In 1935, during the Great Depression, New Jersey waitress Cecilia endures a wearying job and an abusive marriage to her unfaithful husband, Monk, feeling trapped with nowhere to turn. After losing her job, she distracts herself by going to the movies, where she finds herself rewatching The Purple Rose of Cairo with a particular focus on archaeologist side character Tom Baxter, who falls in love with a Copacabana singer in the film's story.
Baxter notices Cecilia watching him and develops an attraction to the point where he addresses her directly and steps out of the film to run off with her, to the chagrin of the other, also sentient characters of the film. While Cecilia and Baxter grow closer as they spend an evening on the town together, the film's characters refuse to perform with him gone. The theater manager calls the film's producer and Baxter's actor Gil Shepherd is informed, who comes to town to fix the problem.
Shepherd runs into Cecilia and has her take him to Baxter, who refuses to return to the film as other versions of him across different screenings also start to rebel. Monk hears about Cecilia and Baxter's exploits and confronts them. Baxter beats him in a fair fight, so Monk hits him from behind, and a disgusted Cecilia refuses to leave with him. Baxter is accosted by a prostitute and taken to a brothel, but he remains faithful to Cecilia. Shepherd charms and kisses Cecilia, but she turns him down in favor of Baxter.
While Purple Rose producers plan to destroy its copies once they get Baxter back inside, he and Cecilia get engaged as he returns to the theater and takes her into the film. Inside, he defies his pre-written romance and shows Cecilia the film's world, only for Shepherd to arrive at the theater and profess his love for her. The men argue over her and she chooses Shepherd, loving Baxter but preferring to live in the real world.
Baxter reluctantly returns to the film, while Cecilia finally leaves Monk for good, believing she and Shepherd will run away to Hollywood together. He has already left, his seduction a ploy to get Baxter back into the film, though he appears guilty on the return flight. She sits forlornly in the theater watching Top Hat, but the sight of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dancing to "Cheek to Cheek" captures her attention and she begins to smile.
Several scenes featuring Tom and Cecilia are set at the Bertrand Island Amusement Park, which closed just prior to the film's production. Many of the outside scenes were filmed in Piermont, New York, a village on the Hudson River about 15 miles north of the George Washington Bridge. Store fronts had false facades reflecting the depression-era setting. It was also filmed at the Raritan Diner in South Amboy, New Jersey. Woody Allen shut down the Kent Theater on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, the neighborhood he grew up in, to film there.
In a rare public appearance at the National Film Theatre
Reception
On its opening weekend, The Purple Rose of Cairo earned $114,095 from three theaters in the United States and Canada. Its total gross in the United States and Canada was $10,631,333.
Legacy
In 1991, Jeff Daniels founded the Purple Rose Theatre Company in his hometown of Chelsea, Michigan. The theater takes its name from The Purple Rose of Cairo.
[after innocently being invited into a bordello] I was thinking about some very deep things. About God and his relation with Irving Saks and R.H. Levine. And I was thinking about life in general. The origin of everything…
