White Squall

For a filmmaker as prolific as Ridley Scott he’s bound to have a lot of hits and misses. For every Gladiator (2000), there’s a few Someone to Watch Over Me’s (1987). It is some of the fascinating yet flawed outliers in his filmography that are the most interesting. Case in point: White Squall (1996), a dramatic recreation of the doomed school sailing trip lead by Dr. Christopher B. Sheldon on the brigantine Albatross, which sank on May 2, 1961, allegedly due to a white squall, killing six people. Adapted from Charles Gieg’s book The Last Voyage of the Albatross, the film received mixed reviews and, despite its cast, featuring a bevy of young, up-and-coming actors, performed poorly at the box office.
 
The film follows Chuck Gieg (Scott Wolf) as it opens with the young man giving up his last year of high school to sail on the Albatross. His brother got into an Ivy League school on a scholarship and it is hinted that he doesn’t have the grades to do the same. The rest of the boys are loosely sketched and it’s up to the talented young cast to breathe life into their respective characters. You’ve got Dean Preston (Eric Michael Cole), the bully who thinks he’s cooler than everyone else; Gil Martin (Ryan Phillippe), the meek one; Frank Beaumont (Jeremy Sisto), the spoiled rich kid who doesn’t want to be there, and so on.
 
We meet most of these boys as they are prepared to board the Albatross for a year-long voyage at sea where they’ll learn everything they need to know about operating a boat while also keeping up with their academic studies. They are immediately greeted by McCrea (John Savage), the grizzled English teacher who quotes Shakespeare’s The Tempest to them. They go below decks and are greeted by boys already there. True to Social Darwinism, a pecking order is quickly established but as they will find out, everyone answers to Captain Christopher Sheldon (Jeff Bridges) a.k.a. The Skipper who sets the ground rules when he addresses them for the first time: “The ship beneath you is not a toy and sailing’s not a game.” In this scene, Jeff Bridges tempers his innate likability and charisma by playing the Skipper as a no-nonsense disciplinarian who demands his students follow the rules. This is further reinforced in the next scene when he finds out that Gil is afraid of heights and browbeats the young man to climb up the rigging and in the process not only traumatizes him but humiliates him in front of the other boys.

Scott shows us what it takes to get a boat such as the Albatross ready for sea, how everyone works together, and how a rookie mistake almost costs Chuck his life when he hangs himself on the rigging only for the Skipper to rescue him. Early on, the boat hits a rough patch of water, a foreboding taste of what’s to come, and we see everyone act as a team to rescue one of boys who is tossed overboard. To make up for the deficiencies in the lack of character development in Todd Robinson’s screenplay, Scott includes several scenes showing the boys bonding, whether its’s Gil’s tearful recollection of how his brother died or Dean admitting he’s a poor student that doesn’t know to spell. We slowly begin to care about what happens to these boys, which is crucial later when they are put in peril with the storm.
 
Everything has been building to the film’s climactic set piece – a massive white squall that threatens to sink the Albatross. Scott and his crew create a harrowing scene that rivals the nautical disasters depicted in Titanic (1997) and The Perfect Storm (2000), only he did it with practical effects while those other films leaned on CGI to do most of the heavily lifting. This gives the sequence a visceral impact as it looks and sounds real. This isn’t some CGI creation but an actual thing that Scott captures in vivid detail. It’s a powerful visual reminder of the true power of nature and that we are insignificant compared to it. Every so often we are reminded of this fact.
 
Chuck provides the film’s voiceover narration, taken from the journal he kept during the journey. He is the wide-eyed idealist that is the calming influence on the rest of the boys and takes to the Skipper’s tough love style of leadership without losing his humanity. Scott Wolf channels a young Tom Cruise as he delivers a strong performance as the audience surrogate. After the survivors are taken back to land he breaks down in a moving scene, and then Chuck attempts to clear the Skipper’s name in the ensuing tribunal, Wolf delivering a passionate speech expertly. Chuck is the film’s social conscience as he struggles to do the right thing. He stands up for the Skipper when it looks like he will be blamed for what happened.

It is easy to see why the name actors in the cast such as Ethan Embry, Ryan Phillippe, Jeremy Sisto, and Wolf went on to notable careers. They are most successful at making their characters memorable but there is also Eric Michael Cole who plays the bully in the group. Channeling a young Matt Dillon his character is full of swagger and we eventually discover what’s behind the bravado as delivers an impressive performance that should have garnered him more high-profile roles.
 
White Squall, however, falters in its depiction of the Skipper. At one point his wife, Alice (Caroline Goodall), says to him, “You know, Sheldon, sometimes, not often, you act almost half human.” Therein lies the problem with this character – there’s nothing human about him, just some glowering Ahab that not even Bridges’ ample charisma can make a dent in. We get zero insight into what motivates him beyond running a tight ship. The actor tries his best but he’s not give much to work with, such as a scene where Frank inexplicably harpoons a dolphin. To punish him, the Skipper tells him to finish off the poor animal and when he refuses, does it for him. It’s an unnecessarily, ugly scene that provides no insight into either character.
 
This being a Ridley Scott film everything looks beautiful from the Albatross docked at dusk silhouetted against the sky to the slow-motion glamor shot of Dean diving off the highest point of the ship with the skill and grace of an Olympic athlete. We get a seemingly endless number of exquisite shots of the boat at sea with the sunlight hitting it at just the right angle.

Screenwriter Todd Robinson met Chuck Gieg while on vacation in Hawaii and the latter told him the true story of the Albatross. Inspired by it and the book Gieg had co-written about surviving the incident, Robinson wrote the screenplay with his close involvement, to ensure it stayed true to the actual events, and took it to producers Rocky Lang and Mimi Polk Gitlin. They shopped it around to various directors but they all wanted to change it to fit their vision. The producers finally brought it to Ridley Scott who bought it before Christmas 1994. At the time, he was considering directing Mulholland Falls (1996) but after reading Robinson’s script in 90 minutes he immediately wanted to do it. He was drawn to the lack of sentimentality and the coming-of-age aspect of the script.
 
As was his custom with films based on real-life incidents, Scott strove for authenticity and brought Gieg and the real Captain Sheldon on as technical advisors. For the ship, the production used Eye of the World, a 110-foot topsail schooner from Germany. He did not want to shoot the sea sequences in a giant water tank, common at the time, as he felt that the waves never looked large enough or realistic. He studied documentary footage and water patterns to see how they moved and reacted. He and director of photography Hugh Johnson shot mostly with hand-held cameras to get the raw look they wanted. To this end, they filmed four months on the seas, starting in the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, where on the first day got 30-foot seas, “because the crew was so well-versed by then in terms of leaping around this boat and getting camera positions, we dealt with it pretty easily actually,” Scott said. From there they spent most of the time in the Caribbean with shooting the land scenes on the islands of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Grenada.
 
Scott eventually had to concede using water tanks for the climactic storm sequence that sinks the Albatross. He waited to film this sequence until the end of principal photography as he was dreading it “like a big monster. I didn’t want it to be a 9-minute, crash-wallop-bang and everybody’s in the water. I wanted to experience the whole process of what it means to be shot out of the blue like that, to be trapped, to see people that you got to know quite closely just taken away from you.” He used two water tanks in Malta – one that held six million gallons of water and was 40 feet deep and the other held three million gallons of water and was eight feet deep. Initially, wave machines were used but they did not produce strong enough wind effects for Scott so he brought in two jet engines to do the job. As he said they “basically blew the shit out of the set – 600 mile-an-hour winds.” The storm sequences took five days to film with the production constantly having to worry about the cameras getting wet.

Filming the sequence wasn’t without its peril as Jeff Bridges recalled, “I’ve had some real-life close calls when I’ve been surfing, and I know that feeling of fighting for your life in the water. During the storm scene there were some long takes where we were being hit with wind and waves and being knocked underwater. You don’t worry so much about acting then--you just want to survive the take.” Scott remembered one day of filming: “We got the water pretty churned up and I saw Jeff sticking his arm rigidly in the air with his fist clenched. I thought he might be screaming, ‘Right on,’ but it turned out he was screaming, ‘Stop, I’m going under.’”
 
White Squall received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "The movie could have been smarter and more particular in the way it establishes its characters. Its underlying values are better the less you think about them. And the last scene not only ties the message together but puts about three ribbons on it." In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Written by Todd Robinson and photographed against beautiful blue skies by Hugh Johnson, White Squall improves when it takes on the daunting job of replicating the title storm. Mr. Scott manages to capture pure, terrifying chaos for a while, and this slow-moving film finally achieves a style of its own." The Washington Post's Richard Leiby wrote, "It's disappointing that a director with the vision of Ridley "Blade Runner" Scott and an actor with the depth of Jeff "Fearless" Bridges conspired to produce such a sodden venture, but Hollywood never seems to tire of flushing multimillions down the bilge pipes." In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Jack Mathews wrote, "The 20 or so minutes we spend with the Albatross in the squall is high adventure, to be sure. Everything else is ballast." Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "White Squall is lovely to look at, but frustrating to behold. These boys are fine specimens of American manhood. But they’re unreachable, like ships in a bottle."
 
White Squall takes more than a few pages out of Dead Poets Society (1989) playbook – a coming-of-age story populated with a cast of young, aspiring actors, most of whom would go on to memorable careers. Scott’s film falters when it tries to replicate the heartfelt, emotional ending of Peter Weir’s film but instead feels forced as the soulless Frank suddenly redeems himself and all the surviving boys rally around the Skipper. It feels false as the film has done nothing to achieve this moment unlike in Dead Poets where its satisfying conclusion was the culmination of everything that came before. Also, the Skipper is such an unlikable character throughout the film it is hard to see why the boys admire him enough to rally to his defense at the end unlike Robin Williams' teacher in Dead Poets who gradually gains his students trust and admiration. Sometimes there is a good reason why a particular film is an outlier in a director’s filmography – it’s not very good. Such is the case of White Squall, a beautifully mounted film, pretty to look at but ultimately with an empty core.
 

SOURCES
 
Clarke, James. Virgin Film: Ridley Scott. Virgin Books. 2010.
 
Crisafulli, Chuck. “Stirring Up a See-Worthy Squall.” Los Angeles Times. January 28, 1996.
 
LoBrutto, Vincent. Ridley Scott: A Biography. University Press of Kentucky. 2019.
 
Williams, David E. “An Interview with Ridley Scott.” Film Threat. April 26, 2000.
 
Wilmington, Michael. “White Squall Director a Visionary without Visual Strategy.” Chicago Tribune. March 15, 1996.

Hell or High Water

In retrospect, it’s not all that surprising Donald Trump won the United States Presidential election. He tapped into something primal among American voters, mainly white, blue-collar people that felt ignored by Barack Obama’s presidency. To be fair, they were ignored by George Bush’s presidency also but this time around the chickens clearly came home to roost. The crime film Hell or High Water (2016) taps into this anger in a way that hasn’t been done since Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly (2012) but whereas that film rubbed its political statement in the audience’s face, this one is a little subtler, a little more nuanced.

“It seems foolish. The days of robbing banks and trying to live to spend the money. They’re long gone. Long gone, for sure.”

A random man laments this early on in Hell or High Water and it encapsulates the nature of it quite well.  Bank heists have been depicted on film every which way you can imagine but director David Mackenzie manages to give it a novel spin by having two aspiring crooks show up to the bank early with only one teller present and she doesn’t have the code for the safe. The two men wait for the manager who shows up and is greeted with the butt end of a handgun to the head. Slam cut to the bank robbers speeding away from the scene of the crime. They hit another bank and are shot at by one of the customers whose packing heat – welcome to West Texas.

The two men are Toby Howard (Chris Pine) and his ex-con brother Tanner (Ben Foster). The latter is the stereotypical wild man who is in it for the thrills (and the money) while the former is trying to get enough money out of this crime spree to pay off the debt on the family ranch before it is foreclosed in a few days. Oil has recently been discovered on the land and he wants to sell the rights and provide for his estranged sons.

Naturally, their little crime spree gets the attention of the law and two Texas Rangers – Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham) – investigate. The former is close to retirement and this will probably be his last case. We’ve seen this set up before but the execution is where it counts and the film wastes no time in diving deep and exploring the motivations of the brothers. Tanner maybe a risk taker but, in a smartly acted scene, we see the deep regret he feels over not being there for his mother during her last days. His thrill-seeking behavior is a source of tension between him and Toby who has a plan that he tries to follow.

Chris Pine delivers his strongest performance to date, showing a depth that makes me wish he’d do more of these kinds of films and less of the Star Trek ones. He plays a conflicted character who sees robbing banks as the quickest way to get the money he needs and reluctantly makes a pact with the devil in the form of his brother. Toby has resigned himself to his lot in life, sacrificing himself for his family, aware that his trajectory is probably a fatal one, especially when it involves his loose cannon brother. Pine delivers a soulful performance that is heartfelt. There’s a simple shot of Toby watching the news on television reporting the aftermath of their last bank job and the resignation and utter defeated nature that washes overs his face while also conveyed in his posture is quietly devastating.

Ben Foster is a fascinating character actor to watch, making oddly intriguing choices in forgettable movies like X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and The Mechanic (2011) and disappearing into rich characters in more challenging fare like Rampart (2011) and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013). The actor works hard to flesh out the wild-card brother stereotype through little bits of business, like how Tanner breaks the tension between him and Toby in a scene by singing along to a song on the radio as they are driving in a car.

Jeff Bridges is excellent as a veteran lawman and it is the little choices he makes, like how Marcus rests his hat on his foot while sitting down, that flesh out his character. We also get insight into his character through his interactions with others, like how he puts a shaken young bank teller at ease while questioning her or how he quickly figures out what the robbers are doing. Marcus has been around long enough and seen enough to be an exceptional judge of character.

Bridges and Gil Birmingham are believable as long-time partners in the way they interact, like the laid-back way they good-naturedly insult each other or get on each other’s nerves like an old married couple with Albert barely tolerating Marcus who is holding onto this case for as long as he can because he knows how much he’s going to miss the work once he’s retired. He comes across as a crotchety old man, at times, but his partner feels sorry for him. We also see how they work a crime scene, each knowing what their job is and going about doing it.

They are matched by Foster and Pine who are also convincing as brothers, which translates into a good rapport between them. It shows in every scene they have together, like how easily Toby and Tanner irritate each other and how they also stick up for the other.

Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan has a real ear for realistic dialogue – the give and take between two people, like the brothers or the lawmen, that has a ring of authenticity as if we are eavesdropping on the lives of actual people. Much like he did with Sicario (2015), there’s a feeling of dread that gradually permeates the film as we know what’s coming – the inevitable conflict between the bankrobbing brothers and the Texas Rangers pursuing them – both of whom we’ve become invested in. Mackenzie does an excellent job of gradually ratcheting up the tension as he builds towards the bank job that goes bad, which always happens in these kinds of films, but not quite in the way you expect it to go down. The climactic showdown plays out much as you’d expect but then something interesting happens afterwards. Marcus retires but he still has to know why Toby and Tanner did it. The scene between him and Pine is cordial but the implied threats exchanged are not.

Hell or High Water depicts the heart of Trump’s America: run-down towns with boarded-up storefronts and graffiti on a wall that reads, “3 tours in Iraq but no bailout for people like us.” The brothers drive by a “Closing Down” sign and another one that says, “Debt Relief.” There’s the casual racism, like when they rob a bank and a customer is incredulous that they aren’t Mexican. Initially, this seems like Mackenzie is laying the political text on rather thick but in this post-U.S. election world it feels very timely. The kinds of towns shown in the film and the people that populate them are the ones that voted for Trump. We see towns populated by angry people that feel marginalized and forgotten, living in economically dead places that dot the landscape all over the country. Hell or High Water is populated by people beaten down by life, from the ornery old waitress that waits on Marcus and Alberto, to Toby’s tired and pissed off ex-wife. They’re all just trying to get by, taking it day by day.

The Fabulous Baker Boys

In 1989, up-and-coming screenwriter Steve Kloves wrote and directed The Fabulous Baker Boys, an engaging and insightful look at two piano-playing brothers working the lounge circuit. The film was a critical hit, but barely made back its modest budget. A few years later, he wrote and directed Flesh and Bone (1993), an under-appreciated neo-noir that also failed to connect with a mainstream audience. Its commercial failure must have hit Kloves hard as he wouldn’t have another screenplay made until Wonder Boys in 2000. Since then, he has been the go-to guy for the Harry Potter franchise, which hopefully has given him enough clout within the industry to write and direct again – it would be a shame if he squandered the promise showed on his first two films.

The first thing that strikes one about The Fabulous Baker Boys: it doesn’t seem like the directorial debut of someone who only had one screenwriting credit to their name. It helps that Kloves had some pretty fantastic veterans behind the camera helping him out, like cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (GoodFellas) and filmmaker Sydney Pollack (Three Days of the Condor) as executive producer. I like that Kloves uses the opening credits sequence to show Jack Baker (Jeff Bridges) making his way through the streets of Seattle’s downtown. It gives us a sense of place and shows us the character’s daily routine – all to the brooding jazz music of Dave Grusin, immersing us in this world.

We meet Jack after a typical one night stand (judging from his blasé behavior, it is assumed to be one of many) as he heads off to work – playing piano with his brother Frank (Beau Bridges), one half of a lounge act, playing the cheap hotel and bar circuit. The first exchange between the two immediately and expertly establishes their respective characters. Jack is the laid-back brother and Frank constantly frets and fusses. Frank cares about appearances and their act as typified early on in an amusing exchange where he asks Jack to spray his hair to create “a magical sheath that simulates a dazzling head of hair,” to which his brother deadpans, “Frank, this is paint.” The way they interact with each other, especially Frank, is amusing.

Frank and Jack have been playing together for 15 years and their act has clearly gotten old. Frank’s on-stage banter is riddled with tired clichés, so much so that it looks like Jack, or perhaps the audience, could fall asleep at any moment and still play his part. However, being the old pro that he is, Jack keeps it together, going through the motions for Frank – the responsible one that deals with the bookings while Jack shows up and plays. However, it becomes obvious that while Frank can play well, Jack is the real talent. He lacks any kind of ambition and is squandering his talent by playing lounges with his brother. Kloves provides us further insight into Jack by showing his private life, which mainly involves his friendship with a young girl (Ellie Raab) who lives above him and whom he is teaching to play piano.

In recent times, their act has reached a cul-de-sac of sorts as typified by a gig at a tiki lounge where there are more people following a basketball game on television than listening to their act. The bar’s owner actually pays them for the next night, not to play: “I love you guys. You’re class. But people today, they don’t know class if it walks up and grabs them by the balls.” So, Frank proposes that they add a singer to their act in an effort to mix things up as he tells Jack, “Two pianos isn’t enough anymore, Jack.” Cut to a funny montage of potential singers that audition for the Bakers. What makes this sequence so amusing is not just the wildly disparate styles of potential singers – Broadway, R&B, opera and just plain awful – but Jack’s reaction to them, all conveyed via facial expressions.

Of course, Kloves saves the best for last – arriving 90 minutes late and looking like a hot, disheveled mess is Susie Diamond (Michelle Pfeiffer) who is equally unimpressed with the Bakers (“This is show business?” she says sarcastically). She talks tough and has the attitude to back it up – that gets their attention, but she keeps it when singing “More Than You Know.” Her voice and the feeling she puts into the performance not only intrigues the Bakers, but us as well. The reaction shots of Frank and Jack give upon first hearing Susie sing are nicely understated and illustrate how the sound of her voice affects them, wakes them up from the musical funk they’ve been in for years. Who is this woman and where did she get the chops to breathe new life into this old standard? Needless to say Susie is hired and while her initial on-stage act is a little rough (she forgets to turn on the microphone and accidentally curses once it is), as soon as she starts singing the audience is enthralled (so is the hotel staff). The rest of the film plays out the new dynamic between the Bakers and Susie, including the growing attraction between her and Jack.

The casting of actual brothers to play cinematic siblings was a brilliant move on Kloves’ part. The shorthand between Jeff and Beau is believable because of their real-life relationship. For example, the scene where Frank proposes hiring a singer to enhance their act is so well-played because of the dynamic between them. Jack speaks very little. All he has to do is give Frank a look and that says it all. The facial expressions Jack gives tell us exactly what he is thinking. Sometimes an economy of acting can be an embarrassment of riches. They complement each other. Frank provides the regimented structure for Jack’s otherwise aimless lifestyle. If Frank’s life plays by sheet music, then Jack’s is by ear. On the creative side, Frank is a technically proficient musician, but he lacks the soul that is readily evident in Jack’s playing. It is a classic split that you see in the dynamic between brothers, but Kloves provides subtle shades to both Frank and Jack, like how they’re both romantics, only one is more open about it. For all his anal-retentiveness, Frank is a romantic at heart, getting all nostalgic when he hears “Moonglow” as it reminds him of his wife. Jack is the dark, brooding romantic, but keeps everything internalized while Frank is an open book.

While Jeff Bridges and Michelle Pfeiffer received the lion’s share of critical acclaim, Beau Bridges is quite good playing the thankless role of the practical brother. However, he is able to find nuances to the character with scenes that see him alternate between the nagging worry-wart, the giddy grown-up kid, and the hopeless romantic. He shows a real knack for comedy and drama, as evident in the scene where Frank and Jack finally have it out after years of tension simmering under the surface.

Jeff delivers a nicely understated performance playing a brother that keeps his emotions in check to the detriment of his relationships. The only people in his life that get past his defenses are Frank and the girl who lives above him. If Frank is a technically proficient musician, then Jack is that way when it comes to matters of the heart and Jeff is not afraid to play Jack as emotionally unavailable, not above cruelly crushing someone with words when he begins feeling something. Jack is afraid to show vulnerability to anyone. He does not know how to open up to people thanks to years of leading a transient lifestyle. Jack’s feelings are expressed through the heartfelt jazz he plays at a nearby club. It is what he’d rather be doing than playing hotels and bars 300 days out of the year. We are all ships and you can either have an anchor that keeps you moored to a home with a family or you stay adrift, which is Jack’s lifestyle. For example, his apartment reflects a nomadic existence with its sparse furnishings and lack of personal touch with the exception of a few affectations.

Michelle Pfeiffer was rightly praised for her breakout performance in this film, even doing all her own singing. She not only brings the requisite swagger and attitude as the street smart Susie, but also conveys the vulnerability that lurks under the surface. She is a headstrong character that seems to share Jack’s anti-romantic sentiments, but both do have intense feelings – only she is more in touch with them and not afraid to embrace them unlike Jack who is afraid to express his feelings because he is scared of them.

Steve Kloves had always been interested in what he called, “blue-collar entertainment – people who work in the arts in a kind of working class way.” When he grew up in the 1960s, Kloves used to watch Ferrante and Teicher, a piano team that had a string of easy-listening hits from 1950 to 1980, on The Ed Sullivan Show and thinking, “what a weird act this is, and what if you had a low-rent version of that working the Holiday Inns?" It stayed with him, as did a guy he saw playing piano in a retro malt shop in Disneyland years later. Kloves came up with an idea about brothers “with a dying piano act,” and he spent six months writing notes about the characters and their relationship before creating a narrative. He then wrote a first draft and followed that up by doing some research.


In the spring of 1984, he had his Racing with the Moon script made into a film and the next year sold a draft for The Fabulous Baker Boys, to producers Paula Weinstein and Gareth Wigan who made a deal with the president of Warner Bros. Mark Rosenberg to make it. However, Weinstein and Wigan’s production company disbanded and she became an executive consultant with MGM while Rosenberg left Warner Bros. to form Mirage Productions with producer-director Sydney Pollack. As a result, the project languished at the studio. Weinstein struck a deal with Mirage, but this fell through as well. MGM was briefly interested and then withdrew. Kloves remembered that he always thought of it as “a comedy on some level. But the studios thought it was too dark, too depressing.” By 1988, the project was finally green-lighted by Gladden Entertainment and 20th Century Fox.

Initially, it was thought that a more experienced filmmaker would direct, with George Roy Hill (Slap Shot) considered at one point, but over the three years of development, Kloves convinced the producers that he was right for the job. Over the years, he resisted the pressure to make a formulaic Hollywood movie: “This was a project where there was a feeling in town that it could be made with Chevy Chase and Bill Murray which would be a disastrous mistake.”

Originally, Kloves envisioned Jeff and Beau Bridges playing the Baker brothers. The filmmaker flew to meet with Jeff on his Montana ranch. After reading the script, Jeff gave it to his brother Beau. Initially, the studio was hesitant to have them play brothers in the film because there was the possibility of clashing egos or the casting would be seen as a gimmick. Beau wasn’t sure he wanted to do the film because he wanted to get the role on his own merits and not because of his brother. After reading the script, he aggressively pursued the role and met with Kloves over breakfast. Once the two men realized they were on the same page, Beau got the part.

Jeff and Beau had studied piano when they were young and ended up spending several months during pre-production learning how to play the songs in the film and how they would look playing them, continuing to practice during the entire shoot. Jazz pianist Dave Grusin dubbed Jeff’s piano playing while John F. Hammond dubbed for Beau. Kloves picked all the songs in the film, from the ones in the audition to the ones that the Bakers play. According to the filmmaker, they were chosen to reflect the characters and the places they play them in.

Initially, Kloves had a hard time getting a hold of Michelle Pfeiffer. When he finally was able to she read the script and liked it but was too busy. He met with her several times over the course of a week and eventually wore her down. Her initial apprehension came from not singing professionally since Grease 2 (1982). She spent four months strengthening her vocal chords in extensive daily practice sessions. Pfeiffer had to work on the phrasing for the various songs because she was used to popular music, which was different. In addition, she also researched a lot of lounge singers in the Los Angeles area.

Early on, Kloves sat down with the film’s cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and told him that the colors should be like an Edward Hopper painting: “The burnished red of the booths, a kind of dark crimson with amber light and a slightly threadbare quality, like the surroundings are all going to seed a bit.”

Principal photography began on December 5, 1988 in L.A. at the Ambassador Hotel, the home of the famous Coconut Grove nightclub. Even though the film’s story was set in Seattle, the producers chose to shoot most of it in L.A. so that they wouldn’t be at the mercy of the Pacific Northwest’s notoriously temperamental weather. The small crew ranged from 50-75 people with a quick shooting schedule that consisted of spending only one day shooting at each location. For the famous scene where her character sings on top of a piano, Pfeiffer rehearsed it wearing knee and elbow pads, but when it came to filming she went unprotected, claiming that it was “rough on my knees,” and that “the most difficult thing was climbing down at the end.” For the scene, she had only one choreography lesson that lasted three hours with choreographer Peggy Holmes.

Not only is Kloves an amazing screenwriter, but also an exceptional director, integrating all of the elements masterfully. He frames shots expertly with beautifully lit sets courtesy of Michael Ballhaus. Conversations take place on rain-slicked streets that reflect the neon signs of nearby stores or the dimly-lit atmosphere of lounges. It is interesting to note that The Fabulous Baker Boys takes place just as Seattle’s grunge music scene was taking its initial steps towards the mainstream and shows us a very different side of the city’s music scene – a bygone era that has all but disappeared. Kloves’ film takes an excellent look at the grind of working musicians that survive from gig to gig. The Bakers start off barely eking out an existence and with Susie’s addition enjoy a modicum of success that is fleeting.

The Fabulous Baker Boys received mostly positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote, “This is one of the movies they will use as a document, years from now, when they begin to trace the steps by which Pfeiffer became a great star.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Versatile as he is, Jeff Bridges hasn’t played a character like Jack before. For an actor who usually conveys such can-do resilience, the defeated slouch and the bored, jaded cynicism required for this role are notably new.” The Washington Post’s Desson Howe called the film “a thoroughly enjoyable entertainment that should play just about everybody’s strings right. Kloves proves to be quite a plucker.”

Pauline Kael wrote, “The choice of songs, their placement, and the sound mix itself are extraordinary – so subtle they make fun of any fears of kitschy emotions. And there’s a thrill in watching the three actors, because they seem perfect at what they’re doing – newly minted icons.” In his review, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote, “This pared-away comedy-drama, which concentrates exclusively on the three characters, has plenty of old-fashioned virtues: deft acting, a nice sense of scale that makes the drama agreeably life-size, a good use of Seattle locations, fluid camera work (by Michael Ballhaus), a kind of burnished romanticism about the music, and a genuine feeling for the characters and their various means of coping.” Finally, the Los Angeles Times’ Sheila Benson wrote, “For an ending to a picture this delicious, it’s like a crepe compared to triple-decker strawberry shortcake. You may just have to learn to love crepes.”

While the film didn’t set the world on fire, initially, it has gathered plenty of steam over the years thanks to home video. Kloves said, “enough people have seen it over the years that I feel justified … Baker Boys is probably the truest expression of my sensibility.”

What creates a classic film? The Fabulous Baker Boys is one of the films that I go to for the answer. Somewhere within the film are the answers to this question. Kloves makes it look so easy as he flawlessly integrates all the elements, putting us in a moment of time to watch the defining moments in the lives of these characters. It’s rare that one gets to see a satisfying arc for characters over the course of a film. Watching this film, one feels like they’ve been on a journey with these characters – that they’re at a different place from where they were at the beginning of the story. And yet Kloves leaves the ending tantalizingly open-ended so that we’re left wondering about these characters and what kind of adventures they might have in the future.

SOURCES

Crowther, Bruce. Michelle Pfeiffer: A Biography. Robert Hale Limited. 1994.

Eborall, Bob. “Building Bridges with The Fabulous Baker Boys.” Video Today. November 1990.

The Fabulous Baker Boys Press Kit. 20^th Century Fox. 1989.

Griffin, Nancy. “Shot by Shot – The Fabulous Baker Boys.” Premiere. November 1989.

Hemphill, Jim. “’I’m Not Qualified for Anything Else.’: Writer/Director Steve Kloves on The Fabulous Baker Boys and Flesh and Bone.” Filmmaker. September 11, 2015.

Matthews, Tom. “Brothers in Tuxedos.” Box Office. November 1989.

Sragow, Michael. “A Wizard of Hollywood.” Salon.com. February 24, 2000.