Dreamland Court

Institute History

Description

Set in the upper reaches of the hot and smoggy San Fernando Valley, an area of lower middle-class tract homes with barred windows, four-wheel drive pickup trucks, vintage 1960s motels, topless go-go bars, trailer parks, liquor stores, gas stations and wrecking yards, DREAMLAND COURT is an unvarnished comedy telling how John Dalton, arch American criminal, age 33, fresh from jail, discovers his 31-year-old wife, Jackie, mother of his two young children, Dawnie, age seven, and John-John, age, 3, is newly, deeply and passionately involved with another man.

Doing everything in his power to win her back, Johnny impregnates his 15-year-old girlfriend, JoAnn, gets ripped off while trying to complete an unsuccessful drug transaction, shoots himself in the hip while attempting to rob a liquor store, gets advice from his father in a Gardena poker palace about the necessity of finding and holding onto true love, and goes back to jail for accidentally being the only adult present at a wild teenage party.

In the meantime, Jackie, having now passed through the rushy-gushy period of the romance with Carson (the new man), and finding that he is also pursuing her sister, Teri, turns her attention back towards Johnny, while also pursuing the destruction of Carson and Teri's budding relationship.

And Johnny, spurred on by the possibility of their reunion, first listening to the wisdom and strategy of his Mexican cellmate, Ruben, on how to succeed with women, fends off the amorous entanglements of little JoAnn, manipulates the prison system into getting himself transferred to a mental hospital, finagles the prison psychologist into putting him into work-release and back on the street, and finally, once and for all, proves his undying love for Jackie by barging in just after Jackie and Carson have finally decided they truly belong together and successfully shooting and wounding his rival, which, of course, lands him back in jail.

And this time, with JoAnn soon to have his baby, but Jackie now pregnant by Carson, Johnny is faced with a tough decision: should he still pursue Jackie when he gets out again—after all, she is the mother of his children—or is it time to call it a day and start a new family with little JoAnn?

You guess what he decides.

Credits

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