Jonathan Demme Turns the Kurt Vonnegut Story, “Who Am I This Time?,” Into a TV Movie, with Susan Sarandon & Christopher Walken in Starring Roles (1982)

Back in 1982, the PBS Amer­i­can Play­house series aired Jonathan Dem­me’s made-for-TV film based on the Kurt Von­negut sto­ry, “Who Am I This Time?” Now, thanks to the YouTube chan­nel Chick­en Soup for the Soul TV, you can watch the rarely-seen film online. The chan­nel writes:

Mix togeth­er a small town com­mu­ni­ty the­atre’s shy lead­ing man and the love­ly tele­phone work­er who moves into town and you have a per­fect recipe for a delight­ful roman­tic com­e­dy. Acad­e­my Award-win­ners Susan Saran­don and Christo­pher Walken star as the cou­ple who dis­cov­er that affairs of the heart on the stage may be a bit less com­pli­cat­ed than con­tin­u­ing the romance off the stage. Direc­tor Jonathan Demme, an Acad­e­my Award-win­ner, deft­ly weaves this endear­ing tale of love in bloom from Kurt Von­negut, Jr.‘s sto­ry.

While the video qual­i­ty is grainy, the movie is still sig­nif­i­cant for serv­ing as an ear­ly career vehi­cle for Saran­don, Walken and direc­tor Demme. This isn’t exact­ly ‘Before They Were Stars’ — after all, by 1982, Walken had already won an Oscar for “The Deer Hunter,”
Saran­don had already starred in “Rocky Hor­ror” and been nom­i­nat­ed for an Oscar for Atlantic City, and Demme, although still a decade away from his biggest work, had already direct­ed the acclaimed “Melvin & Howard.”

Watch oth­er com­plete films on the Chick­en Soup for the Soul TV Youtube Channel, or on their free-stand­ing web­site. Enjoy.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent 

4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More

Watch the New Trail­er for a Kurt Von­negut Doc­u­men­tary 40 Years In the Mak­ing

Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tips on How to Write a Good Short Sto­ry

Hear Christo­pher Walken’s Won­der­ful Read­ing of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”

Susan Saran­don Reads an Ani­mat­ed Ver­sion of Good Night Moon … With­out Cry­ing


by | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.