Stay Hungry (1976)
January 26, 2018 9:38 PM - Subscribe

Stay Hungry is a 1976 dramatic comedy film by director Bob Rafelson from a screenplay by Charles Gaines. The story centers on a young Birmingham, Alabama, scion, played by Jeff Bridges, who gets involved in a shady real-estate deal. In order to close the deal, he needs to buy a gym building to complete a multi-parcel lot. When he visits the gym, however, he finds himself romantically interested in the receptionist (Sally Field) and drawn to the carefree lifestyle of the Austrian body builder "Joe Santo" (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who is training there for the Mr. Universe competition.

This movie is based on Charles Gaines' first book, published in 1972, after which he went on to co-write the "Pumping Iron" book/movie/phenomenon. He also co-invented paintball.

I caught this as a passing mention in the Gilbert Gottfried podcast with Mike Nesmith as they were talking about the crowd involved in the movie Head.
posted by rhizome (2 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Huh! I will have to watch this movie. I always thought it was a bodybuilding documentary for some reason.
posted by Calzephyr at 12:30 PM on January 28, 2018


Yeah, I would never have picked it off the video store shelf with that cover image, but bodybuilding is really just the backdrop. An accurate backdrop given that Gaines was definitely on the bodybuilding beat back then, but ultimately just an enabling feature of the plot. Not quite a McGuffin, I'd say.
posted by rhizome at 12:40 PM on January 28, 2018


« Older Movie: A Futile & Stupid G...   |  High Maintenance: Fagin... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster