A Tiger's Tale

Not to be confused with The Tale of a Tiger, The Tiger's Tail, or Tiger Tale.
A Tiger's Tale
Theatrical poster
Directed byPeter Douglas
Screenplay byPeter Douglas
Based onLove and Other Natural Disasters by
Allen Hannay III
Produced byDon Goldman
Peter Douglas
StarringAnn-Margret
C. Thomas Howell
Charles Durning
Kelly Preston
CinematographyTony Pierce-Roberts
Edited byDavid Campling
Music byLee Holdridge, the Textones
Production
company
Vincent Pictures
Distributed byAtlantic Releasing
Release date
  • 12 February 1988 (1988-02-12)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited States
Box office$89,000[1]

A Tiger's Tale is a 1987 American comedy-drama film starring Ann-Margret and C. Thomas Howell, written and directed by Peter Douglas, based on the novel Love and Other Natural Disasters by Allen Hannay III.

Plot

Bubber Drumm is a Houston high school student. Rose Butts is an alcoholic, more than twice his age, and the mother of his girlfriend, Shirley. Bubber and Rose begin an affair after Bubber fixes Shirley up with his pal, Ransom McKnight.

Bubber and Rose carry on their affair under the nose of her daughter until everything comes out in the open at a drive-in movie theater. To get even with Bubber and Rose for "behaving badly", Shirley pricks a hole in Rose's diaphragm. Shirley goes on to live with her father and Bubber moves in with Rose along with his pet tiger. The diaphragm incident results in Rose getting pregnant with Bubber's baby. The couple must decide whether to keep the baby and continue their May/December romance or part ways.

Throughout the film, they end up in the small town of Fairchilds, Texas, and they go dancing at the Fairchild Hall.

Principal cast

Actor Role
Ann-Margret Rose Butts
C. Thomas Howell Bubber Drumm
Charles Durning Charlie Drumm
Kelly Preston Shirley Butts
Ann Wedgeworth Claudine
William Zabka Randy
James Noble Sinclair
Sean Patrick Flanery Buddy

Music

The non-score music is by the Textones (Carla Olson, Phil Seymour, Joe Read, George Callins, Tom Jr Morgan).

Critical reception

Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 out of 4 stars although he did like certain aspects of the film:[2]

Some movies don't seem to know what they're really about, and A Tiger's Tale is one of them... What does work in the film, however, is the unlikely relationship between Howell and Ann-Margret... The movie is top-heavy with plot, and what's good in it gets lost in the confusion.

— Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times

Janet Maslin of The New York Times:[3]

A Tiger's Tale, which opens today at Loews 84th Street Six, is most notable for what it doesn't have: a heavy hand. The material has more than enough potential to become painfully silly, and Mr. Douglas's biggest accomplishment is making sure that doesn't happen.

— Janet Maslin, The New York Times

References

  1. ^ Hassen, Kristie. "A Tiger's Tale > Overview". AllMovie. Retrieved 2010-07-26.
  2. ^ "A Tiger's Tale movie review & film summary (1988) | Roger Ebert".
  3. ^ Maslin, Janet (1988-02-12). "New York Times review". Movies.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2010-10-13.


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