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The Dollymania Review
By Duane Gordon (Dec. 18, 2005)
Dollymania.net                              
      The upcoming documentary on Dolly fans, For The Love Of Dolly, offers a unique window into the world of Dolly Parton fandom, tracing the lives of three sets of her most dedicated fans: why they love her, what drew them to her and the lengths to which they go to connect with her in person. The 56-minute production successfully weaves their personal histories via interviews and home movies with footage of their pilgrimages to that land of all-things-Dolly, Dollywood, in the Smoky Mountain city of Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Dolly herself makes several appearances throughout.
      The filmmakers have put together a revealing look into the lives of these fans: Harrell and Patric, a gay couple from Texas whose home is floor-to-ceiling Dolly memorabilia; Jeannette and Melisa, best friends from California and Nashville, respectively, who don creative Dolly-related costumes to chase Dolly down the parade route each year; and David, whose sister and parents say his adulation of Dolly is the primary reason for his success in leading a fairly normal life even though he is challenged by cerebral palsy.
      Several dozen fans were interviewed for the project over the course of more than a year, and I’m sure many of them will be quite disappointed that they don’t appear in the finished version, but they will hopefully get over it. The only way to fully develop these characters for the audience to identify with and understand is to limit it to these few people. They could have easily done a full hour on each set of fans used in the film, but devoting nearly 20 minutes to each throughout the project is the absolute minimum for it to work. To add anyone else would have necessitated either turning it into an incoherent mish-mash where no one had adequate time to tell his or her story or expanding it to two or three hours, something not possible for such a small-budget independent documentary.
      The result is a compact yet comprehensive look into their lives, examining the neuroses and life situations which drew them to Dolly and the impact she has had on their being, most pointedly explained by Jeannette, who comments: “It’s like a drug. You’ve got to get your Dolly fix.”
      Stories of heartache from their personal lives contrast with moments of joy involving Dolly, as well as home movies offering endearing personal moments. Also look for one very surreal segment involving Jeannette and Melisa with a former possession of Dolly's best friend, Judy.
      Dolly makes several appearances, both in "new" footage shot for this project and also in several home movies provided by the subjects of the documentary.
      The film succeeds in pulling back a curtain into the lives of some of Dolly’s biggest fans, exposing not only that they are quite fanatical about a celebrity but also attempting to explain to some degree what made them that way -- and perhaps showing how those qualities exist in all of us to some extent. On that level, the documentary should be on its way to acclaim as it makes the national and international film festival circuit rounds over the next year or two.
      The only part of the film I felt did not work was its opening, which finds each set of fans lining the Parkway in Pigeon Forge, preparing to see their star in her annual parade. It seemed a little disjointed as it jumped back and forth between characters who had yet to be introduced to the audience, and the tempo tended to drag as a result, making it feel much longer than the two minutes it took to watch. Viewers unfamiliar with the parade will likely spend the entire introduction wondering, “What the hell is going on?” Perhaps this was the filmmakers’ intent, but I don’t think it really draws the non-Dolly-fan viewer into the film, although the first segment afterward does. The only other change I would have made would have been to play snippets from some of their other fan interviews on the side of the screen during the closing credits instead of the audio from an original (non-Dolly) song -- I‘ve seen this work quite well with other documentaries and feel it would have added another dimension to the project without taking away from its primary focus. Other than those two items, they have put together one stellar piece of filmmaking which should endure as an additional thread in Dolly’s legacy.

Disclaimer: Since I am publishing a review on the film, I am ethically obligated to disclose to the reader that I was one of the dozens and dozens of subjects interviewed for the documentary -- although not one of those whose interview was used in the film. However, I am seen in the background of a handful of scenes, and it is your webmaster’s voice that can be heard off-camera kind of overpowering the others singing along with “Hello God” at the film’s closing. LOL! :)

The Credits
Starring
      Harrell Gabehart
      Patric Parkey
      Jeannette Williams
      Melisa Rastellini
      David Schmidli
      Lisa, Jo-Ann and Heinz Schmidli
Directed by Tai Uhlmann
Produced by Valerie Stadler
Co-produced by Steak House and Lori E. Seid
Associate Producer Caroline Clone
Edited by Malcolm Hearn
Cinematography Trent Ermes
      Claire Cario
      Ann Rossetti
      Louanne Ponder
Original music by Doug Hilsinger
      Marisa Anderson
Additional Editing by Bobby Abate
      Harry Dodge
Assistant Editor Samantha Feder
Special Thanks
      Dolly Parton
      Barbara Joines
      Pete Owens
      The Dollywood Staff
      Duane Gordon
      All The Dolly Fans Who Shared Their Stories With Us

Photos
All images by Duane Gordon unless otherwise noted.

Jeannette and Melisa at the 2003 Dolly parade.

Patric and Harrell with Dolly. Image courtesy HP Designs.

David meeting Dolly at a 2004 CD signing in Huntsville, Ala. Image courtesy Robin Fulford.

Patric and film director Tai Uhlmann.

A couple of the film's cinematographers with producer Valerie Stadler and director Tai Uhlmann.