Blue Velvet (1986) on Netflix
College student Jeffrey Beaumont finds a severed human ear in a vacant lot in his hometown of Lumberton. Sandy Williams tells him the case involves a nightclub singer, Dorothy Vallens.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.7/10249,126 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes91%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jeffrey Beaumont comes back to Lumberton, North Carolina, to run his family's hardware store while his father recovers from a stroke. Cutting through a vacant lot, he finds a severed human ear and brings it to Detective John Williams, who asks him to say nothing about the case. Williams's daughter Sandy, who overheard her father's private conversations, tells Jeffrey the ear is tied to Dorothy Vallens, a nightclub singer. Jeffrey and Sandy watch Dorothy perform, and Jeffrey enters her apartment building posing as a pest exterminator, where he watches a man in a yellow sport coat and takes a spare key. Sandy is already dating Mike, the school's star football player, and she helps Jeffrey anyway.
Cast
- Jack Harveyas Tom Beaumont
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Blue Velvet (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- While filming the scene in which Dorothy is raped and battered, Wilmington townspeople arrived to watch with picnic baskets and rugs, against the wishes of Isabella Rossellini and David Lynch. Afterwards, police told Lynch the production could no longer shoot in any public areas of the city.
- After test screenings of Blue Velvet, the ICM Partners agency immediately dropped Isabella Rossellini as a client, and the nuns at the Rome school she attended as a child called to say they were praying for her.
- Dennis Hopper was said to be David Lynch's third choice for Frank Booth, and Michael Ironside has said the part was written with him in mind; Harry Dean Stanton and Steven Berkoff both turned it down because of the film's violence. Hopper accepted, reportedly exclaiming, "I've got to play Frank! I am Frank!"
- The scene in which Dorothy appears naked outside was inspired by a childhood memory of David Lynch's: he and his brother saw a naked woman walking down a neighborhood street at night, an experience that made him cry and that he never forgot.
- David Lynch's first rough cut of Blue Velvet ran about four hours; contractually required to deliver a two-hour film to De Laurentiis, he cut subplots and character scenes. At the MPAA's request he cut away from Frank slapping Dorothy to Jeffrey wincing in the closet instead.
- David Lynch wanted This Mortal Coil's "Song to the Siren" for the scene in which Sandy and Jeffrey dance, but could not get the rights at the time; he used the song in Lost Highway eleven years later.
- Helen Mirren was David Lynch's first choice to play Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet; he ended up offering the part to Isabella Rossellini after meeting her at a restaurant.
