Robby Benson (whose sexual appeal to the seven-to ten-year-old girl crowd invoked national epidemics of pillow kissing), paired up with Lynn-Holly Johnson who plays pretty, blonde figure skater Lexie, a simple country girl bursting with natural ice-talent.
Ice audiences adore Lexie, even though she lacks formal training; the audience is so moved by her rural pluck, they erupt into a standing ovations and hurl red carnations at her whilst Robby Benson swoons in a delirium of love and pride.
(Liza was already being Lexie, soul-crushingly in love with Robby Benson and feeling every double axel on-screen in the muscles of her own pelvis.)
Lexie’s curmudgeonly dad, after a few tearful door-slams, hard truths, and violin music, reluctantly agrees to let a top ice-coach transform diamond-in-the-rough Lexie into a polished Olympic contender in six months (introducing the Ticking Clock, Hollywood Formula Obstacle #1).
“You’ve got all the raw talent,” says the coldhearted new coach, “but you’re virtually untrained. I’m not sure we’ll be able to pull it off…. How much do you really want to win?”
(I want to win so bad I am wetting my pants because I do not want to miss one minute of this film, thought Liza.)
Right as Lexie wins the Big Preliminary Competition, Robby Benson busts her kissing a Fancy New Guy, and runs away from her; she is crushed. (Obstacle #2, plus Ironic Reversal: her Greatest Triumph comes at the same moment as her Greatest Loss—producers love that shit.)
Overnight, Lexie trades her blonde pigtails for a Sophisticated Hairstyle (Hollywood symbol of losing innocence and/or Coming-of-Age) and marvels at her own budding breasts in the mirror, touching her new chest tenderly (with blouse still on, natch, but this is very serious Girl-Becoming-Woman fodder, although no teen girl has ever done that, ever; it has only ever happened in the porn-infected male screenwriter mind).
Frustrated by the shallowness of the big-league skating world, Lexie slips out of a fancy party at the rink, puts on her skates, and attempts the forbidden triple axel. The Ice Castles theme song is played in a mordant, minor key (Warning!).
Lexie jumps, she crashes into a bunch of patio furniture, she goes blind. (The Grandaddy of all Obstacles #3.)
Smash-cut to the CAT scan—Lexie has a blood clot in her brain that may or may not go away, but certainly not in time for her to compete (Ticking Clock redux).
Lexie goes tragically home to Iowa and becomes depressed, self-pitying, and feral, with matted hair. (Probable Producer comment: “She should be having a Helen Keller moment, here.” Screenwriter: “Agreed.”)
Enter Colleen Dewhurst in her trademarked characterization of the crusty New Englander Who Is Gruff and Difficult but Whose Heart Is Golden.
“You wanted to find a way out when you took that jump,” barks Crustbucket, baring her teeth. “Nobody’s going to blame an invalid for giving up,” she sneers.
(The classic “What are you, a Quitter?” speech. The Hollywood Formula pinball machine lights up! Ding ding ding! Extra balls!)
Sightless Lexie tries to punch and kick Colleen Dewhurst, who subdues her in a brutal rasslin’ hold. Both end up in tears à la Miracle Worker.
(“You’re crying,” whispered Ned, amused.
“I am not!” sniffed Liza, embarrassed, wiping her tear-slick cheeks on her sleeve.)
Act III Turning Point:
Nobody can persuade Lexie to get back on the ice, until… Robby Benson returns! Slighted boyfriend to the rescue! With just enough Love and Hate mixed together to berate and abuse blind Lexie back into championship condition, pitilessly barking out stadium dimensions so she can mentally calculate how many feet she has before she smacks the wall.
In just one week of hard work, Robby Benson’s fierce love saves the day. Nobody at the competition even knows Lexie is blind as she takes her final bow until she trips over the carnations that audiences can’t resist hurling at her, and can’t figure out how to stand back up. As she gropes around the ice on her knees, the entire screaming stadium falls into an abrupt, pin-dropping, cricket-chirping silence.
Robby walks out on to the ice and takes her groping hand.
He guides blind Lexie to the middle of the stadium, where the crowd goes wild again for the two of them, holding hands.
“Stay with me?” begs Lexie.
“You bet,” Robby Benson assures.
Roll credits to the sounds of “Through the Eyes of Love,” as sung by Melissa Manchester!
Liza, age ten, was devastated by the film’s beauty and power.
She wanted more than anything to go blind and have Robby Benson restore her, through Tough Love, to athletic championship, in both skating and gymnastics. She began singing the theme song, imitating the large, throaty warble and power-enunciations of Melissa Manchester around the house.
“That’s a hell of a voice you got there,” Johnny would say, and Liza would blush, then imagine herself with long, wavy hair, wearing an all-white fringe ensemble and holding a white tiger cub on her album cover, her slick lips parted, her eyes emanating prismic rays. Her album would be called, simply, Castles.
Johnny and Peppy bought stylish rings and moved with the kids into a condominium complex called The Snooty Fox in Sparks, NV. “Reno is so close to hell you can see Sparks,” went the classic joke. The children had to enter a new school district. Ned had fewer problems in new schools because he’d always been a freak, who eagerly sought out the company of kids with handicaps, harelips, or expansive facial birthmarks. Ned liked finding these people with whom striking up a new friendship was relatively easy.
Liza had more difficulty, socially. The provocative clothing Peppy routinely bought for her perplexed everyone but the black and Mexican fifth-grade girls, who embraced her immediately. The white girls decided that Liza was “a scrounge” and made it their business to exclude her. So Liza “went minority” for a couple of years, much to Peppy’s panic. She sang Michael Jackson songs from the Off the Wall LP with all the wet gasps and carnal hoots, and learned rhythmically advanced, contrapuntal, and pelvic jump rope jingles:
Ain’t yo mama pretty She got meatballs for her titty Scrambled eggs Between her legs Ain’t yo mama pretty
Liza also wrote hieroglyphic notes to girls named “Lil’ Pants,” and “LaFlamme” in an advanced lowrider graffito-font, which was illegible to authority figures, but if you had a Rosetta stone—like alphabet guide sheet, could be translated into several themes:
1. “Keshawn is so fine” (response: ferellfiner but he a dog)
2. “Diane think she so bad” (all flaring that booty in them stanky white jeans)
3. “What do you do if Michael Jackson came in your house?” (!!!! die????)
For the Normals, 1980 was a big year. Shortly before the June date that Peppy had arranged for them to go to the frontier-themed “Chapel-Chaparral” and get married, Johnny Budrone left. It was unannounced and unprovoked, according to Peppy, but it probably had something to do with the fact that he snooped into her
