Chapter XIX

 

The Baby-sitters Club Movie

 

 

Principal BSC Members

 

Kristy - Schuyler Fisk

Dawn - Larisa Oleynik

Jessi - Zelda Harris

Mary Anne - Rachael Leigh Cook

Stacey - Bre Blair

Mallory - Stacey Linn Ramsower

Claudia - Tricia Joe

 

Directed by Melanie Mayron; Screenplay by Dalene Young; Produced by Jane Startz and Peter G. Almond

 

**(See the movie novelization blurb in the Book Related section (Chapter X) for the basic plot.)**

 

*          The open call auditions around the country involved 6,000 girls.  From these open calls, only the part of Vanessa Pike was chosen, which went to Bridget Garaghty in Chicago.  (As is usually the case with this type of search, it is more for publicity than to actually find parts, as professional actresses of this caliber have their own individual auditions set up by their managers and do not participate in the open calls.)

 

*          After the other principals were decided upon, the casting directors still had no Kristy.  Director Melanie Mayron remembered that Sissy Spacek had a daughter about the right age and contacted the family.  Schuyler Fisk submitted an audition videotape and was so good and looked so much like Kristy that she was given the part with­out ever having done a live audition. This was Schuyler’s first acting experience.

 

*          Larisa Oleynik (Dawn), Zelda Harris (Jessi), and Austin O’Brien (Logan) were familiar from other TV and movie roles.  Tricia Joe, who was picked for Claudia, was a 17-year-old senior in high school but could play someone Claudia’s age.  Ann M. Martin was part of the selection process of the cast, which obviously was an important reason that the actresses picked were so successful at relating to the charac­ters.  Many of them were very familiar with the books as well, especially Rachael Leigh Cook (Mary Anne).  In real life Rachael is “a little grunge-head, a little hip-hop, happening kid who happens to be ob­sessed with The Baby-sitters Club as a reader,” which is likely why she was able to jump out of her own persona and play completely opposite Mary Anne with such expertise.

 

*          It was essential that the actresses look like the girls in the books.  Schuyler Fisk dyed her strawberry blond hair dark brown for the part of Kristy, Larisa Oleynik dyed her brown hair and had extensions put in it to play Dawn, and Stacey Linn Ramsower dyed her brown hair red to look like Mallory.

 

*          Producer Jane Startz was familiar with the BSC inasmuch as she is one of the founders and executive vice presidents of Scholastic Productions, Inc., and divisional vice president of its parent company Scho­lastic, Inc.  She also produced the 13 videocassettes along with Deborah Forte, who served as one of the executive producers for this movie.  It was Ms. Startz’ idea to develop a BSC movie, having seen the success of the videos.

 

*          The movie was filmed in Los Angeles.  The production crew saw a house they liked the looks of to use as the Brewer Mansion, and it turned out that one of the kids living there was an avid BSC reader, so she persuaded her parents to let the movie use their house.  The girl was thrilled when each of the ac­tresses signed a BSC book for her.

 

*          Producer Peter Almond said of the movie:  “I love the themes that this particular story delves into.  What I think Ann Martin has achieved in the novels, and what we’ve tried to achieve with the film, is the im­portance of closeness among a group of kids as they make the transition into the outer world of emotional attachments and close, intimate relationships.”

 

 

MY REVIEW OF THE MOVIE

 

(Reprinted from

The Whispered Watchword, #95-10, Dec 95-Jan 96)

 

                As indicated in the companion article in this month’s TWW, there was a great deal of promotional mate­rial on The Baby-sitters Club movie before it came out; in addition, the novelization of the movie was released a full six weeks before the film’s premiere.  That means that those of us who would have the biggest interest in seeing the movie knew all about it and its subject matter before we ever saw it.  I also gathered up about a dozen reviews from the newspapers earlier the same day as the premiere, which was Friday, August 18.

                I went opening night (at the 9:15 showing to avoid being trampled by screaming hordes of kids; as a re­sult, the theater was practically empty), and I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it more than I thought I was going to.  I knew that becoming used to a whole new set of actresses was going to be difficult, since I own all 13 of the BSC videos and am very familiar with them.  However, I was very pleased with the movie’s personnel and thought the parts were well cast.  Obviously, the biggest part was Kristy, played by Sissy Spacek’s daughter, Schuyler Fisk.  Dawn and Stacey, and, to a lesser extent, Claudia, had major roles and subplots, but Mallory and Jessi were barely used at all in the movie, and Mary Anne’s boyfriend Logan was grossly underused (played by Austin O’Brien, who was so good in My Girl 2 opposite Anna Chlumsky).  Obviously, like all movies, this one needed a villain, and it was the BSC’s nemesis, irrepressibly snotty Cokie Mason, the kid who represents every­thing that everyone throughout history hated about middle school.

                The general newspaper reviewers all had one thing in common; they were not familiar with the BSC books.  It was very evident from the beginning that to get much out of this film, one had to know the books--and really know the books--which is why all the reviews were rather tepid.  Many of the minor characters were barely introduced, or not introduced at all, which was not a problem for me, since I have read every single vol­ume.  For example, there was a young baby-sitting charge who spoke in rhyme, with no explanation; of course that was funny to me because I knew it was Mallory Pike’s younger sister Vanessa who always talks that way, but no one who hadn’t read the books would have understood that in the movie.

                I personally thought one of the best things about the movie was the background music.  There were a number of very nice pop songs (released in an album soundtrack later), and they greatly helped to hold the thing together, like a cohesive glue.  The biggest problem with this film was the fact that there were so many different subplots going on, it was hard to keep up while watching without getting out of breath.  These various subplots jumped from one to another extremely quickly, many times without letting the viewer know how it was resolv­ing itself.  By the time one thought, “What just happened?”, we were on to the next subplot, and the next, and the next.  I guess kids today, brought up on MTV and 30-second television commercials, eat this stuff up and never think a thing of it.

                Kids I know in general loved the movie, but then, don’t forget, these kids know the books too.  The more a kid was familiar with the characters in the books, the more she liked the film.  I am sure parents and grandpar­ents who were dragged to it by their young ones were totally befuddled for 90 minutes with everything moving so quickly.

                The movie debuted in the top 10 at #9 the first week out and then dropped out of the rankings.  I had to wait over a month before it came back to a smaller theater outside town so I could see it again.  It is much better the second time, because one’s head is no longer spinning so much trying to figure out how the heck all these subplots fit together.

                The most fortunate thing about this movie, and what made it so enjoyable overall, was that the integrity and spirit of the books were retained.  I have a feeling that Ann M. Martin had a lot to do herself with the crea­tion of this film, as the element of friendship among these 7 diverse personalities was emphasized more than any­thing.  That alone made it worth seeing.  When it comes out on videocassette, it will be an important histori­cal BSC collectible.

 

 

© The Society of Phantom Friends, 1995

 

 

Note:  The movie videocassette was released in mid-March 1996.  It was also made available in widescreen format on laserdisc.  (DVD coming?)