Pure Country

Dusty Chandler is a major country star, but his show has become more spectacle than music: smoke, lights, choreography. One night he walks away, shaves the beard, goes home, and starts working on a ranch where nobody knows him. Christopher Cain directs. George Strait plays Dusty, in the only film he acted in, with Lesley Ann Warren and Isabel Glasser. The film itself was not well received. The story is predictable and Strait's acting is limited. But the event was not the film, it was the record. The Pure Country soundtrack became the best selling album of Strait's career and one of the best selling soundtracks in country music, certified platinum many times over. I Cross My Heart became a standard on its own. That inversion defines where it sits now: a minor production in film history and a landmark record in country music. The subject is related. What Dusty gives up is not fame but being unable to hear himself. What is left when the noise on stage gets in front of the music. Who it is for: country listeners and George Strait's audience. Who it is not for: as a film it is weak. The story runs on templates and the romance never develops.