Ode to Billy Joe (film)

Ode to Billy Joe
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Max Baer Jr.
Screenplay by	Herman Raucher
Based on	Ode to Billie Joe 1967 song by Bobbie Gentry
Produced by	Max Baer Jr.
Starring	Robby Benson Glynnis O'Connor
Cinematography	Michel Hugo
Edited by	Frank Morriss
Music by	Michel Legrand
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	June 4, 1976 (1976-06-04)
Running time	105 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US $1.1 million

Ode to Billy Joe is a 1976 American drama film, directed and produced by Max Baer Jr., with a screenplay by Herman Raucher, and starring Robby Benson and Glynnis O'Connor. It is inspired by the 1967 hit song by Bobbie Gentry, titled "Ode to Billie Joe."^[1]

Made for $1.1 million, the film grossed $27 million at the box office, plus earnings in excess of $2.65 million in the foreign market, $4.75 million from television, and $2.5 million from video.^{[citation needed]} However, reviews were mostly negative.^{[citation needed]}

Gentry's song recounts the day when Billie Joe McAllister committed suicide by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge on Choctaw Ridge, Mississippi. When Gentry discussed the screenplay with Raucher, she explained she did not know why the real person who inspired the character of Billie Joe had killed himself.^[2] Raucher thus had a free hand to pick a reason. His novelization of the story, published the year of the film's release as a movie tie-in, used the same rationale for the suicide.