It amazes me that this unnecessary, made-for-TV film, which cribs most of its material from the documentary, is more popular (at least according to IMDb's vote system) than the Maysles brothers' renowned documentary on the Beale's: Grey Gardens (1975).
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Because people are stupid.
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mfeeman,
i believe the doc was released in 1976 in nyc for a short time, then onto boston and other places. it wasn't released to the average movie theater but rather to small theaters in "artsy" places more central to college students.
as a 10 year old, you probably weren't near a theater like that so you wouldn't have heard of gg.
i lived in boston for a long time and there was a small theater in cambridge near harvard that was known for showing unusual movies and docs that were off beat for most people. i don't know for sure but i think that theater would have shown gg, it would never have played in a small town theater that a 10 year old would have regular access to ordinarily.
gg never made any money as little edie expected and the "beales of gg" was just an offshoot of that because gg went to video. people wanted more of gg so that was pieced together in the hopes of its becoming more popular and making more money on the dvd's.
as a side note, the loud family on public tv was the first reality show, i think it aired beginning in 1972.
Well I was a child as well in 1975 and remember this well, but I grew up in the area.
It was a huge news story because of the Kennedy connection.
It was on the local NYC news and papers for weeks.
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"You're in the minority with your opinion that this film is "unnecessary."
i agree with the op about the film's being unnecessary. the doc was so perfect and so true, why enlarge on a doc and make it into something it never was?
More people watched the film, and the film had two wonderful actresses in it.
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"More people watched the film, and the film had two wonderful actresses in it."
kariann,
"actresses" can never take the place of the real people, never.
The Tele-film also fleshed out the story of big and little Eydie.
It also made them a bit more sympathetic than the doc. which just showed a couple of kooks living in squalor in a dillapidated old mansion.
I tried to watch the doc. (before I saw the film) and couldn`t get through it. It seemed kind of narcissitic and also that these poor women had gone off their crumpet and needed some psychiactric help.
Seeing how this had all come about made me a bit more sympathetic to their story.
Also, Barrymore and Lange were both brilliant in their parts.
Dorothy stop that, Mr. Ha Ha`s lookin at you!!
No, they were perfectly sane. They were playing it up for the camera.
shareBecause the dodumentary was just two crazy old ladies just talking about the past in a rather uninteresting way, whereas the movie had a plot thas was more engaging.
shareNot that many people knew about IMDB in 1975. I used to log on with a potato.
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