Bagdad Cafe
“Ninety-
BAGDAD CAFE (1987)
Original title: Out of Rosenheim
A film by Percy Adlon
Marianne Sägebrecht.............. Jasmin Münchgstettner
CCH Pounder......................... Brenda
Jack Palance......................... Rudi Cox
Christine Kaufmann................ Debby
Monica Calhoun..................... Phyllis
Darron Flagg.......................... Sal, Jr.
G. Smokey Campbell............. Sal, Sr.
Hans Stadlbauer.................... Herr Münchgstettner
Driving through the Mojave Desert somewhere between Las Vegas and Disneyland, a middle
aged German tourist couple has a spat...
and the wife, Jasmin, strikes out on her own. Trudging down the highway pulling along
a large suitcase, she is so unlikely a sight that Brenda, the irascible proprietor
of the Bagdad Cafe where Jasmin stops, is instantly suspicious. So begins a hilarious
and touching account of the relationship that develops between these two women of
different cultures. It also offers a renewed, endearingly quirky vision of America
as a land with room for self discovery and individuality. Progressing from bleak
reality to Utopian fantasy, BAGDAD CAFE offers the flip side to one other German
film directed in America, PARIS TEXAS. But Adlon celebrates the possibilities of
a uniquely American sense of community, of harmony between disparate people. Winner
of numerous awards and an international box-
Directed by Percy Adlon
Screenplay by Percy and Eleonore Adlon and Christopher Doherty
Director of Photography -
Editor -
Music by Bob Telson
Production Design -
A pelemele Film/Pro-
In English, 108 min
Shot in 35mm Kodak in Newberry Springs, Ca., on route 66 in April 1987.
Premiere: International Film Festival Rio de Janeiro, 1987
