North Dallas Forty

There are few sports movies that rise above the tried and true conventions of the genre. For every Bull Durham (1988) that gets it right, there are a hundred ones like The Scout (1994). The 1970s was a particularly strong decade for sports movies with the likes of The Bad News Bears (1976) and Slap Shot (1977) offering gritty, funny takes on baseball and hockey respectively. These films dug a little deeper and were unafraid to present a cynical and irreverent look at sports, offering unfiltered insight inside the locker room. More so than these two sports, American football was scrutinized and satirized with comedies like The Longest Yard (1974) and Semi-Tough (1977).

It was North Dallas Forty (1979), however, that stirred up a fair amount of controversy with its highly critical look at the professional game. Adapted from Peter Gent’s novel of the same name, the film focused on the hard-partying and hard-playing team known as the North Dallas Bulls, based on the Dallas Cowboys. Gent had played for them for five seasons and then wrote a fictionalized account about his experiences. His uncompromising take on the physical punishment players endured on the field and the toll that the mind games of the coaches took on them in the locker room was authentically conveyed in director Ted Kotcheff’s film. So much so that upon its release there were accusations that the NFL blackballed some of the players that appeared in the film.

The first image we get of Nick Nolte’s character is his disheveled mug waking up after what I can only imagine was a hell of a bender the night before. His nose is bloodied and he looks beaten up. There are all kinds of scars running up and down a leg from numerous surgeries. Phil is a wreck and one has to give Nolte credit for having zero vanity as an actor. Sure enough, a brief series of flashbacks show Phil taking several hits during a game, which result in the run-down human being we see shuffling stiffly through his home.

Later that day, a few of his teammates take him on a hunting trip. Phil uses this as an opportunity to lament his lack of playing time to his friend and team quarterback Seth Maxwell (Mac Davis) who tells him, “You gotta learn how to fool ‘em. Give them what they want. I know, I’ve been foolin’ them bastards for years.” Phil replies, “If you start pretending to be somebody else that’s when you’re gonna end up being somebody else.” Seth lays it out for him, “You had better learn how to play the game. And I don’t just mean the game of football. Hell, we’re all whores anyway, might as well be the best.” This conversation establishes North Dallas Forty’s central theme and the dilemma that Phil faces. Does he play by the rules or try to fight the system? It’s also a really good bit of acting as these guys cut through the dumb jock stereotype.

Of course, the next scene demonstrates why that stereotype exists as we witness a wild team party that involves one guy throwing a television into a swimming pool; a smooth-talking scam artist trying to take advantage of any player that will listen to his pitch; and one teammate that batters his hand bloody in the hopes that it will illicit sympathy from a woman he plans to have sex with. While Seth shows just how well he knows how to play the game by schmoozing with various guests and surrounding himself with beautiful women, Phil wanders around in a state of bemusement. He meets a dark-haired woman named Charlotte Caulder (Dayle Haddon) who definitely looks out of place. She’s not like the kind of bimbos that populate these parties and this intrigues Phil.

Their conversation is cut short when she attempts to leave the party only to be intercepted by Joe Bob Priddy (Bo Svenson), one of the two biggest guys on the team and living proof of Social Darwinism. When he makes his crude intentions towards her body blatantly known, Phil steps in only to anger Joe Bob who proceeds to choke the life out of him. Fortunately, a smooth-talking Seth quickly steps in as the voice of reason. It is a fascinating look at the dynamics of a professional football years before Any Given Sunday (1999) gave it a go (and showed that not much had changed over the years). The party serves as a significant turning point for Phil who has gotten tired of the same old routine and with Charlotte’s influence begins to think about a life after football. He’s tired and his body just can’t take the game-to-game punishment like it used to.

North Dallas Forty is at its best when it shows us the inner workings of pro football with unflinching honesty, like the fascinating scene that shows how various players get ready in the locker room before a big game. Some psych each other up, some pray, some get angry and fired up, some look scared while others joke around like they don’t have a care in the world. It is an interesting look at the mindset of a pro athlete and how they prepare, each in their own way.

Nick Nolte is excellent as one of the few players on the team who is self-aware. He certainly looks and acts the part of a pro football player that is nearing the end of his career. Phil has grown weary of the whole lifestyle and Charlotte may provide a way out. Being an ex-jock himself, Nolte understands this world well and this knowledge informs everything he does in the film. This was the beginning of an illustrious run for the actor playing burnt-out protagonists, from the disheveled cop in 48 HRS. (1982) to the perpetually rumpled educator in Teachers (1984) to playing a dead-end bum in Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Nolte has cornered the market on world-weary wastoids.

Mac Davis more than holds his own with Nolte. He’s very good as Phil’s savvy teammate who is equally self-aware about how pro football really works, but is better at playing by the rules, or more willing to than Phil. Davis has loads of good ol’ boy charm, but also takes us under this façade to show a man who’s never been in love and leads a pretty empty life. Davis has several good scenes with Nolte where they talk honestly about life and football.

The supporting cast features notable character actors like G.D. Spradlin as the coldly analytical Tom Landry-esque head coach, Charles Durning as the perpetually angry assistant coach, Dabney Coleman as a smug, smooth-talking team executive, and a frightening Bo Svenson as a Neanderthal player alongside an actual ballplayer John Matuszak who gets a great moment late in the film where he takes out his frustration on a coach by telling him, “Every time I call it a game, you call it a business. And every time I call it a business, you call it a game.”

Peter Gent played five seasons of professional football as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys from 1964 to 1968 when the legendary Tom Landry was the head coach and Don Meredith was the quarterback. Gent wrote a fictionalized account of his experiences that was published in 1973. His novel circulated Hollywood for five years before being made. It went through seven or eight different screenplays and, at one point, Robert Altman was interested in directing. Nick Nolte had read the novel and used his newfound clout (from films like The Deep and Who’ll Stop the Rain) to help get it made.

Not surprisingly, the NFL did not cooperate in the making of North Dallas Forty, but 18 active players, including then-Oakland Raider John Matuszak, appeared in the film. In addition, Fred Biletnikoff, who also played for the Raiders (for 14 years), was hired to train Nolte who had played college football. He said that the actor was “pretty much a natural athlete,” and “catches the ball well, runs patterns well, and he has a fine natural run that makes him look like a receiver.” Principal photography began in December 1978 and lasted over ten weeks with scenes often shot after being written the night before. The Dallas Cowboys initially agreed to allow the production to film at their facilities, but then refused once they heard about all the sex in the script. One of the film’s producers Frank Yablans said that the team was “totally uncooperative.” They ended up using the Los Angeles Rams’ facilities for filming instead. To get the best out of the players they hired for the film, the producers paid them a certain amount a day based on how many hits they did. In addition, they were awarded bonuses for the play of the film, the catch of the film and the hit of the film.

Controversy arose when the NFL shunned three players, who had key acting and advisory roles in the film. Running back Tommy Reamon was cut in training camp by the San Francisco 49ers and claimed he was “blackballed” by the league for being in the film. Tom Fears was an All-Pro receiver with the L.A. Rams and after retiring from the game began a scouting service for several teams. He was an advisor on the film and after it came out, three NFL teams that had subscribed to his service, dropped him. Yablans called these incidents, “pretty strange coincidences,” and said, “with a borderline player, well, this movie might be the catalyst for a team to get rid of him.” He went on to say that Dallas Cowboys defensive end Harvey Martin was offered a part that Matuszak ultimately played, but backed out. Yablans suspected the team pressured him not to do the film. Naturally, the NFL Commissioner called these suggestions of conspiracy, “absolutely ridiculous … when you talk about blacklisting, you’re talking about a league conspiracy and that’s ludicrous.” On the other hand, Matuszak, a starter for the Raiders, said he didn’t encounter any problems and signed a new three-year contract after making the film.

In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “The central friendship in the movie, beautifully delineated, is the one between Mr. Nolte and Mac Davis, who expertly plays the team's quarterback, a man whose calculating nature and complacency make him all the more likable, somehow.” Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “North Dallas Forty retains enough of the original novel's authenticity to deliver strong, if brutish, entertainment.” Newsweek magazine’s David Ansen wrote, “The writers – Kotcheff, Gent and producer Frank Yablans – are nonetheless to be congratulated for allowing their story to live through its characters, abjuring Rocky-like fantasy configurations for the harder realities of the game. North-Dallas Forty isn't subtle or finely tuned, but like a crunching downfield tackle, it leaves its mark.”

However, the Globe and Mail’s Rick Groen wrote, “North Dallas Forty’s descents into farce and into the lone man versus the corrupt system mentality deprive it of real resonance. It's still not the honest portrait of professional athletics that sport buffs have been waiting for.” In his review for the Washington Post, Gary Arnold wrote, “Charlotte, who seemed a creature of rhetorical fancy in the novel, still remains a trifle remote and unassimilated. Dayle Haddon may also be a little too prim and standoffish to achieve a satisfying romantic chemistry with Nolte: Somehow, the temperaments don't mesh.” Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford had problems with the film, but praised Nolte’s performance: “If North Dallas Forty is reasonably accurate, the pro game is a gruesome human abattoir, worse even than previously imagined. Much of the strength of this impression can be attributed to Nick Nolte ... Unfortunately, Nolte's character, Phil Elliott, is often fuzzily drawn, which makes the actor's accomplishment all the more impressive.”

North Dallas Forty shows the corporatization of pro football. Teams are no longer owned by just one man, but by a corporation that views it as just one of many commodities that it owns. Conrad Hunter (Steve Forrest), the head of the corporation that owns the Bulls, gives Phil some advice that doubles as a warning: “People who confuse brains and luck can get in a whole lot of trouble. Seeing through the game is not the same as winning the game.” Along these lines, head coach B.A. Strother (G.D. Spradlin) consults a computer about whether to play someone or not and gives advice by quoting from The Bible. He reads the data and not the man, comparing the team to that of a machine. For example, during a team meeting, he spells it out for the players: “The key to being a professional is consistency. And the computer measures that quality. No one of you is as good as that computer.” He goes on to chastise Phil and Seth for deviating from the game plan even though it resulted in a touchdown.

North Dallas Forty is a fascinating look at the inner workings of a pro football team and how the game changed from individual ability and skill to facts and statistics. The film drags a bit during the scenes depicting the romantic subplot between Phil and Charlotte. Their purpose is to show what his life could be like without football – using his money to buy a chunk of land out in the country where he plans to build a horse ranch. It’s a goal to strive for, but one wonders how many more seasons he has to play for it to happen. However, these scenes aren’t as interesting as the rest of the film.

If North Dallas Forty doesn’t seem to be a revelation in terms of taking us behind the curtain and showing the inner workings of pro football with scenes depicting players taking B12 shots to numb injury-ridden limbs and popping painkillers like Chiclets to fight through the pain and keep playing, it’s that a lot of the things it reveals are now widely known. At the time, it raised quite a stink because someone finally had the courage to bring to light the brutal realities of the game. It came out at just the right time – during the ‘70s – when sports dramas could dispense with any kind of romantic notions of the game and present a gritty authenticity. North Dallas Forty deserves to be ranked right up there with the very best sports of movies of not just that decade but of all time. It shows how quickly the thrill of victory can change to the agony of defeat. It shows how many athletes give everything they’ve got for the sport and get fame and money in return, but often at a horrible cost when they permanently damage their bodies. Players like Phil are chewed up and spit out by the machinery that is the game – both on and off the field.

SOURCES

Hendrickson, Paul. “The Passion & Pain of North Dallas Forty.” Washington Post. August 14, 1979.

Jares, Joe. “Peering Into the Pro Psyche.” Sports Illustrated. May 7, 1979

Kornheiser, Tony. “NFL Accused of Blacklisting Those Who Aided Film.” Washington Post. September 6, 1979.

Cop

During the 1980’s, actor James Woods had a fantastic run of diverse, low-budget genre films that included Salvador (1986), Best Seller (1987), True Believer (1989), and Cop (1988), perhaps the most under-appreciated one of them all. It is a fast and loose adaptation of James Ellroy’s crime novel Blood on the Moon and features Woods playing another abrasive, unlikable character but it is the actor’s riveting performance that keeps us invested in the film. Unfortunately, not many people thought so as they were probably put off by the film’s rather negative view of women. Cop was given a limited release and what critics saw it were not impressed. Yet, it is Woods’ uncompromising performance, matched by writer/director James B. Harris’ willingness to fully immerse us in a homicide detective’s grim world that makes this a compelling film.


We meet Lloyd Hopkins (James Woods) in his element – going through several open cases with a clueless underling. In a matter of minutes he has told his subordinate what to do on each of them before answering a call about a homicide. He’s the first to arrive on the scene and Harris sets quite a tense mood as we don’t know what Hopkins is going to find. We dread that it’s going to be something gruesome and the film doesn’t disappoint: a woman has been brutally murdered. We see Hopkins methodically look around for clues and Woods shows how quickly this case has gotten a hold on his character. The actor also shows Hopkins thinking about what he’s seen and how he’s already contemplating his next move.

Harris juxtaposes this grim scene with a lighter moment as Hopkins returns home to say goodnight to his wise-beyond-her-years eight-year-old little girl (she can instantly tell he’s had a bad day). Quite surprisingly, he doesn’t sugarcoat things, telling the child (Vicki Wauchope) that the world is a “shit storm” and that she has to “develop claws to fight it.” She begs him to tell her a bedtime story and he gleefully tells her about a series of drug robberies he helped bust like he was telling her a child’s fairy tale. At one point she even says, “Tell me how you got the scumbag, daddy.” It’s a hilariously darkly comic scene that is sweet and disturbing simultaneously. When Hopkins’ wife (Jan McGill) chastises him for corrupting their child, he goes on an impressive rant about how he’s preparing her for the harsh, cruel world full of disappointment and where “innocence kills” as he puts it so succinctly. She replies with what most of us are probably thinking, “Lloyd, I think you’re a very sick man.” Hopkins is obviously a cop that takes his work home with him and one has to kind of admire his decision not to sugarcoat things for his daughter but on the other hand maybe he could’ve waited a couple of years.

After his wife goes off in disgust, Hopkins gets a call about a robbery suspect. He enlists the help of his old partner Dutch (Charles Durning) and is absolutely giddy at the prospect of busting a crook rather than stay home. He’s one of those guys obsessed with his work. However, ethics aren’t high on the man’s list of virtues as he’s not above having sex with women he meets on cases he’s investigating. Everything, including his family, who leaves him, takes a backseat to catching a serial killer. The film shows Hopkins doing the legwork required – tracking down leads, questioning known associates, analyzing evidence, going through unsolved cases, and so on. He finally gets a break, finding a poem sent to the murder victim from the killer that implies he’s killed before. However, Hopkins’ boss (Raymond J. Barry) isn’t convinced about his serial killer theory and rightly so as all the detective has is a gut feeling and a pretty wild but convincing theory but he’s going to need some hard evidence. Hopkins’ research leads him to the owner (Lesley Ann Warren) of a feminist bookstore. She seems standoffish at first but once the detective works his charms he’s taking her to a party at Dutch’s house, which is full of cops. She ends becoming an integral component in the case and to uncovering the identity of the killer.

Woods brings his trademark intensity to the role. Hopkins is someone who only cares about what people can do for him. He uses both men and women – the former to help him and the latter for sex. For example, he uses Dutch to grease the political wheels with his clout and doesn’t give him anything back in return except for trouble from their boss. Hopkins is estranged from his wife and it becomes readily apparent that all he has is his work and that doesn’t seem to bother him in the least. For example, he hardly reacts to his family leaving him and quickly dives back into the case he’s investigating. Ever the fearless actor, Woods doesn’t shy away from Hopkins’ unsavory aspects but really tries to show us what motivates this guy. He’s just as obsessed with women as the serial killer only he wants to protect them whereas the killer wants to destroy them. It is this aspect that is perhaps the most troubling thing about Cop – its negative portrayal of women. For example, it takes Lesley Ann Warren’s strong feminist character and by the end reduces her to a teary victim. Women like his wife are merely obstacles that get in Hopkins’ way or there to be used, which, in some respects, makes him no better than the killer.

Not surprisingly, Cop received mixed reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and wrote, “They might think this is simply a violent, sick, contrived exploitation picture, and that would certainly be an accurate description of its surfaces. But Woods operates in this movie almost as if he were writing his own footnotes. He uses his personality, his voice and his quirky sense of humor to undermine the material and comment on it, until Cop becomes an essay on this whole genre of movie.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin praised James Wood’s performance: “Far and away the best thing about it is Mr. Woods, who served as co-producer and demonstrates a clear understanding of what makes great movie detectives great. Even in less-than-sparkling surroundings, he can talk tough with the best of them.” The London Times’ David Robinson wrote, “The script is taut and sharp and the casting exemplary.”

Newsweek magazine’s Jack Kroll wrote, “But Cop's worst malefaction is a ‘feminist’ character played by Lesley Ann Warren. Poor Warren, a stylish, witty actress, can do nothing at all with what just be the most embarrassingly inane female character in recent screen history.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Rick Groen wrote, “Speaking of cheap tricks, what about that serial killer stuff? Well, stalled in second gear, the plot gets pushed forward by a helpful gang of wild coincidences. And when even that fails, it simply lumbers on in logic-defying lurches.”

One has to admire Harris and Woods for refusing to water down Hopkins one iota. He’s a prickly, confident amoral cop who is also smart and driven. Harris got his start producing films for a young Stanley Kubrick and applies the no-nonsense approach of those early films to Cop. His meat and potatoes style of direction works well with this stripped-down police procedural and this includes the equally direct (and generic) title of the film. What could have been a standard thriller is transformed into a study about obsession, both the killer and the cop pursuing him. Harris’ screenplay really captures how one imagines cops talk and act around each other in a way that feels authentic. Cop delves into the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles with unflinching honesty – think of this as the west coast answer to Sidney Lumet’s New York City police procedurals. Harris and Woods have created an engrossing thriller about twisted obsession and its destructive effects. What could have been a typical loose cannon cop character is transformed into something else by Woods who is not afraid to go to dark places and make no excuses for a flawed character that takes the Dirty Harry archetype to extremes. Cop is a grimy B-movie that is refreshingly free of compromise, right down to a memorable punchline ending during the climactic showdown between Hopkins and the killer that helps elevate it from most generic thrillers.

The Hudsucker Proxy

It had to happen. After an impressive run of critically acclaimed independent films, culminating with Barton Fink (1991), which won the top three awards at the Cannes Film Festival, the Coen brothers – Joel and Ethan – made their first Hollywood studio film, The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), with none other than uber producer Joel Silver. Most film critics were unimpressed with the final result and if hitching their wagon to Silver was the Coens’ attempt at appealing to a broader audience that too failed as the film flopped at the box office. So, what the hell happened? It certainly wasn’t from a lack of trying as The Hudsucker Proxy starred a trifecta of stellar acting talent with Tim Robbins, Paul Newman and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Hell, the Coens even enlisted their long-time friend and fellow filmmaker Sam Raimi to co-write the screenplay.

As if eerily foreshadowing the film’s fate, the opening voiceover narration observes the protagonist’s destiny: “How’d he get so high and why’s he feeling so low?” I’ve always felt that The Hudsucker Proxy is the Coen brothers’ most (unfairly) maligned film, which is a shame because it has a lot going for it, including witty dialogue, incredibly detailed production design, some jaw-dropping set pieces, and their usual rogue’s gallery of doofuses, blowhards and snappy wiseasses. This film should be seen as the Coens’ affectionate homage to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s.

The camera moves over a snowy New York City at night on New Year’s Eve, 1958. As we move past several buildings, we finally come upon the imposing Hudsucker Industries building with a massive clock adorning its façade along with their slogan, “The Future is Now,” thereby introducing the film’s prevailing theme: time. The opening voiceover narration is all about the passing of time as it talks about the beginning of a new year and how people at Times Square are waiting for it to arrive, “all trying to catch hold of one moment of time.” We are introduced to one of the film’s “lost souls” – Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) – as he climbs out of his office window, ready to commit suicide. The voiceover narration describes him as someone, “out of hope, out of rope, out of time.” The narrator ponders Norville’s fate and offers this sage observation: “Well, the future, that’s something you can never tell about. But the past, that’s another story.” As this last line is being spoken, the camera pans from Norville to the large clock on the building and we travel back in time, one month, to find out what brought him to this sorry state of affairs.

Recent Muncie School of Business Administration graduate Norville Barnes arrives in New York City to make it big. Through a rather Coens-esque twist of fate, he lands a mediocre job in the mailroom at Hudsucker Industries just as the company's founder and CEO Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning) takes a swan dive off the 44th floor to his death. The Coens continue their obsession with time by having Waring start his watch before he jumps out the window. As he runs across the large boardroom table, the ticking of his watch gets louder as his time is running out. Fearing that the leaderless company will have to go public and “any slob in a smelly t-shirt” will be able to buy stock, the board of directors, led by the ruthless Sidney J. Mussberger (Paul Newman), have one month and decide to find a proxy, a puppet, a pawn, “some jerk we can really push around,” as Sidney puts it, to fill the vacant position left by the recently departed Waring. This will drive the company into the ground so that they can buy back the stock at a cheaper rate. We first meet Sidney looking out the window that his boss just jumped out of with the massive building clock looming ominously overhead.

Norville’s brief stint in the Hudsucker mailroom is depicted as a hellish Orwellian nightmare right out of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), complete with all kinds of office drones scurrying back and forth. A trip up the elevator offers glimpses of floors filled with seemingly endless aisles of desks like something out of Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960). Norville becomes the patsy and is soon blundering his way to success thanks to a little invention called the hula-hoop. And with the catchy slogan, "You know, for kids," Norville's invention becomes all the rage but spells potential disaster for the Sidney and his cronies. As if Norville's problems aren't enough, Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a determined newspaper reporter for the Manhattan Argus is thrown into the mix as she tries to uncover the real story at Hudsucker Industries. Their meet-cute is inventively realized by the Coens as seen and told from the point-of-view of two taxi cab drivers which is a novel way of depicting one of the oldest clichés in the screwball comedy genre.

If The Hudsucker Proxy is remembered at all, it’s for the show-stopping sequence where the hula-hoop is created, marketed and brought out into the world where it eventually becomes a monster hit among kids all over the country. Directed by none other than Sam Raimi, with his usual stylistic virtuosity, this sequence is visual storytelling at its finest. Nice touches include three anonymous Hudsucker executives (seen only in silhouette) in the “Creative Bullpen” (one of whom is Raimi) thinking up names for the hula-hoop – “The Dancing Dingus! The Belly-go-Round,” while in the foreground a secretary reads War and Peace to cheekily convey the passage of time (in a subsequent shot, she’s apparently finished that book and working her way through Anna Karenina). There’s also the bit where a lone hula-hoop rolls down a street only to be discovered by a child and this kickstarts the whole craze. The energy conveyed in this sequence is electric and is a pure cinematic moment.

In The Hudsucker Proxy, Norville has the air of a holy goof about him. He’s a doofus who happens to luck his way into good fortune without being aware of how it happened. Tim Robbins uses his tall, lanky frame for maximum comedic effect as evident in the scene where he first meets Sidney and proceeds to start a fire, runs around with a water cooler jug trying to put it out and then gets his foot stuck in a now flaming wastepaper basket only to almost send the aging businessman out the window. Robbins often sports a goofy grin and instills Norville with unflappable optimism and enthusiasm, especially for his big idea – the hula-hoop.

Amy Archer is your typical career gal, a no-nonsense mash-up of Rosalind Russell and Katharine Hepburn that never stops talking as Jennifer Jason Leigh brilliantly recreates the rat-a-tat-tat delivery of dialogue that was synonymous in films from the ‘30s and ‘40s. Amy, and her distinctive (grating for some) accent, was part of an informal trilogy of period dialogue accents that Leigh perfected in the 1990s along with Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) and Kansas City (1996). The only problem is that Amy eventually falling in love with Norville doesn’t seem believable. There’s no real chemistry between Leigh and Robbins. The Coens try to make it work but it is the glaring flaw in an otherwise excellent film.

Paul Newman fits seamlessly into the Coen brothers universe as the malevolent puppetmaster Sidney J. Mussberger, a name that evokes that of J.J. Hunsecker from the Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Like Burt Lancaster’s bullying columnist from that film, Newman’s businessman is out for himself and crushes anyone who gets in his way. Sidney is a master manipulator who thinks he has all the angles figured out. It looks like Newman is having a lot of fun with this role as he gets to ham it up a little as a tyrannical tycoon. Watching him spout the Coen brothers’ colorful dialogue is a delight.

The attention to period detail is impressive. It’s not just the cars and what people wear but how they speak that so vividly evokes the 1950s. Blink and you’ll miss a cameo by the late Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith as Norville’s fashionable girlfriend once the hula-hoop takes off and makes him a media sensation. Coens regular Steve Buscemi even shows up for an obligatory cameo as a beatnik bartender. Other Coens alumni, like John Mahoney, as her grumpy editor who always smokes a stogie and yells all the time, and Bruce Campbell, as one of her co-workers and foil, are along for the ride and contribute memorable moments as Amy’s co-workers at the Argus.

Barton Fink's rather impressive collection of awards and accolades drew the attention of big time Hollywood producer Joel Silver who had admired the Coens' films since Blood Simple (1984). He envisioned their next project as the big breakthrough into the mainstream. To aid in their endeavors he used his considerable clout to give the brothers two things that they never had before: a large budget of $30 million and big name stars like Tim Robbins and Paul Newman. As a result, the Coens decided to resurrect an old project that they had shelved years ago called The Hudsucker Proxy. Written in 1986 with Sam Raimi, the Coens had never considered filming Proxy because of the rather large scope that they had envisioned for the film. As Joel explained in an interview, "The reason why we didn't make it when we wrote it is we realized how expensive it was going to be; it had special effects and it was all done on stage sets." Silver's involvement provided them with the means to make the film a reality. And so, with Raimi along for the ride, the Coens set out to subvert the mainstream with their own unique vision.

The Coens were very conscious of The Hudsucker Proxy as a throwback to classic Hollywood cinema. Ethan said, "The script, which contains a lot of traditional genre elements, was marked by a kind of heartwarming fantasy element out of Frank Capra. It also had a lot of verbal comedy, the kind you see in films by Preston Sturges or Howard Hawks, with dialogue delivered in a rapid-fire, machine-gun style. But it was bigger and broader, with physical comedy sequences and a lot of oddball action." While trying to sell Blood Simple after making it, the Coens shared a house with Raimi and this was where The Hudsucker Proxy was written. It took them two to three months to write the script and as early as 1985, the Coens were quoted as saying that an upcoming project "takes place in the late Fifties in a skyscraper and is about big business. The characters talk fast and wear sharp clothes."

This first image that they conceived of was that of Norville about to jump from the window of a skyscraper and then they had to figure out how he got there and how to save him. They decided to incorporate the hula-hoop because, according to Joel, “we had to come up with something that this guy was going to invent that on the face of it was ridiculous. Something that would seem, by any sort of rational measure, to be doomed to failure, but something that on the other hand the audience already knew was going to be a phenomenal success." Ethan said, "The whole circle motif was built into the design of the movie, and that just made it seem more appropriate."

Art house darlings, the Coens wanted to make a film that would be seen by a lot of people and so they approached Silver. Despite his reputation, the producer was hands-off with the Coens and his only input was to convince the filmmakers not to shoot their film in black and white. Silver pitched the project to Warner Brothers by saying that they would get a film that the critics would like and that everybody would want to see. The studio agreed but only if the Coens cast movie stars in the main roles. To his credit, Silver promised to protect the Coens from the studio and convinced executives to give them final cut.

The Hudsucker Proxy would see the Coens utilizing their largest budget up to that point in their career. They needed it in order to build large sets and use elaborate special effects. They had screened Blade Runner (1982) before making The Hudsucker Proxy, which also used elaborate sets and a large, detailed cityscape. Twenty-seven craftsmen spent three months building a '50s New York skyline, constructing fourteen skyscrapers. The film's skyline was based on photographs from a book that art director Dennis Gassner found called, New York in the Forties and the scale after Citizen Kane (1941). Principal photography began on December 1993 on soundstages at Carolco Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina with a budget of $25 million, although, some trade papers reported that it increased to $40 million.

The first signs of trouble surfaced when it was reported that the studio held test screenings for The Hudsucker Proxy. Audience comments were varied and the studio suggested re-shoots. The Coens obliged because they were very nervous working with their biggest budget to date and were eager for mainstream success. They added some footage that had been cut, shot some additional footage and added to the ending. Variety magazine claimed that the re-shoots were done to try and save the film because it was going to be a flop. However, Joel addressed the issue: "First of all, they weren't reshoots. They were a little bit of additional footage. We wanted to shoot a fight scene at the end of the movie. It was the product of something we discovered editing the movie, not previewing it."

The Hudsucker Proxy received mostly mixed to negative reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and wrote, “And wasn't there something dead at the heart of all of this? A kind of chill in the air? A feeling that the movie was more thought than art, more calculated than inspired? Doesn't the viewer spend more time admiring the sights on the screen than caring about them? Isn't there something wrong when you walk out of a movie humming the sets?” The Washington Post’s Desson Howe felt that the film was, “pointlessly flashy and compulsively overloaded with references to films of the '30s.” The Chicago Reader’s Jonathan Rosenbaum called the film, “a jeering, dreamlike comedy with little on its mind except how neat the Coens are and how stupid or contemptible everybody else is, including the audience.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “C” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “For all its technical bravado, The Hudsucker Proxy is an unsettling contradiction, a ''whimsical'' fable made by acerbic control freaks. It's a balloon that won't fly.” Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “Try as they will to create a vision of corporate (and urban) hellishness through sheer stylishness, theirs is a truly abstract expressionism, at once heavy, lifeless and dry.”

However, in her review for The New York Times, Caryn James wrote, “Carter Burwell's music is excessive in just the right way, echoing the overwrought, clue-giving scores of 50 years ago. And Dennis Gassner's design is a flawless addition to the film's muted, fairy-tale mood.” Empire magazine’s Kim Newman wrote, “While the story and the characters are perfect pastiche, making them hard to be involved with, human warmth is imported by the sheer joy of the directorial flourishes.”

The Hudsucker Proxy is about the passing of time and even stages the climactic set piece on the cusp of the New Year as two omniscient figures fight within the cogs and gears of the Hudsucker clock while Norville’s fate hangs literally in the balance. The Coens craftily suspend time for a few moments as they seem to be saying that an individual doesn’t have to be defined by their past and that the future always brings the promise of something new, a chance to redefine oneself. The future is now indeed.

The Hudsucker Proxy contained all of the Coens’ trademarks, however, something seemed to be missing from the mix. Perhaps it was the fact that Proxy was the Coens' second homage to the screwball comedy (the first being Raising Arizona) and this time out their reach far exceeded their grasp. As a critic in Sight and Sound observed, Norville Barnes is a Preston Sturges hero trapped in a Frank Capra story, existing in a world created by Fritz Lang. It is this rather odd mixture that may account for Proxy's demise. Or it may simply be that the Coen brothers do not make mainstream films. They have always had a detached view towards their characters – we never fully identify with them or get to know what makes them tick. As a result, there is no meeting the Coens half way. You either like their films or you don't. It didn't hurt that despite the media blitz for the film, it was virtually absent from most movie theaters outside of large, metropolitan cities. That being said, there is a lot going on and a lot to admire in The Hudsucker Proxy. The film has aged surprisingly well over the years and deserves a long overdue re-appraisal.

Home for the Holidays

Christmas holiday movies are a dime a dozen but how many Thanksgiving movies are there? Sure, many are set during this holiday but Home for the Holidays (1995) is the Thanksgiving movie. Director Jodie Foster captures the hassle and the horror of traveling during the holidays and presents an instantly relatable premise: going home for Thanksgiving dinner and having to put up with your relatives. Everyone has been stuck next to that annoying person on a long plane ride or have had to deal with a crowded airport or stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Everybody has a Thanksgiving history and stories that go with it. Home for the Holidays collects several of these stories into one entertaining movie.

Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) is having the worst Thanksgiving ever. She has just been fired from her job, made out with her 60-year-old boss and found out that her daughter Kit (Claire Danes) is going to have sex for the first time. To add insult to injury, Claudia is going to spend Thanksgiving with her parents. Her mother (Anne Bancroft) reads Dear Abby and constantly nags her daughter (“Claudia, I can see your roots.”) while her father (Charles Durning) has selective deafness and weaves in and out of lanes of traffic. The antagonists are represented by Claudia’s sister Jo Ann (Cynthia Stevenson), her boring husband (Steve Guttenberg) and their annoying kids. They provide the friction and conflict, exposing Jo Ann and Claudia’s deep-rooted sibling rivalry issues.

The film really comes to life when Robert Downey Jr. as Claudia’s gay brother Tommy arrives with his business partner, Leo “Go” Fish (Dylan McDermott) in tow. Downey’s introduction ranks right up there with Jack Black’s equally memorable first appearance in High Fidelity (2000). He’s the mischievous sibling who knows exactly which buttons to push to drive his sisters crazy and Downey plays the role with obvious glee as evident from the way he works the kitchen, improvising his ass off as he interacts with the cast, most memorably Anne Bancroft (“Spin mommy, spin.”), during his whirlwind introduction. Foster remembers that, “the cast pretty much stuck to the script once we had honed it down. The only person I let make up whatever he wanted was Robert Downey Jr. He just has this incredibly fertile mind.” The scene where Tommy tells the story about how Leo once injured his nose is a brilliant bit of comic acting on Downey’s part that is hilarious and slightly disgusting simultaneously. Only he has the fearless conviction to pull off this kind of throwaway anecdote that typifies the kind of gems that are peppered throughout Home for the Holidays.

Geraldine Chaplin, as the family’s eccentric Aunt Glady, all but steals every scene she’s in with her surreal non-sequiters (“Wanna see a really big boil?”) and matches Downey for memorable comedic moments in the movie. For example, there is a scene where Glady tells a story at dinner that stops things cold as she speaks wistfully about how, one Christmas Eve, Claudia’s father kissed her and for one moment she felt special like how she imagined her sister felt. It’s a scene that starts off funny and then becomes poignant thanks to Chaplin’s heartfelt performance. Foster remembers that she “came up with wonderful choices in Holidays. She was the most eccentric character of the bunch, so I allowed her to push a little bit more some of those strange behaviors. But I didn't want to push the other actors into wacky, campy idiosyncratic levels. These are real people; they're complicated, but they are very real.” David Strathairn even pops up for a memorable cameo as Russell “Sad Sack” Terziak, a guy with the worst hard luck story, ever. It’s a rare comedic turn as the veteran character actor is cast against type. He is able to put a slightly tragic and uncomfortable spin on his scene.

Castle Rock was originally going to finance the film but canceled and Foster’s own production company, Egg Productions, acquired W.D. Richter’s screenplay. She worked with him on it so that the film ultimately reflects her point-of-view and her own life experience. She spent two weeks rehearsing with her cast before principal photography began in February 1995. Foster used this time to get input from the actors about dialogue – if a scene or speech did not ring true, she wanted to be told. According to Richter, “We all drive each other nuts at holidays like Thanksgiving. I think there is great tragedy and great humor in that. I wanted some sense of a family pulling together in spite of all the problems.”

Holiday movies are like Madlibs: they present a structure and archetypes for you to impart your own experiences. Home for the Holidays contains every archetypal character so that you can identify with at least one if not many of the characters. Richter’s script perfectly captures the dysfunctional family that everyone experiences on some level, like how parents know just what to say to get under your skin. The dialogue is idiosyncratic yet very familiar and memorable, especially everything Downey says. It has a conversational tone that is delivered naturally by the excellent ensemble cast. The film also doesn’t follow the usual beats associated with this kind of movie. For example, early on Claudia’s mother reads to her a Dear Abby letter and the tone of the film shifts to a melancholic one for a few minutes before veering back into comedy.

Foster sets up an idealistic façade but balances it with a realistic depiction of the family dynamic. Richter’s script nails the interplay between retired parents and how they constantly nag each other but really do love one another. And there are the little details that ring true, like how Claudia’s mother makes lists of things to get or do. Sure enough, by dinner time there’s a big blow out argument as old grudges come to the surface. The friction between Tommy and Jo Ann echoes those old arguments that we’ve all had with siblings when one was eight years old and then comes bubbling to the surface whenever you get together with them, no matter how much time has passed. Regardless of all the bad mojo – Tommy having been secretly married to his boyfriend (Chad Lowe), Claudia guilty over being fired and Jo Ann’s bitter resentment with her two free-spirited siblings – coming together for dinner will, they hope, resolve some of these issues. It is a moment where the film gets serious as real issues and true feelings are addressed but it is consistent with what came before and doesn’t take you out of the film. Like real life, some issues are resolved and some aren’t. According to Foster, “At no point did I want the comedy so raucous and exaggerated that you could not believe in it. I wanted people to be able and look at it and say, ‘This is life.’”

The film received mixed reviews but most of the major newspaper critics liked it. In his three and half star review, Roger Ebert praised Foster's ability to direct "the film with a sure eye for the revealing little natural moment," and Downey's performance that "brings out all the complexities of a character who has used a quick wit to keep the world's hurts at arm's length." Janet Maslin, in her review for The New York Times, praised Holly Hunter's performance: "Displaying a dizziness more mannered than the cool, crisp intelligence she shows in Copycat, Ms. Hunter still holds together Home for the Holidays with a sympathetic performance.” However, in her review for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley criticized some of the performances: "Downey brings a lot of energy to the role, but his antics can be both tedious and distracting. Hunter has a lovely scene with her disgruntled sister, but there's no time for that relationship to develop, what with a romantic interest yet to explore.” USA Today gave Home for the Holidays three out of four stars and wrote, “Home has the usual hellish ritual. They come, they eat, they argue, they leave. It’s the stuffing in-between that makes it special.”

Home for the Holidays is not a straight-out comedy because it does have its moments of reflection and even a melancholic tinge of nostalgia. One of its underlying themes is the old chestnut that the more things change, the more we want them to stay the same. That is what makes this film so good. These characters will always be there for us to revisit and enjoy time and time again. Foster’s film has a timeless quality that allows it to endure and hold up to repeated viewings. No matter how much you’ve changed, you revert to your old self when you come home for Thanksgiving.

SOURCES

Allen, Tom. "Becoming Jodie Foster." Moviemaker. December 2, 1995.

Bibby, Patricia. "Jodie Foster Looks Home to Heal." Associated Press. November 12, 1995.

Hunter, Stephen. "Foster Feels at Home Adding Fun, Meaning to Holidays Clan." Baltimore Sun. November 19, 1995.

Kirkland, Bruce. "Downey to Earth." Toronto Sun. November 6, 1995.

Portman, Jamie. "Home for the Holidays No Ordinary Family Film." Montreal Gazette. October 31, 1995.

Young, Paul F. "Foster Moves Home to Par." Variety. November 19, 1995.

Here's an excerpt from the original short story that the film is based on.