Remember My Name (film)

Neil Curry (Perkins) is living a happy life with his second wife Barbara (Berenson) in California after abandoning his first wife Emily (Chaplin) in New York. Their life of domestic bliss is interrupted when Emily comes back from prison, where she had served a 12-year sentence for murdering Neil's former lover. She arrives in California to wreak havoc and to claim Neil back.^[2]

• Geraldine Chaplin as Emily
• Anthony Perkins as Neil Curry
• Moses Gunn as Pike
• Berry Berenson as Barbara Curry
• Jeff Goldblum as Mr. Nudd
• Timothy Thomerson as Jeff
• Alfre Woodard as Rita
• Marilyn Coleman as Teresa
• Jeffrey S. Perry as Harry
• Alan Autry as Rusty (as Carlos Brown)
• Dennis Franz as Franks

Rudolph had just made Welcome to L.A. with the assistance of Robert Altman. According to Rudolph:

Bob was working with Fox and he said, "I think I can get a little film made. You got anything?" And I said let me think about it. On my way home, I drove by the Metro theater and they were showing Rita Hayworth, Ida Lupino movies. Ooh! I got an idea about some kind of loose metaphor for the woman's movement at the time. disguised as one of those B-melodramas. I wrote it in two weeks, thinking this is a giant leap for me. ^[3]

Rudolph wrote the script in several weeks, creating the lead character specifically for Geraldine Chaplin, who had been in Welcome to L.A.^[4] Rudolph described the film as "an update of the classic woman's melodramas of the Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford era."^[5]

Anthony Perkins was cast on the suggestion of Rudolph's wife, who had seen him on stage in Equus. ^[4] Rudolph later said, "Geraldine Chaplin is a genius. The most original performer, she climbed inside Emily and opened up something singular and beautiful. Tony Perkins was equally wonderful and complex, like Geraldine, he knew where humour was hiding."^[1] Perkins suggested his real life wife Betty Berenson to play his on screenwife. Rudolph said "Berry was fresh and real and a sweet person, it was another gratifying example of meeting one actor per role."^[1]

Rudolph recalled that Fox backed out two weeks before filming. "We decide that it's two weeks before we have to pay anyone a paycheck. You get two weeks when you first start. So we said we'll shoot for two weeks and if we don't get any money, we'll just shut down."^[3] He said the head of Columbia Pictures was desperately looking for films after the firing of David Begelman and during the second week of shooting they agreed to underwrite the film.^[3] Filming ended in December 1977.^[6][4]

The film's soundtrack was composed of songs written for the film and original recordings by singer and composer Alberta Hunter, a veteran of the 1920s–30s nightclub scene and Broadway who appeared in the musicals Shuffle Along and Show Boat with the London cast. The 82-year-old Hunter was in the midst of a musical reemergence when the film was released, having left show business for 20 years after the death of her mother to become a nurse.^[7][8]

Rudolph later recalled "From the beginning I wanted blues, raw and electric. Then when I was nearly through editing, Altman suggested we go to a Manhattan nightclub to see Alberta Hunter... The idea of a single voice for the soundtrack completely rearranged the film’s possibilities in my mind. Celebrated producer John Hammond recorded an album of Alberta’s songs. With each new one, I experimented to find the most appropriate scene and the songs quickly became Emily’s emotional diary, eliminating the need for certain dialogue."^[1]

The film was picked up for distribution by Columbia. However when initial returns in Columbus and Indianpolis were disappointing, the film was taken over by Mike Kaplan of Circle Films, who had distributed Welcome to LA.^[4][9]

Release of the film on VHS was held up because contracts did not cover Hunter's songs for new technology.^[4]