| Starhops | |
| Director: | Barbara Peeters |
| Producer: | Robert D. Kritzman John B Kelley executive Daniel Grodnick Robert Sharpe co-executive Jack Rose |
| Cinematography: | Eric Saarinen |
| Editing: | Steve Zaillian |
| Studio: | Roseworld Films |
| Country: | USA |
| Distributor: | First American Films |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $450,000[1] |
Starhops is 1977 exploitation comedy film directed by Barbara Peeters, based on a script by Stephanie Rothman, writing under a pseudonym, and was edited by future Oscar winning screenwriter Steve Zaillian.
Three carhops team up to save their cash-strapped Venice Beach drive-in restaurant from the clutches of a greedy oil baron who wants the land it sits on.
Three girls - Danielle, Cupcake and Angel - work at a drive in restaurant in Venice owned by Jerry who is financially struggling. Jerry decides to quit and sells the restaurant to the three girls.
Rothman originally wrote the script, then entitled Carhops, while she was at Dimension Pictures. She took it with her when she left Dimension in 1975 and sold it to some producers, with whom she signed a contract to direct. Rothman says "They gave me a start date for the picture, but I never heard from them after that. Instead, one day I read in Daily Variety that Barbara Peeters had been hired to direct it. The reason given for replacing me was that old excuse “artistic differences.” I don’t know how much, if anything, Barbara Peeters knew about this. All I know is the wanna-bes lacked the courage or decency to inform me personally of their decision."
The drive-in was located on the northeast corner of Knox St. and N. Maclay Ave in the San Fernando Valley. The Masonic Lodge with its distinctive white pillars and square sign is still across the street.
Rothman says she saw the finished film and asked for her name to be taken off the credits as she felt "there was not an idea, a scene, a word, or even a comma left from my original script."[2] She took the psuedonym "Dallas Meredith", later specifying "Let me say it as plainly as I can: Starhops is not my fault."[2]
Peeters called the film "camp. Just these girls running amok. It was stuff we [she and her friends] would have done, just crazy kind of stuff.”
The movie was retitled due to the fact there was another film released called The Carhops.
In a later interview, Rothman said "I was not very good at what is called networking. I really didn’t know how to go about it. There was another woman who has had a career, a successful career, as a director, who was just getting started then and she was muchbetter than I was at doing that." She may have been talking about Peeters.[3]
Peeters had been diagnosed with terminal stage melanoma before filming and during the shoot was undergoing an experimental treatment program at UCLA. However due to her experience and extensive planning the film ws completed on budget. (Peeters' health later recovered.) [4]
The Los Angeles Times called it "a good natured, fast and funny Horatio Alger tale... Peeters makes you care about these no-nonsense working women. Peeter's direction exudes energy and diplays style and skill in the handling of actors and action."[5]