- Tough Guys Don't Dance (film)
Infobox_Film
name = Tough Guys Don't Dance
caption =
imdb_id = 0094169
amg_id =
producer =Menahem Golan Yoram Globus
director =Norman Mailer
writer =Norman Mailer (novel)Norman Mailer (screenplay)
starring =Ryan O'Neal Isabella Rossellini Debra Sandlund Wings Hauser John Bedford Lloyd Lawrence Tierney Penn Jillette John Snyder
music =Angelo Badalamenti
cinematography =Mike Moyer John Bailey
editing =Debra McDermott | distributor =Cannon Films
released =September 18 ,1987 (USA)
country =United States
runtime = 110 min.
language = English
budget = $5,000,000 (estimated)
gross = $858,250 (USA)Tough Guys Don't Dance is a 1987 film from
Cannon Films written and directed byNorman Mailer based on his novel of the same name. It is amurder mystery /film noir piece that was scorned both by audiences and critics alike.Plot
Writer, ex-con and 40-something bottle-baby Tim Madden, who is prone to black-outs, awakens from a two-week bender to discover a pool of blood in his car, a blond woman's severed head in his marijuana stash, and the new Provincetown police chief, Capt. Alvin Luther Regency, shacked up with his former girlfriend Madeleine. As his father Dougy helps him try to unravel the mystery, he is dogged by the psychotic Regency, who has it in for Tim as a car-crash that he was involved in with Madeline has left her unable to have children.
Reception
The critical reception was less than stellar. Hal Hinson of the "
Washington Post " said that the film was "hard to classify; at times you laugh raucously at what's up on the screen; at others you stare dumbly, in stunned amazement."Roger Ebert , in a 2 1/2 star review in the "Chicago Sun-Times" praised the cinematography, theProvincetown setting, and said that the relationship between Tim and Dougy was the best aspect of the film, but also had to say that "what is strange is that "Tough Guys Don't Dance" leaves me with such vivid memories of its times and places, its feelings and weathers, and yet leaves me so completely indifferent to its plot. Watching the film, I laughed a good deal."However, the film had at least two supporters. Jonathan Rosenbaum of the "Chicago Reader", said "Norman Mailer's best film, adapted from his worst novel, shows a surprising amount of cinematic savvy and style." Also, "He translates his high rhetoric and
macho preoccupations (existential tests ofbravado , good orgasms, murderous women, metaphysical cops) into an odd, campy, raunchy comedy-thriller that remains consistently watchable and unpredictable--as goofy in a way as "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls ". WhereRuss Meyer featured women with oversize breasts, Mailer features male characters with oversize egos, and thanks to the juicy writing, hallucinatory lines such as "Your knife is in my dog" and "I just deep-sixed two heads" bounce off his cartoonish actors like comic-strip bubbles; even his sexism is somewhat objectified in the process." Vincent Canby of the "New York Times " said that "Not the high point of the Mailer career, but it's a small, entertaining part of it."The film did poorly at the box office, making only $858,250, nearly a fifth of its $5,000,000 budget. It (as of June 5, 2008) holds a 41% "rotten" rating at
Rotten Tomatoes .However, in the years since the film's release on video, it's become a cult classic in bad movie circles. Channel 4 Film said "The overkill is strangely compelling and Mailer's disregard for taste and convention ensure his film is a massive but spectacular and unmissable folly." The movie apparently got enough of a following for
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , who owns much of Cannon's film library, to release ananamorphic widescreen DVD of the film onSeptember 16 ,2003 . The disc contained an interview withNorman Mailer , a tour ofProvincetown and the film'strailer .Trivia
*
Norman Mailer , in the interview on the DVD, said that he was counseled to cut the ending of the scene in whichRyan O'Neal 's character Tim Madden reads a note from his ex-girlfriend Madeline informing him that his wife was having an affair with her husband in which he exclaims "Oh God! Oh Man! Oh God! Oh Man!" due to O'Neal's poor performance. Mailer kept it in because he thought the poor line-reading actually added something to the picture. O'Neal, who had been friendly with Mailer, turned on him as the bit revealed his short-comings as an actor and embarrassed him.
*Roger Donahue was theprizefighter thanked by Norman Mailer for telling him theanecdote that resulted in the title. The anecdote was:Frank Costello , the Murder Inc. honcho, and his gorgeous girlfriend greet three champion boxers in theStork Club . Costello demands that each, in turn, dance with the woman, and each nervously complies. The last,Willy Pep , suggests that Mr. Costello dance. Costello replied, 'Tough guys don't dance.'
*The script had revisions done by "Chinatown" and "Last Woman on Earth " scribe/script doctor Robert Towne .Awards
References
*All critical blurbs come from the reviews hosted at
Rotten Tomatoes .
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