Brenda Starr (1989)

Shelved for a long time – the $16 million film was actually made in 1986 but sat on the shelf due to a legal dispute – this camp comedy-adventure starred Brooke Shields as the plucky reporter from the comics.

Brenda’s biggest concerns are the outfits she gets to wear (the film is a bit of a fashion show) and the fact that Mike Randall (Tony Peck) – the artist who draws her – insists on giving her purses that are too small for her notebook.

Brenda – who writes for a newspaper known as The Flash in post-World War II New York – has the hots for Basil St James (a pre-007 Timothy Dalton) in all his eye-patched dashing charm. Basil, of course, helps her save the free world.

The chief villains are a gang of incompetent Russian agents (including a bald-headed goofball and a pint-sized cigar-smoking female leader), though also hindering Brenda is the ambitious and vaguely vampish rival reporter Libby “Lips” Lipscomb (Diana Scarwid).

Guest appearances include Eddie Albert as the Police Chief; Charles Durning as Starr’s flamboyant boss Editor Francis I. Livright; Henry Gibson as the obligatory eccentric scientist, and Ed Nelson as the piano-playing American President.

Although seen in cinemas in Europe in 1989, Brenda Starr was not released in the US until 1992, by which time it pretty much went straight to video.

Brenda Starr
Brooke Shields
Basil St John
Timothy Dalton
Mike Randall
Tony Peck
Libby ‘Lips’ Lipscomb
Diana Scarwid
Jose
Nestor Serrano
Vladimir
Jeffrey Tambor
Luba
June Gable
Editor Francis I. Livright
Charles Durning
Reporter Hank O’Hare
Kathleen Wilhoite
Cub Reporter Pesky Miller
John Short
Police Chief Maloney
Eddie Albert
Donovan O’Shea (Public Enemy #3)
Mark von Holstein
Professor Gerhardt Von Kreutzer
Henry Gibson
President Harry S. Truman
Ed Nelson
Fake Captain Borg
Tom Aldredge
Real Captain Borg
Matthew Cowles
Carlos The Magnificent
Avner Eisenberg
Esperanza
Mary Lou Rosato
Boris
Rex Pierson
Mischa
David Efron

Director
Robert Ellis Miller

Video