Be it fact or fiction, Blaze from 1989 stars Paul Newman as Governor Earl Long of Louisiana and Lolita Davidovich as his mistress, Blaze Starr.Earl Long was Huey Long's brother, and his political life -- and his personal life -- were both tempestuous. Long was a supporter of civil rights and met much opposition. He had an affair with a stripper. His wife Blanche at one point had him committed, and after that, the two separated. He ran for office when he was nearly dead.Long was an amazing man, and Paul Newman, as one might expect, does him justice - he's plain speaking, funny, rough around the edges, and likes a good time. When he goes to a strip joint and meets Blaze -- as the other women point out, Earl has met them all - he's smitten. Flaming red hair, a fabulous figure, and an imaginative entertainer -- she becomes part of his life.The problem with the film is that it's too disjointed. It starts out as the story of Blaze, beginning when she leaves home to become a singer and winds up a stripper, and a well-known one at that. Frankly, I found Earl's story more interesting, and his character more dominant. It's Paul Newman after all, a powerful and charismatic actor, one of the best, if not the best, we had in film. Davidovich is sexy and loving as Blaze, but she doesn't have Newman's vivid presence.According to some people, though Blaze and Earl got together in the last months of his life, she did not have the importance shown in the film. Did she love him? I'd say so. He left her $50,000 in his will and she refused to accept it. It seems obvious she made his last months on earth happy ones. As far as pushing him to run for office after his last hurrah, those in the know say it's not true. No way really to know - the film is based on Blaze's book.This film could have been a lot better if it had focused on Earl Long totally and had Blaze in the film. Dividing the story did neither any good and slowed it up.By the way, Blaze is at this writing 81 or so and designs some very nice jewelry. I suspect she's a very interesting woman.

Blaze is a based on the memoir Blaze Starr: My Life as Told to Huey Perry by Blaze Starr and Huey Perry.The the film stars Paul Newman as Earl Long and Lolita Davidovich as Blaze Starr.It was written and directed by Ron Shelton.The film is a comic-strip re-telling of the curious late-1950s relationship between famed striptease artist Blaze Starr and Lousiana governor Earl Long. Their romance is counterbalanced with the story of Long's efforts to win voting rights for Louisiana's black citizens. The governor's political enemies ruin his chances at re-election, then try to put him out of the way permanently with a trumped-up insanity charge. But with faithful Blaze at his side, Long confounds his foes by winning a congressional seat. On the eve of this triumph, Earl Long dies, bringing this boisterous story to a sobering conclusion.This is noted mostly for the offbeat casting of Paul Newman.He was at his best here.His performance elevates the film into higher levels.Watch it for him alone.

This was one of the few times that Ron Shelton made a movie that didn't deal with sports and he did a pretty good job. Paul Newman plays the democratic governor of Louisiana and he has an election coming up but can't run for governor again, so he has a friend of his run for governor and Newman will run as lieutenant governor and right after the election the friend will step down and Newman will become governor. Lolita Davidovich plays a big time stripper who at first is suspicious of Newman when he comes on to her but the wind up falling in love. This is set in the late 50s and is down south and since segregation is a big issue Newman's rivals will use it against him in the election. It doesn't help when Newman is having an affair with a stripper and supports civil rights for black people. This is a really good film about politics and also turns out to be a good romance.

Movies based on real-life stories and characters are known for being dependent on using certain comedic and dramatic devices to "keep the audience enthused," but this film felt so artificial that I had a hard time maintaining the thought that this was based on a true story. I wasn't given too much insight into these characters (all one- or two-dimensional), and it basically plays out like a farce that takes a serious turn in the last 45 minutes or so. The character arc or Blaze Starr is developed way too swiftly. In the first 10 minutes, she's this nice little small town gal who lives a healthy Christian life and has a passion for folk music. She gets on stage once, at first (very briefly) getting offended by the booing soldiers who want her to "take it off," and suddenly in that one little striptease she feels liberated? By the 10-minute mark, she's already this sultry, vanity-stricken stripper who gallops at any chance to show off her body to libidinous males. Hell, Elizabeth Berkeley had a more extensive character arc in "Showgirls." I can fathom the change in Blaze Starr's character. I just wanna know the steps in how those changes occurred, because I'm pretty damn sure they didn't occur so swiftly. I've seen several movies with Lolita Davidovich, and she's not a bad actress. She never blew me away with any particular performance, but I never had any negative criticisms about her. Well, this was Davidovich's first movie and...it pretty much shows. Though her character was written poorly, her cartoonish one-note performance doesn't help much. She never properly expresses the humanistic values of her character, and doesn't portray herself as much more than a dirty slut. Paul Newman's character of Earl Long wasn't written very well, and doesn't give the audience very much to sympathize with, but he plays it out the best he can. His energetic performance is about the only reason to check out this overlooked dud. But as I said, his character is written poorly and about all we learn about him is he's a dirty old man with psychological problems. The only good thing we learn about him is his persistence in awarding voting rights to African-Americans, and allowing them to be doctors. But I can see exactly why he was struggling to be re-elected as governor. I sure as hell wouldn't vote for him! That's not a good sign. Even when creating a character who's not perfectly sympathetic (which I have nothing wrong with) you must be able to express his/her good values effectively, even if it's done with subtlety. The country/western folk songs are a bit of a turn-off (at least to me), but I'm not gonna use that against the overall quality of the movie. After all, it is set in Louisiana. "Blaze" is not a terrible film, it's mildly entertaining, but I wanted to know a lot more about these 2 characters (even if the movie went on for 2 1/2 hours) and what resulted was no more than a throwaway comedy/drama. See it only for Newman's terrific performance.My score: 5 (out of 10)