Despite my intense love of David Lynch’s 1992 masterpiece, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, I’ve come to realize that there were many who didn’t enjoy it when the film was released in 1992. While only a handful of critics offered praise, many panned the prequel to the groundbreaking television series. It doesn’t mean these critics were wrong. After all, critics are paid to offer her or his perspectives on films, and some critics, like the late Joan Vadeboncouer, loved reviewing movies. But in the case of Lynch’s prequel, Ms. Vadeboncouer found the film “lacked suspense.”
WHO IS JOAN E. VADEBONCOUER?
Born in 1933, Joan E. Vadeboncoeur was the daughter of E.R. “Curley” Vadeboncoeur, a famous World War II journalist and media executive, and a well-known philanthropist mother, Orletta. She worked at the Fayetteville Country Playhouse in high school and later studied performing arts at Sarah Lawrence University, graduating in 1954.
In June that year, she began reporting for the Post-Standard, covering what she called the “MHA beat” – Morgue, Hospital and Ambulances. In July 1956, Vadeboncoeur transferred to the Herald Journal, where she “took on projects regularly foisted upon the few female reporters of the day.” She ran the Miss Syracuse beauty contest and local spelling bee. One day, she filled in for a vacationing entertainment writer and the rest is history.
According to an article in The Post Standard on January 5, 2011, Joan was quite the larger-than-life critic beloved by many:
“She wore rainbow-colored socks and reveled in verbal exchanges with co-workers. Her filing system was legendary: She kept everything in her head or on Post-It notes. In rain and snow, she would stand defiantly outside the building, smoking. She was known for never calling in sick and never taking vacations. She often worked seven days a week, driving herself on nights and weekends to see movies and plays.”
In 1972, she appeared as an extra in the film Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
“No ape mask was required, but heavy makeup and costume were,” she wrote later. “The joys of moviemaking began to dim.”
Until late November 2010, when illness kept her from work, Vadeboncoeur continued her weekly columns.
On January 4, 2011, she passed at home in Cazenovia at the age of 78. Joan was buried at Oakwood Cemetery. She never married or had children, so she was survived by two cousins, Jayne Street and Faye Brooks.
JOAN E. VADEBONCOEUR’S REVIEW OF TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME
Like many critics of the time, reviews of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me were published on or after August 28, 1992, the day the film was released in North America. New Line Cinema opted not to hold screenings for critics. The film distributor held “Advance Screenings” the night before on August 27 starting about 10:00 p.m., which was way past deadlines for publishing articles in daily newspapers.
Vadeboncouer’s review of David Lynch’s 1992 film was published in the Syracuse Herald Journal on September 2, 1992. She gave the film two stars and didn’t have many positive reactions from what many consider one of Lynch’s finest films today.
You’ll notice right away that she gets one major detail wrong – the show was set in Washington, not Oregon. Yet I’m sure the confusion stemmed from the opening scene where F.B.I. Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole calls Special Agent Chet Desmond from “OR-E-GON!” I’m thinking Ms. Vadeboncoeur was not an ardent viewer of the groundbreaking television series.
‘Twin Peaks’ lacks suspense
Once upon a time in the fictional Oregon town of Twin Peaks lived a bizarre group of characters who swirled from the brain of writer, director and producer David Lynch. For a brief, shining mo-ment, they captured the public’s fancy on television, like Camelot. But like a shooting star, they quickly fell to Earth.
Now, Lynch has brought back his weird characters in a full-length motion picture – “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.”
Lynch shouldn’t expect converts. Only fans of the TV series (and not all of them) are sure to put up with the heavy plotting and the finale that reaches biblical proportions.
Lynch had two strikes against him when he started this project. Devotees of the series know that Leland Palmer murdered his daughter, Laura. So do thousands of others who couldn’t avoid the media hype that surrounded that revelation.
So, how does Lynch build up any suspense? He doesn’t. He simply lays out his odd and not-so-odd denizens again. Mistakenly, Lynch concentrates on Laura, who increasingly snorts cocaine, boozes and indulges in rampant sex. She becomes so unappetizing as a heroine that, near the end, it’s tempting to forgive Leland the heinous crime, despite his Freudian attachment to his daughter.
To be fair, Lynch attempts some originality as he links Kyle MacLachlan’s Special Agent Cooper and Sheryl Lee’s Laura. But he employs hackneyed dream sequences. It seems a mere ploy to ensure one of the series’ most popular characters receives enough screen time to satisfy his fans.
The absence of the exotic Joan Chen and the switch from Lara Flynn Boyle to wishy-washy Moria Kelly for Laura’s best friend also damage the film’s potential. Adding David Bowie in a cameo role smacks of exploitation.
After awhile, moviegoers are reduced to counting the number of times Lee disrobes and snorts, or to wondering if such series stalwarts as Peggy Lipton as Norma Jennings and Catherine E. Coulson as The Log Lady will ever get their fair share of the screen. The answer on the former is three each; on the latter, it’s zero.
New Line Cinema, the film’s distributor, had hoped to spawn another series from “Twin Peaks” to join its “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” series.
Forget it, folks.
SYRACUSE HERALD JOURNAL ADVERTISEMENTS FOR TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME
I pulled a few of the newspaper ads from the Syracuse Herald Journal for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.
One August 27, the paper ran a rectangular ad stating the movie would open in two theatres – Hoyts Carousel Center Cinema 12 and Loews Shoppington.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With officially opened in theatres on August 28, 1992.
The day after the official release, the paper ran another rectangular ad.
On the day Vadeboncoeur’s review was published, the paper ran a different ad with two review snippets from the Denver Post and L.A. Daily News.
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