Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys (2000) is a redemptive tale of a college professor in the midst of a mid-life crisis. It is a film about faded glory and people past their prime. Curtis Hanson’s film is the kind of small, oddball little tale with a decidedly off-kilter, dark sense of humor and a cast of eccentric characters. It was a bit hit with critics but never quite connected with a mainstream audience due in part to a bungled initial promotional campaign that clearly did not know how to convey the quirky tone of the film into an easily digestible soundbite.

Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is a burnt out English professor that wrote a much celebrated novel entitled, The Arsonist’s Daughter, but has since been having a hard time with his follow-up. He keeps writing and writing with no end in sight (current page count sits at around 2,100+ pages). His young wife has left him and he’s sleeping with his boss’ wife, Sara Gaskill (Frances McDormand), who is also the Chancellor of the university where he works. His long-suffering editor, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.) is in town to take a look at the book. He maintains a “what me, worry?” façade but is in danger of losing his job unless he can find a potential best seller and applies subtle but definite pressure on Grady. The professor has also taken under his wing a brilliant but troubled student, James Leer (Tobey Maguire), from his creative writing class. He’s a tortured artist wannabe as evident from his habit of sitting in an empty, dark classroom. He is also ostracized by his classmates who resent his ability to write.

Producer Scott Rudin gave Michael Chabon’s book to screenwriter Steve Kloves. At first, he wasn’t interested – he hadn’t written a word in four years and had never adapted a novel before – but while reading the novel he connected with the material, “and a sort of kinship with Michael Chabon’s tone and the way he looked at his characters, with all their flaws, with a real generous spirit,” he said in an interview with Creative Screenwriting magazine. Initially, Kloves agreed to adapt the book and talk about directing it but two and half years into working on the screenplay, he decided not to direct. After the success of L.A. Confidential (1997), Hanson was working on a script of his own and reading other scripts with a keen interest for his next film to be a comedy. Actress Elizabeth McGovern once advised him to work with Kloves and was given Kloves’ screenplay. He was told that Michael Douglas was interested in playing Grady and was impressed by the way in which the characters were presented and “the lack of judgment on their actions and eccentricities.” In addition, Hanson told the Globe and Mail that he “fell in love with these characters – and they made me laugh.”

In an interview with the Boston Globe, Hanson said that he told Rudin, “it’s too bad you can’t have Jean Renoir or Hal Ashby direct this.” Once Hanson was attached to direct, Kloves met with him and was relieved that they were both on the same page in terms of their approach to the material. Chabon encouraged Kloves to make the material his own and this included changing Grady’s Jewish in-laws to gentiles. Additional changes were made once Hanson came on board. For example, he felt that James Leer would be a fan of Douglas Sirk’s films as opposed to Frank Capra as he is in the novel. The studio wasn’t interested in making a quirky, character-driven comedy/drama until Michael Douglas agreed to work well below his usual large fee. One of the challenges for Hanson was to take a plot that he called “meandering and, apparently, sort of aimless,” and a character that “does things that even he doesn’t really know why he’s doing them,” and try to create a “feeling of focus” to keep the audience interested. Another challenge was working on actual locations in very cold weather and constantly changing conditions.

Hanson’s other concern was if Douglas would be willing to take on the role without a hint of vanity but also do it in a truthful way and not in a way that would draw attention to the fact that he was playing an unattractive character. To his credit, the actor disappears completely into this role. He’s not the first person you’d think of to play Grady. When he tries too hard to be funny it can come across as pompous, but he tones it down here and looks completely at ease, comfortable as the frumpy Grady. Douglas hits just the right notes of world-weary cynicism but with a romantic streak buried underneath. For the veteran actor it’s an unglamorous role – he gained 25 pounds for the role, eating pizza, subs and drank a lot of beer. He always looks rumpled, unshaven with unkempt hair and often wearing a ratty old housecoat when he writes. Grady has the capacity to do something about his miserable lot in life and during the course of the film his character undergoes a fascinating arc. In some ways, Grady is a pot-smoking burn-out like the Dude from The Big Lebowski (1998) only with slightly more ambition. He lives outside of normal society in the rarified atmosphere of academia—puttering around, writing his novel and teaching his writing class, but when he crosses paths with James Leer, Grady realizes that he's got to change.

Wonder Boys also marked a break-out role for Tobey Maguire. Before he garnered massive mainstream exposure with Spider-Man (2002), he was known mostly for roles in small, independent films. Like everyone else in the cast, he has his memorable moments, like when his character laughs at Q’s pretentious speech at Wordfest with a high-pitched giggle that reverberates through the large auditorium. The blissfully stoned expression he gives afterwards is priceless. Everyone in the film keeps harping on what a genius writer Grady is, but it gradually becomes apparent that James is the true genius. He writes pages and pages of beautiful prose in minutes. And like any true talent, it just comes pouring effortlessly out of him. What makes James such a good writer is that his whole life is essentially a lie – he lies about his parents’ past, how they met and where they came from. He even maintains this air of a tortured artist but as we find out that too is a lie. James has it pretty easy, living in a large house in an affluent neighborhood. Good fiction writers have to be masters at making things up.

As always, Robert Downey Jr. knows how to make an entrance, meeting Grady at the airport with a transvestite as his date. The exchange between Terry and Grady quickly establishes their long-time friendship by the familiarity between them. Downey is able to take the most mundane, ordinary line and give it his own unique spin and make it funny or give a look that is memorable. His rapport with Douglas is excellent and they play well off each other as both sides of the comedic equation. Downey was on probation during the winter of 1999 when Hanson considered him for a role in Wonder Boys. The director was cautious because of the actor’s drug history and was concerned because it would be a tough film shot in sequence in Pittsburgh in the winter. Downey flew to Pittsburgh and had a long dinner conversation with Hanson where they addressed his problems. The actor demonstrated a commitment to the film and the director hired him. According to Hanson, Downey acted in a professional manner for the entire four-and-a-half month shoot but after it ended and he returned to Los Angeles, the actor violated his parole.

Frances McDormand knows how to react to those around her, like when she meets Grady, Terry and his date at a party. Watching her react to the charming transvestite is priceless. She and Douglas also have excellent chemistry together as evident in the short hand, the give-and-take between their characters. This is nicely established in their first scene together where Sara tells Grady that she’s pregnant. The music sets a slightly melancholic even whimsical tone as the two characters reveal that they are trapped in relationships that they don’t want to be in. They want to be together but Grady won’t show her how serious he is about them. Ultimately, Grady has to save himself and to in order to do this he must convince Sara that he does love and he want to be with her.

Steve Kloves' script is a solid piece of writing as he does a great job of adapting Chabon’s book, trimming it of its excess narrative fat (as he also did so well with the Harry Potter books). It has clever, memorable dialogue that speaks volumes about these characters. There is a pleasant mix of off-kilter humor and poignant drama as we are presented with all sorts of colorful characters, like Grady’s bisexual editor and the famous and pompous writer known as Q (played to haughty perfection by Rip Torn) and then have them played by equally eccentric characters actors. The dialogue is humorous and offbeat in one scene, touching and thoughtful in the next. For example, in one scene, James rattles off a list of celebrity suicides in alphabetical order, the dates and how they did it in a mechanical monotone as if he’s reading off a grocery list that adds to humor of the scene because it is such an unusual moment.

Kloves also wisely avoids the usual clichés. like Katie Holmes’ character, the young, nubile co-ed who, in a lesser film would have had a fling with Grady. This would have broken the magical spell that this movie casts and so the filmmakers wisely avoid it. Instead, she helps Grady realize that his book is going nowhere and that he needs to make some choices about it and his life. One of the film’s major themes is about making choices. Grady’s problem is that he is indecisive. He can’t make up his mind about how he feels about Sara and he can’t figure out how to end his wildly out of control novel that is ultimately a metaphor for his life. Grady’s life is in a holding pattern, like his book and both get more complicated as life goes on. As the days go on so does the page count increase on his book. However, the key to his salvation lies in his mission to reach James and nurture his talents. Grady sees some of himself in James – a wonder boy in the making while he is a wonder boy who has lost his way. Terry is the third wonder boy in the film and his luster has been fading over years, unable to find another breakthrough novel like The Arsonist’s Daughter and is generally regarded as a joke at work.

Hanson strips color from the palette, presenting Pittsburgh in blues and grays, a romantic, post-industrial setting that we see through Grady’s car window. It’s subtly presented as Hanson doesn’t hit us over the head with obvious landmarks. He excels at creating just the right mood and atmosphere. For the director, the city mirrors the characters in the film as he commented in an interview with Empire magazine, “it’s a city with this glorious past that went into decline…That’s why I wanted to shoot here. I think the city’s so emblematic of the characters’ problems.” The city was experiencing a mild winter during their shoot and they had to use a lot of artificial snow.

The best films are the ones that you lose yourself in completely. There is a scene where Grady sneaks a smoke outside of the Gaskill house at night and a light snow falls. He spies a greenhouse in the distance and it is illuminated in the night looking like “heaven” as James puts it. This is in contrast to the warm, gold interior of the nearby Gaskill house. This is a wonderful little moment frozen in time and the beginning of the friendship between Grady and James.

The attention to detail—a snowy winter in Pittsburgh—is beautiful realized. Hanson does a great job of conveying a sense of place, utilizing locations well. There is the warm, red and gold of a blues bar that Grady meets Terry and James at. It’s a small place packed with people and they sit in a booth that create an intimate feel. There’s a great moment where Grady and Terry spot an odd looking guy across the bar and create an elaborate and colorful backstory for him, including a name – Vernon Hardapple – and who is, among other things, “president of the James Brown Hair Club for Men.” Grady later encounters the man on a couple of very memorable occasions including a funny scene where Grady, Q and Terry try to evade Vernon outside of the bar that ends with the man jumping on the hood of their car with his butt. We see Q and Terry laughing and having fun as Grady tries to escape and in turn it is fun for us to watch.

Hanson had been a fan of Bob Dylan’s music since childhood and a great admirer of his soundtrack for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). As it turned out, Dylan was a fan of Hanson’s previous film, L.A. Confidential and after a lot of convincing screened 90 minutes of rough footage from Wonder Boys. Hanson wanted Dylan because “who knows more about being a wonder boy and the trap it can be, about the expectations and the fear of repeating yourself?” In addition to Dylan, Hanson built the score around nine singer-songwriters including Leonard Cohen and Neil Young. The entire soundtrack is integrated into the film and Hanson even played some of the songs for the actors on the Pittsburgh set to convey a scene’s “aural texture,” as the director put it in an interview with USA Today.

The studio decided to release Wonder Boys in February, notoriously the month where films no one cares about are unceremoniously dumped, and while it connected with critics, flopped at the box office. It came out a week after the Academy Award nominations were announced. The studio spent a lot more money promoting the films of theirs that were nominated and not enough on Wonder Boys. The Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern praised Douglas' work in the movie, but criticized the movie poster, which featured a headshot of Douglas: "a raffishly eccentric role, and he's never been so appealing. (Don't be put off by the movie's cryptic poster, which makes him look like Michael J. Pollard.)" The Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan also slammed the poster: "The film's ad poster brings Elmer Fudd to mind."

Hanson was not happy with how the film was marketed, in particular the poster, which he said in an interview with The Observer, made Douglas look “like he was trying to be Robin Williams.” In an interview with Amy Taubin for the Village Voice Hanson said, "The very things that made Michael and I want to do the movie so badly were the reasons it was so tricky to market. Since films go out on so many screens at once, there's a need for instant appeal. But Wonder Boys isn't easily reducible to a single image or a catchy ad line." The director disagreed with the studio over the film’s original release date and advertising campaign. To make matters worse, the marketing was criticized in the press and in an unprecedented move, the studio canceled the lucrative video contract and pulled the film out of theaters. Hanson and Rudin lobbied to have the film re-released. A new campaign was designed that emphasized the ensemble cast and the film was released in theaters where it promptly flopped at the box office again.

Despite the studio’s mishandling of the promotional side of things, the film was warmly received by critics. The Boston Society of Film Critics voted Frances McDormand as Best Supporting Actress for her work in the film and Steve Kloves received Best Screenplay accolades. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association voted Michael Douglas for Best Actor and McDormand picked up another Best Actress award. Roger Ebert praised Wonder Boys as "the most accurate movie about campus life that I can remember. It is accurate, not because it captures intellectual debate or campus politics, but because it knows two things: (1) Students come and go, but the faculty actually lives there, and (2) many faculty members stay stuck in graduate-student mode for decades." USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and praised its “drollery, which was a hallmark of the book as well, had gotten a booster shot from Kloves.” Philip French, in The Observer, wrote, “The picture has a marvelous sense of the contrasted worlds of Pittsburgh, the interior warmth and the damp, biting cold outside of a Pennsylvania winter.”

Every scene in Wonder Boys feels warm and inviting and filled with interesting characters that inhabit this world and that allows you to be in it for the duration of the film. By hanging out with James, Grady regains that wonder boy spark while also guiding his young protégé to becoming one himself. What better teacher than someone who was once one? At one point, Grady says that most people don’t think and that books aren’t important anymore. He’s jaded and cynical about the world but over the course of the film James reaches him and changes his outlook on life.

SOURCES

Angulo, Sandra P. “Penn Stationed.” Entertainment Weekly. February 25, 2000.

Carr, Jay. “Wonder Boys Gets A New Lease on Life.” Boston Globe. November 23, 2000.

Chumo II, Peter N. “No Wonder Boy.” Creative Screenwriting. January/February 2001.

Dawson, Jeff. “Boy Wonders.” Empire. December 2000.

Gunderson, Edna. “Dylan Sets the Tone for Wonder Boys Soundtrack.” USA Today. January 20, 2000.

Heuring, David. “Dante Spinotti Talks about Shooting Wonder Boys.” International Cinematographers Guild.

Kehr, Dave. “At the Movies.” The New York Times. November 3, 2000.

Ojumu, Akin. “Success is Better Late Than Never.” The Observer. October 22, 2000.

Portman, Jamie. “Robert Downey Jr.’s Unfortunate Incarceration.” Ottawa Citizen. February 24, 2000.

Rickey, Carrie. “Wonder Years for Reborn Michael.” Sunday Telegraph. June 18, 2000.

Sragow, Michael. “L.A. Noir or College Comedy, The Genre is Real Life.” The New York Times. February 13, 2000.

Strauss, Bob. “From B-Movies to Hollywood’s A-List.” Globe and Mail. February 25, 2000.

Wrathall, John. “Everything That I’ve Done is to Do with Darkness.” The Independent. October 29, 2000.

Mook Musicals: Mean Streets/Saturday Night Fever

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Double Bill-a-Thon being coordinated by Gautam Valluri at Broken Projector.

In their own way, Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973) and John Badham’s Saturday Night Fever (1977) are gritty musicals set in and around New York City. Both films take the notion of the American success story and reduce it to almost nothing. The characters that inhabit these films are small-time hustlers and punks with no real direction in life and no future.

Set in "Little Italy," Scorsese’s film introduces us to most of the main characters in the opening moments of the film. Each one is given his own little scene in order to showcase his distinct character-defining obsession. We first meet Tony (David Proval), the order-obsessed owner of a local bar, as he throws out a junkie and then chastises his bouncer for his lack of initiative. Next, is Michael (Richard Romanus), a serious looking loan shark who ineptly tries to sell a man a shipment of German lens only to be told by the customer that they are actually Japanese adapters. This is followed by the explosive Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), a happy-go-lucky punk who gleefully blows up a mailbox and then runs off. Finally, we meet the film's protagonist, Charlie (Harvey Keitel), an ambitious young man who is embroiled in conflict – both personal and external.

Charlie is torn between two worlds: the static isolation of his uncle's environment and the constricting chaos of Johnny Boy's lifestyle. He must make a choice between the two, while trying to exist in both. Conflict occurs when these two worlds inevitably collide and Charlie is left to pick up the pieces. This revisionist approach is in stark contrast to the traditional gangster film which almost always follows a curve that traces the criminal's rise and eventual fall. However, Scorsese disrupts this notion by having no rise and leaving the fall unresolved. The only thing that is truly alive and vital in the film is Scorsese's camera which dollies and tracks all over the place with incredible energy and enthusiasm that is truly infectious.

It was one of the few gangster films, at the time, to use a personal, almost home-movie view of its subjects. The settings and situations are so intimate and personal that you almost feel embarrassed, as if you are intruding on someone's actual life.

Harvey Keitel's strong performance is one of the many highlights of Mean Streets. He manages to convey the inner turmoil that threatens to consume Charlie's character as he struggles to save everyone around him and ends up saving no one. It is incredible to see how much energy Robert De Niro instills in Johnny Boy – the embodiment of the film's frenetic force. He is the unpredictable element in Charlie's otherwise, structured world. Whenever Johnny Boy is on-screen the camera mimics his furious pace that absolutely bristles with intensity. Scorsese reinforces this energy in an early scene where Johnny Boy enters Tony's bar to the strains of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Rolling Stones. Even though the entrance is captured in a slow motion tracking shot, De Niro's character is so energetic that not even this technique can slow him down.

The characters inhabit a world of smoky, dimly-lit bars with an amazing classic rock soundtrack to compliment the proceedings. Scorsese's camera is restless and frantic as it moves in tight, narrow spaces that lead to dead ends. This is done to convey the destiny of the characters. They are full of energy, but are going nowhere in life. Scorsese also used a hand-held camera to create a jerky, off-balance effect that conveys the sensation of disorientation. There is no center of power. No other scene demonstrates this effect more than the famous pool hall brawl where Johnny Boy, Charlie, and Tony go to collect some money from the owner. A fight breaks out when Johnny Boy's bravado insults the owner. Scorsese uses a hand-held camera to convey the constant confusion of the fight. The camera darts and weaves all over the place seemingly in time with “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes. Scorsese follows one fight for a while before shifting to another brawl in an indiscriminate fashion. This effect raises the fight to a frightening level as the audience is drawn right into the middle of the pool hall melee and yet is offset by the music. The violence has no meaning or nobility and no one becomes a hero or succeeds as a result of using excessive force. After the pool hall fight is broken up, the conversation continues as if it never happened. The fight served no purpose and achieved no real end, except to enliven the characters' mundane existence for a few minutes. The camera, and by extension, the viewer enters the fracas, which creates a sense of danger not only for the characters but for the audience as well.

Saturday Night Fever also introduces its protagonist in an exciting and dynamic way as we see Tony Manero (John Travolta) strutting down the streets of Brooklyn, paint can in his hand to the strains of “Stayin' Alive” by the Bee Gees. He is a young man who works at a hardware store during the day but at night he hangs out with his buddies at the local dance club, 2001 Odyssey. Tony hopes to win the club’s dance contest but needs to find the right partner. At first, he teams up with Annette (Donna Pescow), a neighborhood girl who has a crush on Tony but whom he tells flat out that she’s not his “dream girl.” That would be Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) whom Tony spots cutting a very impressive groove on the dance floor and later at the dance studio where he practices at.

Tony falls hard for her but she initially rebuffs his advances, interested only in dancing, getting out of Brooklyn, and living in Manhattan. Even though Tony is the king of his neighborhood, he wants out too because he’s tired of living at home (arguing constantly with his father) and sees that his friends (like Charlie’s in Mean Streets) have no future – they are going to spend the rest of their lives in their neighborhood. This is symbolized by the character of Bobby C (Barry Miller), the dumb one of Tony’s gang who has gotten his girlfriend pregnant and spends the film trying to figure out what he’s going to do about it. He tries asking for help but no one listens to him because they don’t take him seriously.

Saturday Night Fever is beautifully photographed, especially the dance club scenes with the garish reds and vibrant, atmospheric lighting (Christmas lights and disco balls) that is epitomized in the sequence where Tony struts his stuff on the dance floor while everyone watches admiringly. Director John Badham frames Travolta in long shots so that his entire body is visible and as a result there is no question that he’s really doing all that incredible dancing. Because Saturday Night Fever has been parodied many times over people forget what an amazing dancer Travolta was, but watching him cut loose to “You Should Be Dancing” is one of the best dance sequences ever put to film. The choreography is astounding and Travolta moves to the music perfectly. It is easy to see how this film transformed him into a cultural phenomenon. As his brother tells Tony, he’s exciting to watch. Truer words were never spoken.

The comradery between Tony and his buddies feels authentic much as it does between Charlie and his friends in Mean Streets. It really seems like they’ve been friends forever. They act like goofballs around each other but not to the point of caricature. It never feels false. This is exemplified in the scene where they go for burgers at White Castle with Stephanie and Double J (Paul Pape) makes a joke about Tony eating like a dog. Double J begins barking loudly freaking out the employees and other customers but it is funny as opposed to being threatening.

People often forget how gritty the film is. If Martin Scorsese ever directed a dance movie this would be it. Tony and his gang are a tough bunch of guys who aren’t above taking on a rival gang who jumped one of their own. It’s a chaotic, messy fight reminiscent of a similar skirmish in Mean Streets. In fact, it often feels like Tony and his buddies could exist in the same world only a few miles away.

The true test of a film’s staying power is if the characters still resonate years after you first saw it. This special quality is very subjective. When enough years pass any film will inevitably viewed through the lens of nostalgia, representing a specific time and a place that doesn’t exist anymore except in our memories. This is the power of cinema – to capture a moment in time forever and allow you to revisit again and again like an old friend. Mean Streets and Saturday Night Fever do this and that is why both have endured for over 30 years and will continue to do so.

Brain Donors

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Slapstick Blog-A-Thon being coordinated by Thom Ryan at Film of the Year.

There’s a good reason why there have been so few attempts to copy the Marx Brothers. Not only did they do their own unique brand of anarchic, slapstick comedy so well, but it is also very hard to pull off so that what few attempts there have been failed miserably. That didn’t stop the Zucker brothers (of Airplane! and The Naked Gun fame) from trying in 1992 with the underrated film, Brain Donors. It was originally called Lame Ducks (a nice nod to the Marx Brothers) and Paramount Pictures, the studio that backed it, was gearing up to give it a huge promotional push. However, when the Zuckers left for another studio, Paramount decided to punish the film by withdrawing the publicity campaign, changing the title and pulling it from theaters after a brief run. It’s a shame because Brain Donors is an excellent example of a modern slapstick film.

The eye catching opening credits, rendered in Claymation (by Will Vinton no less), establish the film’s zany, free-wheeling attitude right away. In typical Marx Brothers fashion, pretentious high society types are taken down a notch. Lillian Oglethorpe (Nancy Marchand channeling Margaret Dumont) is a wealthy widow whose husband recently died. His final wish was to use half of his vast fortune to assemble a ballet company and find the best male dancer to front it. Enter attorney Roland T. Flakfizer (John Turturro), an ambulance chaser with his eyes on Oglethorpe’s money. Standing in his way is her snooty attorney (“As your trusted attorney,” he huffs pompously at one point, to which Roland replies, “You gonna use those words together?”) but once Roland teams up with Jacques (Bob Nelson as the Harpo surrogate) and Rocco (Mel Smith as the Chico archetype) much screwball insanity ensues.

Brain Donors turns into a riff on A Night at the Opera (1935) as the evil attorney convinces the conceited Volare (George De La Pena) to head the company while Roland and the boys get up-and-coming dancer, Alan Grant (Spike Alexander). In keeping with Marx Brothers tradition there is even a love story between a good-looking but bland couple that serves as a breather between manic comedic set pieces. Fans of the Marx Brothers can go through this film with a checklist of scenes and bits that were lifted from their films. As Chad Plambeck’s review points out, the emergency room scene is taken from A Day at the Races (1937) and the garden party is reminiscent of the one in Duck Soup (1933).

Brain Donors takes the slapstick film to absurd levels. One only has to look at the scene where Roland, Jacques and Rocco disrupt Volare’s performance at the ballet to see how this film employs the genre’s conventions so well. It starts off modestly as Roland stands in front of the orchestra pit offering a crazy play-by-play analysis of Volare’s performance. Pretty soon, they are throwing oversized toothbrushes and teddy bears at the egotistical dancer. Then, Jacques arrives on stage dressed as one of the ballerinas and proceeds to disrupt the performance by physically injecting himself into the proceedings. If that weren’t enough, Roland comes flying in on wires like some kind of demented Peter Pan only to be followed by Jacques, Rocco and Roland (still on wires) interrupting the performance for an impromptu game of basketball. As the scene continues, the humor gets more and more ridiculous.

John Turturro, known at the time for his intense roles (Five Corners and Do the Right Thing) is cast wonderfully against type as the Groucho Marx surrogate. Up until that point, only the Coen brothers had successfully tapped his comedic potential but not quite to the extent that he does in Brain Donors which allowed him to finally cut loose and show an unseen, wackier side. With his recent stint in Adam Sandler films (Mr. Deeds and Anger Management) one wonders if the comedian was a big fan of this film. It makes sense seeing as how Dennis Dugan, who directed Brain Donors, went on to direct Sandler in Happy Gilmore (1996) and Big Daddy (1999). Roland is, literally, an ambulance chasing lawyer. You have to admire the balls the filmmakers have for showing Turturro actually running after an ambulance. In the film he is still sporting his Barton Fink (1991) quaff — it’s almost as if Fink finally went completely insane somewhere in Hollywood. Turturro’s handling of a simple car accident that introduces his character is a wonderful bit of comedic timing as he motormouths his way through the scene, completely exploiting the situation.

Bob Nelson’s Jacques leads a kind of Pee-Wee Herman existence. This gives the filmmakers an excuse to employ all sorts of visual gags, including one where he takes a scrunched up table cloth and unfolds it to reveal a full breakfast setting. He is the anarchic, physical comedy portion of the three-man team while Mel Smith plays Rocco with just the right amount of surly charm. With Turturro they make a good team and the interplay between all three is excellent. Clearly, they look like they’re having a ball with the material and it feels as if they’ve been together as a comedy team for years.

And why not? Penned by Pat Proft (Bachelor Party, numerous Police Academy movies, and Hot Shots!), the script follows the Zucker brothers’ comedic philosophy of machine gun jokes: if you fire enough of them at the audience some are bound to work. Surprisingly, quite a few of them do (lines like, “These seats are dreadful! They’re facing the stage,” Roland tells an usher at the opera) and this is due in large part to how the dialogue is delivered, especially by Turturro who rarely seems to take a breath in the entire movie. He makes the film infinitely more watchable whenever he’s on-screen.

In the end, Brain Donors plays out like a Marx Brothers highlight reel but does so in an entertaining and engaging way. The film has gone on to enjoy a modest new life on home video and television with a small cult following. Fans of this underrated film can now finally enjoy it on DVD. Sadly, there are no extras. This is a shame — one would like to have seen an audio commentary by the filmmakers, but I guess the fact that it has even surfaced at all on DVD is a miracle.

“Lady, I don’t have the time.”: Lee Marvin in The Killers

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Lee Marvin Blog-A-Thon being coordinated by Richard Harland Smith at Movie Morlocks.

“The current cycle of crime films is a vicarious way to participate in the crime wave without committing a crime. That feeling is latent within each of us. Everybody wants to get even with somebody.” – Lee Marvin in a January 1969 interview with Playboy magazine

The first feature-length adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's short story, "The Killers" was directed by Robert Siodmak in 1946 and featured a young Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner as the two leads. It was a simple tale of a man who had hit rock bottom so badly that he allowed two hitmen to kill him. The doomed man was the focus of Siodmark’s film while, on the surface, it may seem that Don Siegel’s 1964 film version is all about doomed race car driver Johnny North. After all, he is given the bulk of The Killers’ screen time through flashbacks by the people that knew and loved him. However, Siegel drops in subtle visual clues throughout the film to suggest that the film is actually about the two professional killers as with an emphasis on the elder more experienced one, Charlie, played by Lee Marvin. It is interesting to note that the first and last image of the film is of Charlie – the first tip off that this is his story and not North’s.

A great, menacing soundtrack by John Williams plays over the opening credits and immediately establishes the tough tone of Siegel’s film. Charlie and Lee (Clu Gulager) are ultra-cool, well-dressed hitmen that have been hired to kill ex-race car driver Johnny North (John Cassavetes) — now working as a teacher at a school for the blind. Even though he’s warned in advance, North does nothing and just lets the two men kill him. Afterwards, Charlie is bothered by the job. Something just does not feel right. And so, he and Lee decide to track down the people that knew North and find out why their victim didn’t run when he had the chance.

Along with Point Blank (1967), The Killers is one of the finest performances of Marvin’s career. He exudes a calm, malevolent nature through the simplest gesture or look and has a deep, weathered voice that conveys a lifetime of experience. For example, in the opening scene when Charlie and Lee question the receptionist at the school for the blind about North, the younger hitman fidgets with the furniture, taking some flowers out of a vase, sniffing them while pouring the water out onto the desk. The veteran killer concentrates on the frightened woman. Marvin uses that great voice of his to get the information he wants, uttering the immortal line, “I’m sorry lady, we don’t have the time.” This won’t be the last time he says that line. This scene is simultaneously funny and filled with tension in the way that the two men carry themselves. And yet we never lose sight of the fact that Charlie and Lee are there for only one reason: to kill North. Nothing is going to get in their way.

After they kill North, we see a more relaxed, casual side of Charlie. He and Lee are traveling on a train. The younger hitman still has his tie, vest and sunglasses on while the elder killer looks much more relaxed with the top button of his dress shirt undone, his shirt sleeves rolled up and his tie and sunglasses removed. However, something is bothering Charlie. Why didn’t North try to make a run for it? Charlie and Lee got paid a lot of money for a simple hit. They also find out that North was part of a million dollar heist – where’s the money? They don’t know who hired them but Charlie wants to find out. He wants that million dollars as he tells his partner, “But me, I’m getting old. My hair’s turning gray, my feet are sore and I’m tired of running.” It this slight admission that he’s getting older that humanizes Charlie for a brief moment and provides motivation for their quest. Half of a million dollars would certainly allow Charlie to retire in style.

Charlie and Lee decide to track down the other accomplices in the heist. In order to do so, they find North’s mechanic (played with blubbery bluster by Claude Akins). As Charlie puts the pressure on him, he says once again, “We don’t have the time.” There is now a bit of urgency in Charlie’s methods. As he said earlier, he’s tired of running and it is this urgency that motivates him to track down the money.

However, Charlie and Lee hit a dead end with the mechanic and go out for dinner. An interesting thing happens during this scene. At first, a mildly depressed Charlie is unable to eat his “fine steak,” but after he gets an encouraging call and a tip on the whereabouts of another one of North’s accomplices, his mood changes instantly and he happily begins cutting into his food. Charlie has become reinvigorated and tells Lee that it just isn’t the money that he’s after: “But I gotta find out what makes a man decide not to run. Why all of the sudden he’d rather die?” (Incidentally, this question is what also convinced Marvin to do the film) However, it is this curiosity that will ultimately be Charlie’s undoing.

Marvin delivers an economic performance which helps convey the all-business attitude of his character. He belonged to a dying breed of actor that you just don’t see anymore. Most actors today, if they’re lucky, take a whole film to convey the kind of toughness that Marvin has naturally. “Tough guys” of today – Russell Crowe, Jason Statham, Clive Owen, et al – don’t even come close to someone like Marvin. You can just tell from the way he looks and acts that he would kill you if you ever got in his way. And this kind of hard living attitude carried over into the actor’s real life as he alluded to in a 1969 interview with Playboy magazine and in Don Siegel’s memoir, A Siegel Film. The director recalls how Marvin showed up drunk the first two days of principal photography. The actor became such a disruptive influence on the set that Siegel had to intervene. Instead of dressing him down in front of everybody, he talked to Marvin in private. According to Siegel, Marvin never showed up to work drunk again.

When Charlie and Lee finally confront the film’s heavy, Jack Browning, played by Ronald Reagan in an inspired bit of casting. It was the first and only time that he played a bad guy in a movie. Browning would also be his last film role before he went into politics. It’s great to see a casually intense actor like Marvin square off against a limited one like Reagan. Charlie paces back and forth across the room with a gun in his hand while Browning sits there stiff as a board playing dumb while he’s accused of ordering the hit on North. Marvin does an excellent job working the room and questioning Reagan’s character. He clearly owns this scene.

Charlie shows just how brutal he can be when he questioning North’s girlfriend, Sheila (Angie Dickinson), and doesn’t like her answers. So, he and Lee hang her out of a window high above the street, scaring the answers out of her. Sheila pleads for her life at the end of the film putting all of the blame on Jack who says nothing, grimly accepting his fate at the hands of the uncompromising Charlie. Even after Charlie shoots and kills Jack, Sheila continues to pathetically plead for her life and Charlie utters that immortal line, “Lady, I don’t have the time,” before shooting and killing her. He kills her last because it is revenge for North's death. Through flashbacks we learn that she not only double-crossed the doomed race car driver but she broke his heart too.

However, the damage to Charlie has been done. He has been mortally wounded by a sniper rifle at the hands of Jack earlier on. Charlie staggers out onto the front lawn of Jack’s house just as the police arrive. In a haze, he points his right hand like a gun and collapses dead, the precious money he spent the entire film pursuing fluttering all around him. Siegel then cuts to a long shot of Charlie’s dead body with the money lying in the heart of suburbia with its manicured green lawns and tract houses.

Siegel’s film takes place mostly during the day with a bright color scheme. This is due largely because the picture was originally intended to be a made-for-television movie (the first of its kind) but the harsh depiction of violence was too much for NBC and it was eventually released theatrically. The artificial T.V. look, with its extensive use of rear projection, gives The Killers an almost surreal kind of feel that works surprisingly well. Even though it is bright and colorful, the attitude of the film is pure, gritty film noir. Life is cheap and the film concludes on an uncompromisingly nihilistic note as Siegel ends things with a hell of a final image that underlines the very thing that resulted in everyone’s demise: money.