Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

Peggy Sue Got Married/Kathleen Turner autographed still image courtesy Heritage Auction Galleries

Director Francis Ford Coppola and TriStar Pictures delivered the charming fantasy Peggy Sue Got Married to movie theaters in 1986. Kathleen Turner has the title role, with Nicolas Cage as her boyfriend/husband. She loves you, ooh, ooh, ooh!…

Francis Ford Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married

Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner wrote the screenplay for Zoetrope Studios and Delphi V Productions. Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders) directed. John Barry crafted the original music score and Jordan Cronenweth served as cinematographer.

As befitting a movie set in 1960, the soundtrack features an array of greasy rock ‘n’ roll tunes: “Peggy Sue” (Buddy Holly), “Tequila” (The Champs), “Teenager in Love” and “I Wonder Why” (Dion & the Belmonts), “Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop” (Little Anthony and the Imperials), “The Stroll” (The Diamonds), “Just Because” (Lloyd Price), “Just a Dream” (Jimmy Clanton), “Dance by the Light of the Moon” (The Olympics), “You Belong to Me” (The Duprees), “Finger Poppin’ Time” (Hank Ballard) and “You Can’t Sit Down” (Phil Upchurch Combo).

Peggy Sue Got Married Cast

Kathleen Turner (Peggy Sue) and Nicolas Cage (Charlie Bodell) head the fine cast. Other players include Barry Miller (Richard Norvik), Catherine Hicks (Carol Heath), Joan Allen (Maddy Nagle), Kevin J. O’Connor (Michael Fitzsimmons), Jim Carrey (Walter Getz), Lisa Jane Persky (Delores Dodge), Lucinda Jenney (Rosalie Testa), Will Shriner (Arthur Nagle), Barbara Harris (Evelyn Kelcher), Don Murray (Jack Kelcher), Sofia Coppola (Nancy Kelcher), Maureen O’Sullivan (Elizabeth Alvorg), Leon Ames (Barney Alvorg), Helen Hunt (Beth Bodell) and Kent Grantham (Mr. Snelgrove).

Originally offered the role of Peggy Sue Kelcher-Bodell was Debra Winger, who became unavailable due to production delays.

Peggy Sue Got Married Filmed in California

Budgeted at $18 million, Peggy Sue Got Married was filmed in Petaluma and Santa Rosa, California. Santa Rosa High School served as the fictional Buchanan High in the production.

During filming producers convinced radio station KFRC in San Francisco to play the 1958 rock ‘n’ roll classic “Tequila” by The Champs, which is heard in a car radio as Peggy Sue is ferried home after fainting at a school blood drive.

Peggy Sue Got Married: Time Travel and Rock ‘n’ Roll

Peggy Sue Bodell reluctantly goes to her 25-year high school reunion with her teenage daughter in tow. Peggy Sue is currently separated from her husband, “Crazy Charlie” Bodell, a philandering TV huckster who later makes his grand entrance.  

Peggy Sue and former high school science geek-turned-multimillionaire Richard Norvik are named queen and king of the event. When Peggy Sue ascends the stage she suddenly becomes ill and faints, later waking up in the spring of 1960 during her senior year in high school.

Now 18-years-old again but possessed with the wisdom and knowledge of a 42-year-old, Peggy Sue embarks on her new high school odyssey. She reconnects with her younger parents and little sister and finds herself once again going steady with her future husband Charlie. But Peggy Sue wants a different outcome this time, as she dumps Charlie and hooks up with the dreamy, enigmatic Michael Fitzsimmons.

Peggy Sue later seeks the help of science wiz Richard Norvik and asks him his thoughts on time travel. Her queries eventually lead to her grandfather and his lodge, where a seance is conducted in the hopes of sending Peggy Sue back to the future.

A desperate Charlie kidnaps Peggy Sue, with the 18-year-old senior once again becoming pregnant. Peggy Sue later awakens in the hospital, where she finds her estranged husband at her bedside wanting to make amends for his past transgressions. But was it all simply a dream? Maybe, until Peggy Sue spies a book of Michael Fitzsimmon’s poetry dedicated to her and their special night back in 1960.

Peggy Sue Got Married Premieres in New York City

Peggy Sue Got Married debuted at the New York Film Festival on October 5, 1986.

“Peggy Sue Got Married is a small, amiable, sort of sloppy comedy-fantasy with fond memories of Buddy Holly’s title song, the Edsel fiasco, saddle shoes and bobby sox, prom queens and the possibility of sex before teen-age marriage,” reported Vincent Canby of The New York Times (10/5/86).

“Peggy Sue Got Married is a lot of things – a human comedy, a nostalgic memory, a love story – but there are times when it’s just plain creepy, because it awakens such vivid memories in us,” observed Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times (10/8/86).

Peggy Sue Got Married Box Office, Oscar Nominations, Notes, DVD

• Peggy Sue Got Married grossed $41.382 million at the American box office, good for the #19 position on the list of the top moneymaking films of 1986.
• Three Oscar nominations: Best Actress (Turner), Best Cinematography (Cronenweth), Best Costume Design (Theadora Van Runkle).
• Charlie’s car: a blue 1958 Chevy Impala convertible. Oh, bitchin’, man!
• Best line, mouthed by a belligerent drunk at the 25-year reunion and aimed at science geek Richard Norvik: “Your damn computers put me out of business. You’re a billionaire, and I’m a goddamn failure.”
• Second best line, spoken by Delores Dodge to Madeline Hutton and Arthur Nagle, who married right after graduation: “Maddy, Arthur, how does it feel to have missed the sexual revolution?”
• On DVD: Peggy Sue Got Married (Columbia Tristar, 1998).

“Well, Mr. Snelgrove, I happen to know that in the future I will not have the slightest use for algebra, and I speak from experience,” Peggy Sue tells her math teacher.

I said the same damn thing in high school…