennett - Recording, Mike Chock - Sound/Sound Designer, George Hickenlooper - Screenwriter
