After much debate on on Oct. 8, 1957, Jerry Lee Lewis poured his divided soul into recording “Great Balls of Fire” at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. The song was released on November 11 of that year, and it went on to enter the top ten on the U.S. country, pop, and R&B charts, as well as number one on the U.K. pop charts.
A “Blasphemous” Song?
But Lewis initially refused to record the song. Lewis grew up in the Assemblies of God church and had attended Southwest Bible College in Texas before getting expelled for playing rock and roll music.
Lewis was tortured about whether or not to record this song. Many in the church considered the southern expression “Great Balls of Fire” to be blasphemous, as it refers to the Holy Spirit appearing as fire.
Argument with Sam Phillips
Before the recording of the song in October 1957, Lewis argued with Sun Studio’s Sam Phillips about whether or not he could bring himself to record the song. Phillips encouraged Lewis, telling him that he could save souls.
Lewis responded, “How can the devil save souls?…I got the devil in me!” The tape was rolling during the argument, so you may hear Lewis and Phillips discussing the song in the clip below:
The argument continued in a dialogue that appears somewhat disjointed. But after awhile, Lewis came around and recorded the song.
After the Recording of “Great Balls of Fire”
Lewis, who is cousins with preacher Jimmy Swaggart, would continue to be tortured by the divide between his upbringing and his rock and roll lifestyle. As recounted in a book and movie about his life, after his rise to fame, audiences deserted him because he married his 13-year-old cousin. Lewis’s career would be resurrected eventually, and he continues to record and perform.
Lewis must have found peace with the blasphemous song, which he continued to perform. But he could not have predicted in 1957 that he would become so associated with the phrase “Great Balls of Fire.” It would become the title for his biography and the movie about his life, starring Dennis Quaid in an interesting, over-the-top performance.
What do you think of the song and the movie “Great Balls of Fire”? Leave a comment.
On July 7 in 1900, Warren Earp — the youngest of the Earp brothers — was killed in a saloon in Wilcox, Arizona. Warren’s most famous brother, Wyatt Earp, lived until 1929. On the day he died, Warren was drinking and confronting other customers when John Boyett killed him in a gunfight. In a later trial, Boyett was found not guilty because he was acting in self-defense.
Warren Earp did not participate in the famous 1881 gunfight at OK Corral with his brothers and Doc Holliday. But he was in the town at the time. And later he helped Wyatt with the revenge killings after the gunfight. All of those events surrounding the gunfight are portrayed in the movie Wyatt Earp (1994), a decent movie with an odd ending.
The Ending of “Wyatt Earp” . . . on a Ship?
“You ended a movie about me with a luxury cruise?”
Wyatt Earp is an enjoyable movie and in some ways superior to the more popular Tombstone from the same year. But there is one major problem with it. The movie has a poor ending. Had director Lawrence Kasden given the movie a memorable ending, the movie would be more highly regarded than it is. (Spoiler Alert: This entry discusses the film’s ending, although it is not a twist or surprise ending.)
In Wyatt Earp, the movie follows Earp’s life from his time as a child to adulthood. The film, of course, focuses largely on Earp’s western exploits. And much of the movie centers on Earp’s time in Tombstone, Arizona. It is in Tombstone where Earp and his brothers participated in the Gunfight at OK Corral.
The movie provides a realistic portrayal of that famous fight. Then, the movie shows subsequent events and the anger among the survivors. As the movie nears the end, we see Kevin Costner’s Earp exacting revenge on other characters who participated in the Tombstone gunfight.
Then, the movie cuts to many years in the future. Earp and his wife Josie Marcus are on a ship near Alaska.
They are approached by a young man who recounts a story, by aid of a flashback, of how Earp saved his uncle, Tommy “Behind the Deuce” O’Rourke (based on real-life Michael “Johnny-Behind-the Deuce” O’Rourke). Tommy’s nephew describes how Earp had intervened to protect Tommy from an angry mob many years earlier in Tombstone.
Then, after Tommy’s nephew leaves, Earp says to Josie, “Some say it did not happen that way.” She responds to the effect, “Don’t worry Wyatt, it happened that way.” End of movie.
The video below includes most of the movie’s conclusion, although it omits the comments by Wyatt and Josie at the end of the scene.
Why the Ending of “Wyatt Earp” Does not Work
This coda to the movie does not work for a number of reasons. First, the scene includes a distracting flashback after a short jump to the future.
We are thrown into a big jump in the future, which could work if the future showed us something meaningful about the movie we have been watching for three-plus hours. But the purpose of this flash-forward is to show a flashback to Earp’s lawman days — a time period the movie already covered.
Further, the ship ending — especially along with the flashback — makes it appear that the Tommy-Behind-the-Deuce character has some big significance for summarizing Earp’s life. But what happened with Tommy does not really seem that significant. It is not any more important than the rest of the movie that already focused on Earp’s lawman. But by ending with a discussion of the flashback, the movie makes the viewer think they should see something important that just is not there.
On the IMDb website, one astute viewer notes that earlier in the movie Josie had mentioned having heard the Tommy-Behind-the-Deuce story when she first met Wyatt. But, even assuming viewers will remember one passing mention of Tommy early in the three-hour movie, viewers may not remember at the end. And even if they remember and make the connection at the end, it is still confusing about why the movie ends on the Tommy-Behind-the-Deuce note.
What Was the Director Thinking?
There does not seem to be much discussion of the ending on the web. But there are a few brief critiques (“muddled,” “neutered climax,” etc.). And Roger Ebert calls the ending sequence “pointless.”
One might concede there is an argument for what Director Lawrence Kasden was trying to accomplish. The scene does reflect on the myth of the Western and how events may be remembered differently than how they really happened.
The flashback does show Earp as a pure hero. When we watch Earp in the real-time of the movie, we see many flaws in the man. But when we see him in the memory, Earp does his job as a lawman perfectly. So, perhaps Kasden wanted viewers to see that contrast to show how Earp became remembered as a hero and his flaws forgotten in that memory.
That interpretation of the ending makes some sense. But if that interpretation was Kasden’s goal, the contrast should have been clearer for the viewer disoriented by the sudden jump to the future on a boat. Maybe the scene needed to be longer.
Perhaps Kasden was trying to invoke another famous movie scene from To Kill a Mockingbird. In that movie, lawyer Atticus Finch protected a man from a lynch mob, and the viewer saw him as a courageous hero.
That all being said, with the exception of the ending, Director Lawrence Kasden created a very good Western epic biopic with Wyatt Earp. The film does a decent job of trying to convey much of a long adventurous life.
I even prefer Wyatt Earp to the less realistic Tombstone. Kevin Costner does a good job in the lead role, portraying the hero as a dark and troubled character. And Dennis Quaid gives one of his best performances ever as Doc Holliday. One of the best things about both Wyatt Earp and Tombstone are the portrayals of Doc Holiday by Quaid and Val Kilmer, respectively.
If you do not mind the awkward ending and the length of the film, and if you appreciate character-studies and Westerns, you might want to spend a lazy weekend afternoon watching Wyatt Earp.
(The trailer has a better ending than the movie, withe Gene Hackman’s lines summarizing the theme of the movie better than the lines that actually ended the movie.)
would add more to explain the confusing ending, but unfortunately 