After several years of reading about this musical film, I finally watched Sparkle on Netflix Streaming. It's about a trio of Harlem sisters consisting of Lonette McKee (Sister),Dwan Smith (Dolores),and Irene Cara (Sparkle). Philip Michael Thomas also appears as Stix who's originally one of two male members of the group before becoming the groups' manager later on. And Mary Alice plays their mother Effie. The original songs are by Curtis Mayfield who was from Chicago of which I'm also a native of. The presentations of the performances are very good especially when Ms. McKee or later Ms. Cara are showcased in their close-ups. It was also a nice treat to see Don Bexley-best known to me and others as Bubba on "Sandford and Son"-as one of the M.C.'s. The drama was maybe a little too quick the way they were presented but overall, I very much liked Sparkle. P.S. When I read the obits of Whitney Houston yesterday and found out about her involvement in an upcoming remake with Jordin Sparks as the title character and Ms. Houston as the mother, my heart broke when I realized she wouldn't live to see the result which will be released this August. So it's in her memory I dedicate this review.

It's 1958 Harlem. 15 year old Sparkle Williams (Irene Cara) falls for Stix (Philip M. Thomas). He becomes the manager of her and her two older sisters in a girl singing group.

This has elements of blaxploitation. It has the sex and drugs. It's also a traditional music biopic construction. The music is downright old school. In the disco era, this must have stuck out like a sore thumb. It's basically a darker Dreamgirls. The filmmaking is a little lackluster. The director has most of his credits as an editor. That's really his day job while he dabbles in directing. The two leads are fine and they would go on to do bigger things. Irene Cara is a great singer along with the other characters. The side characters don't get much shine. They are mostly two dimensional roles. This doesn't have the flash to sparkle and it's not dark enough to be dangerous. It's somewhere in the middle and that's this movie. It's stuck in the middle.

A remarkable example of cinematic alchemy at work, with a trite'n'turgid lump of lead script (penned by numbingly mediocre Hollywood hack nonpareil Jole Schumacher, no less) being magically converted into a choice chunk of exquisitely gleaming 24-carat musical drama gold thanks to brisk direction, fresh, engaging performances, spot-on production values, a flavorsome recreation of 50's era New York, an infectiously effervescent roll-with-the-punches tone, and a truly wondrous rhythm and blues score by the great Curtis Mayfield.

The story, loosely based on the real life exploits of the Supremes, prosaically documents the arduous rags-to-riches climb of three bright-eyed, impoverished black teenage girl singers who desperately yearn to escape their ratty, unrewarding ghetto plight and make it big in the razzle-dazzle world of commercial R&B music. All the obvious pratfalls of instant wealth and success -- egos run destructively amok, drugs, corruption, fighting to retain your integrity, and so on -- are predictably paraded forth, but luckily the uniformly excellent work evident in the film's other departments almost completely cancels out Schumacher's flat, uninspired plotting. The first-rate acting helps out a lot. Irene Cara, Lonette McKee, and Dwan Smith are sensationally sexy, vibrant and appealing leads -- and great singers to boot. Comparably fine performances are also turned in by a charmingly boyish pre-"Miami Vice" Philip Michael Thomas as the group's patient, gentlemanly manager, Dorian Harewood as McKee's venal, aggressively amorous hound dog boyfriend, and perennial blaxploitation baddie Tony ("Hell Up in Harlem," "Bucktown") King as a dangerously seductive, smooth operating, stone cold nasty gangster. The tone dips and dovetails from funny and poignant to melancholy and blithesome without ever skipping a beat, deftly evolving into a glowing, uplifting ode to the human spirit's extraordinary ability to effectively surmount extremely difficult and intimidating odds.

Veteran editor Sam O'Stern acquits himself superbly in his directorial debut. Bruce Surtees' luminescent cinematography and Gordon Scott's expert editing are both flawless. O'Stern's firm grasp of period atmosphere, keen eye for tiny, but telling little details, and unerring sense of busy, unbroken pace are just as impressive. No fooling about Curtis Mayfield's impeccable soundtrack contributions, either. "Jump," "What Can I Do With This Feeling," "Givin' Up," "Take My Hand Precious Lord," "Lovin' You Baby," and "Look Into Your Heart" are all terrifically tuneful, soulful, almost unbelievably fantastic songs, with the sweetly sultry love jones number "Something He Can Feel," which was later covered by both Aretha Franklin and En Vogue, clearly copping top musical honors as the best-ever song in the entire movie. The net result of all these above cited outstanding attributes persuasively illustrates that sometimes it's not the screenplay so much as what's done with said script which in turn determines a film's overall sterling quality.