So Fine (1981) on Netflix
Bobby Fine teaches English at Chippenango State College while his father Jack's dress company sinks under debt. A loan shark named Eddie takes over the business and forces Bobby to run it.
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- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb5.1/101,507 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes67%
Trailer
Plot summary
Bobby Fine teaches English at Chippenango State College, where the department is considering him for tenure. His father Jack runs Fine Fashions in New York, a dress company with unsold inventory, weak designs and heavy debt. Jack owes Mr. Eddie, a loan shark, a sum that has grown far beyond the original loan, and when Jack cannot pay, Eddie takes over the business and puts Bobby in charge of it. Bobby and Eddie's wife Lira are attracted to each other, and she takes him to Eddie's mansion. When Eddie comes home early, Bobby hides, then leaves wearing an outfit of Lira's; the snug jeans tear and he stuffs wadded plastic into the seat. Garment buyers at the office mistake the result for a new design and place large orders.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about So Fine (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ryan O'Neal was cast at Warner Bros.' suggestion for a reported $2 million, after the studio refused to let the picture be made without a major star; O'Neal, "not the logical person to play an English professor who's Jewish," was called one of the great wasted talents.
- In 1996 Joanne Slokevage filed a patent for a "garment rear" with cut-out areas covered by a fabric flap, citing So Fine; the patent was rejected in Federal Circuit Court as unregistrable.
- For the jeans' elaborate television commercial inside the film, choreographed by Grover Dale, costume designer Santo Loquasto built a custom, wildly illuminated set with dozens of models in transparent jeans arching toward the camera.
- The idea came from producer Michael Lobell's own experience of the garment industry: his father manufactured dresses and he had himself been a successful designer of Mod-style clothing.
- Director Andrew Bergman, who holds a PhD in American history, wrote the script after a tour of the Garment District, imagining how a college professor like himself would cope in such hectic surroundings.
- Bergman was so sure So Fine would be a big hit that he directed it himself to keep his screenplay intact; pre-screenings were positive, but two weeks after its September 25, 1981 release it was gone from theaters, which he blamed on high-brow styling in low-brow trappings.
