King of the Gypsies. Unfortunately, it’s everything young heir to the title Dave doesn’t wanna be. Dave wants to live among the Gadje (non Gypsy) people, to have a blond girlfriend, to educate himself, and work an honest job. Fate however, has a way of calling to us despite our urgent efforts. So fate keeps reaching out to Dave in this film about a centuries-old tribe adjusting to a modern world.
As the film begins, two factions are drinking, dancing - and fighting. A wedding is or isn’t to take place very soon. A bride price has been agreed upon, but the child bride’s family joins her in her intense dislike of the putative groom - adolescent Groffo. The would-be groom’s father (actor Sterling Hayden), who is King of the Gypsies for the Eastern seaboard, is furious the deal is being reneged. A council is called, which rules in the girl’s family’s favor. Too bad no one told her not to stand off alone afterward, stoking a campfire while the rejected suitor drove by...
And fast forward to a baby prince being born. This is Dave, who will become the tribe’s great hope. The reluctant teen bride Rose has grown into wise, curvaceous Susan Sarandon; pudgy, whiny abductor Groffo morphed into a less pudgy, still crass buffoon (Judd Hirsch). Groffo is putative heir at the point of his son Dave’s birth, but Groffo is the 'Fredo' of this tribe. And oh, does his dad the King know it...
As a result, Groffo seethes with jealousy from the moment Dave is born. Dave can, you see, grow up to supplant him. Groffo never lets up in his oafish treatment of family, nor Dave, nor in his loud claims to the ring and medallion. The ring and medallion are the crown and throne to the Gypsies. “It doesn’t matter if you wear ‘em or don’t wear ‘em, you’re still King” says Rose at one point. The dying King can make anyone his “shadow on this earth” she says. And so, whoever he makes his successor has little choice.
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