Customer Reviews

The Sterile Cuckoo

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This lovely, heartwrenching film is the sort of story that just doesn't get told today -- perhaps the innocence & honesty required just isn't there any longer. More's the pity, because this is a beautifully tender story of first love & its inevitable ending, which deserves to be seen. Liza Minnelli is unafraid to play the eccentric, lonely Pookie as needy & infuriating when required. Yet we never lose our sympathy for her, especially as we realize that Wendell Burton's shy, introverted Jerry is gradually outgrowing her. She's exactly what he needed to break out of his shell, and he clearly understands this ... but he sees that they're destined to go different ways before she does (or before she'll admit it to herself). Minnelli & Burton are superb together, utterly convincing in their wistful, somewhat lost, always searching way. And Tim McIntire's supporting performance as Jerry's boastful roommate, who surprises us with a heartfelt confession on a night drive home, is a small gem in its own right. "Come Saturday Morning" is the perfect song for this small but deeply affecting story of first love, lingering in the memory along with the characters. Highly recommended!

(Now, when is it going to be released on DVD?)

In my review of 'Cabaret', I rather rashly claimed that Liza's turn as self-destructive Ingenue Sally Bowles was her 'once-in-a-lifetime' performance. That, however, was before I caught this 1969 Gem, 'The Sterile Cuckoo', on Sky Classics.

Beautifully-directed by Alan Pakula in that strange, isolated, stereotypical 1960's-flick style, 'The Sterile Cuckoo' tells the bittersweet, emotionally macabre tale of anally-retentive college freshman Jerry Payne (Wendell Burton), and his intense relationship with the scatterbrained, maniacal Pookie Adams (Liza Minnelli), an enigmatic and energetic girl with a sad past.

Liza's first Oscar nomination was very thoroughly deserved. Even as late as 1969 the Oscars were not yet the meaningless PR-Fest that we now know them to be, and it's nominations for odd, thought-provoking performances like Minnelli's, here, that restores our faith in that system. She's absorbing and heart-wrenching, infuriating and devastating, all at the same time. Her perfect foil comes in the guise of the extremely skillfull performance turned in by Wendell Burton, in the role of her hapless boyfriend Jerry. He's the ideal contrast to Minnelli's mania, and though we are oftentimes infuriated by his apathy, we can't help but simultaneously sympathise with him.

Pakula's direction is excellent. The vistas are beautiful; simple and isolated, with so much 'New England' jumping from the screen as to make you all but feel the leaves crunching beneath your feet. The sparse countryside, punctuated by violent outbursts of colour, is the perfect metaphor for the central relationship, and Pakula makes extremely clever use of this in the scenes of Pookie and Jerry's early relationship.

A classic slice of 60's ideal surrealism, this is a beautifully-crafted, emotionally absorbing movie that REALLY should be on DVD by now. Highly recommended.

The first time I saw this movie it bothered me. Watching the love story develop between Pookie and Roger was like watching a horror movie, I kept wanting to yell at the guy for getting into a relationship with this obviously unstable, needy, life-sucking parasite of a human being. But the film haunted me (maybe because I couldn't get "Come Saturday Morning" out of my mind), so much so I bought the video. It's really a different film that couldn't be made today. The pace is different, the plot depends on the characters, Liza Minelli's performance breaks your heart. I suggest this film to anyone who doesn't like the typical romance film of the "Pretty Woman" persuasion. Watch it after you've broken up with somebody if you want a good cry.

This is one of Liza Minnelli's earliest films, and her first Academy Award nomination. She is outstanding as Pookie Adams, a lonely girl from a family with a sad history. She is highly intelligent and extremely winning, especially in the first scene, on a bus, where she manipulates some nuns into letting her sit next to the object of her desire, Jerry Payne. They are going to near-by colleges, and Pookie pursues Jerry, cleverly winning him over, until he finally falls in love with her. In my opinion this is the all-time best coming of age movie! A *must* see for everyone!!! You'll watch it over and over!

I fell in love with this movie while still in high school (1972) and it is one of my favorites. There are so many good scenes that it would take forever to list them. But two stand out and are the best in the film. The scene where Pookie and Jerry are going to have sex for the first time is sweet and honest and absolutely hysterical. Liza's telephone scene ranks up there with Louise Rainer's in "The Great Ziegfeld" and Barbra Streisand's in "The Way We Were". It will tug at your heart strings like no other scene in any movie in recent years. Liza should have beat out Maggie Smith for the OSCAR for this one for which she was nominated. A wonderful movie with laughs, tears, good music and incredible performances. Please bring this to DVD PLEASE!!!

A gem of a little movie - engaging performances from Minnelli (Oscar-nominated, and rightfully so) and Wendell Burton, with sensitive direction from Alan J. Pakula. You have to find an indie or "art house" film today to enjoy a story that takes the time to explore characters and relationships in such unhurried fashion. Interesting soundtrack music, with perhaps a bit too much repetition of "Come Saturday Morning", but it's a minor impediment (It's performed by The Sandpipers - NOT The Association, as erroneously asserted by the London reviewer). Overall, highly recommended!!

I saw this movie about 5 years ago, and I simply fell in love with it's unique charm. This movie was just so...awesome! It's such a great story. I really hope it'll be put on DVD soon; it's been a long time since I've seen it.

It took me awhile to discover this movie. I was out of college by the time I saw it...but it made me want to reverse time and go back to that time in my life.

Liza's great, the cast is great and everything about it is so "strained" that it encapsulates everyone's feelings of not fitting in at one time or another. And it's got a great sixties feel to it that sits right on the very white-bread verge of the end of innocence.

Film review: THE STERILE CUCKOO HITS A HIGH NOTE!
Since no one has seemed to write a review on this wonderful movie, I thought I would like to have a chance.
I first heard about "The Sterile Cuckoo" way back in 1969-70, when it first came out. It was popular, I read a bit and heard alot about it, but never saw the movie. Not until December 17, 1988, on television, on my old Black & White Sylvania television set! Believe me, it was love at first sight! The music, the scenery! And imagine, in the summer of 1988, just some months before, I was up in the area where they filmed it!!!!! YoWWWWWW! I was visiting a friend up in Herkimer, New York. We were in the Clinton area, and Linda said to me, "oh, there's the bell/clock tower that was in the "Sterile Cuckoo". I just said "oh how nice", and that was about it. If I only knew, I would have freaked out, and then proceed on a nostalgic tour of the "Sterile Cuckoo"!!!! (IT WAS LARGELY FILMED AT HAMILTON COLLEGE)
But I digress....
I think that if they had made a sequel to the "Sterile Cuckoo", Pookie Adams would have become a successful writer. Remember her saying on the bus that she will read "anything, anywhere, anytime"?
A sensitive person like Pookie would have become a writer. She would have found her place in life. I would like to think that she did. I kind of get her drift when she calls people "creeps and wierdos". I don't blame her at times. Everyone is so into being the same at times, they don't get the people who are interesting and individual. And it can get frustrating, because they don't even want to try. Jerry (Wendel Burton's character) did or at least tried. I am sorry he did not carry through his commitment to her. I don't understand why. So she got drunk at that college party?? Everyone else did. She kind of went over board on the comments about her fellow college students. (Nancy Putnam and her plastic surgery)But that's the way it goes sometimes.
In all, the story is great, but what is the best part is the GORGEOUS SCENERY, and THE AWESOME MUSIC!!!!! Those two things haunt me endlessly. My hat off to Mr. Alan Pakula, the director of this movie. I am sorry You are gone. You are missed, and will forever be in our hearts as a great director. Thank You.~~~definitedoll

I just got through reading a book about Liza the other today (the book was lousy) but it described "The Sterile Cuckoo" which I have never seen or heard of before. I looked online for it and all I could find was the used copies on this site for eighteen bucks. So imagine my surprise when it came on TCM this week. What luck, right?

Wendell Burton was the perfect actor to play the role of Jerry because he did everything I expected him to do and in a way he did everything that I wanted him to do. And Liza did such a first-rate job as Pookie because she gave this young lady life and body and comedy and character and sorrow. There was something very touching (and perhaps even rather tragic) to this creature. Because Pookie was the type of person that drew people to her with one hand (she craved attention and affection) while simultaneously pushing them away with the other. It was like breathing, she just couldn't help it.

My favorite part was the scene when they went to that little roadside motel. It was absolutely hysterical because Pookie was so into it and good girls (especially girls from the nineteen-sixties) were always supposed to suppress their feelings. To see such a brazen act on film was a real shocker. I love how she ordered Jerry to "peal the tomato." When I first saw Pookie with those black granny-glasses she totally resembled Paul Pfeiffer from "The Wonder Years". But after she hops into that squeaky bed I saw an innocence in her that otherwise went undetected. And after it was all finished she felt sad. No, not guilty-sad, but pensive-sad. Like Pookie explained to Jerry "it's too perfect" and as we all know there is no such thing as perfect.

The movie is very haunting, perhaps because there is something extraordinarily familiar about both Pookie and Jerry. Jerry reminded me of every guy I've ever known. And Pookie was like that crazy girl in college that never wanted to do what anyone else did and always showed up late everywhere and was always terribly disorganized but was still capable to cleaning up her act every once in a while.

It's no surprise that Liza was nominated for her first Oscar because her alter-ego runs the gamut of funny, obsessive, hysterical and desperate. The scene with her on the phone with Jerry, pleading to spend Easter vacation with him (while he studies because he received some "flunk-notices") really showed the type of person Pookie truly was. She was so terrified of being alone. She was downright afraid of being one of the countless causalities in this world that swallows people up whole and throws them away, without a second thought. I could feel her anguish and frustration as she begged and pleaded with Jerry. But Pookie really didn't need to say a word for the audience to get it because everything was clearly written all over her plaintive face.

The soundtrack music was incredibly penetrating. I don't know if it was original music for this movie but it sure sounded like a perfect fit. BTW the song included on the soundtrack is "Come Saturday Morning" by The Sandpippers. According to Wikipedia the song peaked at #17 in 1970. And, it is available on this CD.

"The Sterile Cuckoo" tells me so much. Not blatantly or overtly because both Jerry and even Pookie were more or less introverted when it came to sharing their true emotions and feelings. Sure, Pookie could run around and act like a clown because that was a lot easier than letting society meet that scared and insecure person that lived within her body and mind. You have to read between the lines though and everything is as plain as night.

There must have been a very pronounced part of Pookie that probably felt unloved and incomplete because she saw the world so differently. Everyone around her was weird and strange. I think that was her way of putting up a wall because she didn't know how to allow anyone into her world because deep down she knew that she was the oddball. She finally let Jerry see her like no one else ever did before. And he said he loved her. But did he really? Do any of them love any of us that much? Or do they just want to feel a warm body and hear a heartbeat?