Above the Line: My Wild Oats Adventure

Above the Line: My Wild Oats Adventure by Shirley MacLaine         Audio Book: 5 hrs. 39 min    Hardback Book:  224 pages                  

What a fun book.    Actress Shirley MacLaine gives the inside info on the actors, crew, Director, financiers, hangers on, and more on the independent film she did titled, “Wild Oats.”    An ongoing project for 5 years or so, the film finally got enough financial  backing to get done and onto DVD.    I was lucky enough to have picked the film up prior to the book because I had seen the trailer and requested it.   Then I saw the title by Shirley MacLaine and though I hadn’t read any of her books so I picked it up independently of the film and was delighted to find the two offset each other and I was lucky enough to have both at hand.   I first listened to the audio book and got the skinny on what was happening behind the scenes before I watched the film itself to see what she was talking about and it made me enjoy the film all the more for knowing.    While friendly the actors spent some evenings together over dinner but as a rule everyone went their own ways.   In the film the actresses are so on top of their game viewers believe the stars have been friends all their lives they play off of each other perfectly.    Billy Connolly played a little aloof but then his character seemed to be in the beginnings of Alzheimers so it wasn’t unenjoyable.   He can be very funny, very odd or very serious and in this role he was oddly serious which made for a whole new Billy Connolly experience still good.    All the hassles and set-backs Shirley MacLaine describes were not observable – the film is flawless.    I remember everyone, except the financial backer, talking about it,  when a certain Latina got 18 pages of dialogue added to her part increasing her screen time, because she was the mistress of the married financial backer.    When I saw her in the film, every time I heard her name I thought of the name the folks on set jokingly referred to her by that Shirley MacLaine hilariously mentions from time to time.     The filmmakers talked Shirley MacLaine and Jessica Lange into signing on to attract financial backers, then they were asked to defer their pay until all the backing was in.   Shirley found out the Director and most all of the crew were paying for the stars hotels, meals, airplane tickets and costumes out of their own pockets and were doing their best to stretch their money as much as possible.     Shirley brought every wig she had ever worn since the 1960s in case anyone needed to use them, and many of the clothes were the actors’ own clothes or they bought the costumes from the set to allow for more money to be used to shoot more footage.   A fun retelling of a very unique experience in the Canary Islands and later the state of Louisiana.    There is also a lot of talk of chakras, and how the location of Atlantis is believed to be where they were shooting and how Shirley MacLaine experienced past life regressions during her meditations while there.   Much, much more.   I do highly recommend this book for a really amusing quick read or listen, then watch the film, you will get the extra flavor from both as if you experienced it all from a butterfly on the wall’s perspective.      Good book.

- Shirley J