GREAT BALLS OF FIRE! (1989)

Directed by: Jim McBride

Based on the biography "Great Balls of Fire - The Uncensored Story of Jerry Lee Lewis" by: Myra Gale Brown, Murray M. Silver Jr.

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Winona Ryder, Alec Baldwin, Trey Wilson, John Doe, Stephen Tobolowsky, Steve Allen, Lisa Blount, Joshua Sheffield, Mojo Nixon, Jimmie Vaughan, David R. Ferguson, Robert Lesser, Michael St. Gerard, Lisa Jane Persky, Peter Cook, Jerry Lee Lewis

108 minutes

(PG-13 - adult language, adult themes, adult situations)

PLOT:

A semi-fictionalized account of the early career of Jerry Lee Lewis is presented. The year is 1956, and he, as the front man, is trying to break into the business in a combo with among others his cousin, J.W. Brown, playing his rollicking version of the music he has always been interested in: what he heard emanating from the black honky-tonks of the south. Success and what goes along with it - fame and money - are arguably foremost on his mind. Against the many odds, he is able to gain that success, the odds including the Christian moral majority largely denouncing his type of music - hard driving rock 'n' roll - as that of the devil and thus anti-Christian, with one of his most vocal opponents with regard to his music being another cousin, sidewalk evangelist Jimmy Swaggart. He may derail his own success in his reckless behavior, especially falling prey to his urges with adoring young female fans, the most scandalous relationship being with J.W. and his wife Lois' thirteen year old daughter, Myra Gale Brown, who would go on imminently to become Myra Lewis, aka Mrs. Jerry Lee Lewis, and who in part was looking for a protector in her fear during this nuclear age.

TRAILER: