Tough Guys Don't Dance (film)
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| Tough Guys Don't Dance | |
|---|---|
The Cannon Group | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 109 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5[2]–10 million[3] |
| Box office | $343,300[3] |
Tough Guys Don't Dance is a 1987
The film received a mixed reaction from critics and was a box office bomb. It was also nominated for four 1988 Independent Spirit Awards.[5]
Plot
Tim Madden (Ryan O'Neal) is a former bartender who was imprisoned for dealing cocaine, now a struggling writer prone to blackouts. On the 24th morning after the decampment of his wife Patty Lareine (Debra Sandlund), he awakens from a two-week bender to discover a tattoo reading "Madeleine" on his arm and a bloodbath in his car. He soon finds a woman's severed head in his marijuana stash in the woods, and the new Provincetown police chief Luther Regency (Wings Hauser) shacked up with his former girlfriend Madeleine (Isabella Rossellini).
Flashing back, Madden remembers the time when he encouraged Madeleine to go swinging with a Li'l Abnerish couple from down South, the fundamentalist preacher Big Stoop and his Daisy Mae-ish wife, Patty Lareine, whose ad Tim had come across in Screw magazine. On the trip back, Tim and Madeleine's car crashes due to Madeline being incensed that Tim has so enjoyed Patty Lareine's charms. The pregnant Madeleine loses her baby in the crash.
Except for his father (Lawrence Tierney), who is dying of cancer, Tim suspects everyone, including Patty Lareine, multi-millionaire prep-school pal Wardley Meeks III—and even himself—of murder. Patty Lareine had left Big Stoop, married Wardley, left him in a messy divorce that netted her a rich cash settlement, and in turn married Tim, whom she fancied. Patty Lareine disappears, and Tim goes on his fatal bender that has left his memory in shards after receiving a letter from Madeline informing him that her husband (Regency) is having an affair with his wife (Patty).
Tim remembers his assignation in the local tavern's parking lot with the blond porn star Jessica Pond, while her effete husband Lonnie Pangborn watched from the sidelines, distraught. It was Jessica's head in the Hefty bag with his grass, but soon another head turns up in his marijuana stash, that of Patty Lareine.
Tim's father helps him get rid of the heads into the bay. Regency ultimately goes crazy and is shot by Madeleine. She then uses Regency's cocaine money to buy Tim and herself a multimillion-dollar home.
Title
The title comes from an anecdote told to Mailer by
Cast
- Ryan O'Neal as Tim Madden
- Isabella Rossellini as Madeleine Regency
- Lawrence Tierney as Dougy Madden
- Wings Hauser as Luther Regency
- Debra Sandlund as Patty Lareine
- Penn Jillette as Big Stoop
- John Bedford Lloyd as Wardley Meeks III
- Frances Fisher as Jessica Pond
- R. Patrick Sullivan as Lonnie Pangborn
Production
The script had revisions done by scribe/
Reception
Box office
The film was a box office bomb, making only $858,250 (equivalent to $2,301,740 in 2023),[9] less than a fifth of its $5 million (equivalent to $13.4 million in 2023) budget.
Critical reception
Tough Guys Don't Dance received negative reviews. It holds a 39% rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews.[10]
Hal Hinson of
However, the film had its 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 of bravado, 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. Where Russ 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."[13] Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "some will find Tough Guys Don't Dance ludicrous; others will complain that it lacks big studio movie flash. True - but why mourn the absence of an expertise mostly made to distract audiences from the emptiness of the story they're being told? Whatever else you can say about this film, it's alive with ideas and a rich, strange view of the world. Even at its most awkward moments, Mailer's brilliance shines out of nearly every scene...He almost revives the soul, as well as the surface, of film noir, making it again a dark, lucid mirror of society's corruptions, wicked hypocrisies and evil glamour."[14]
Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune called the film true camp which can't be created self-consciously, observing that "Mailer begins from a position of personal involvement and at least partial sincerity, which makes the movie's ascent into sheer outrageousness seem more delirious, more dangerous and finally more entertaining. It isn't a good film (it doesn't want to be one), but it is a weird and funny evening at the movies."[15] Vincent Canby of The New York Times said that the film was "not the high point of the Mailer career, but it's a small, entertaining part of it".[16]
The scene in which Tim discovers his wife is having an affair has become famous due to its melodramatic line delivery and repetition of the phrase "Oh man, oh god!" 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 film apparently got enough of a following for
Awards
| Group | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Independent Spirit Awards 1988 | ||
| Best Cinematography (John Bailey) | Nominated | |
| Best Feature (Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus) | Nominated | |
| Best Female Lead (Debra Sandlund) | Nominated | |
| Best Supporting Male (Wings Hauser) | Nominated |
| Group | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Golden Raspberry Awards 1988 | ||
| Worst Director (Norman Mailer) | Won, tied with Elaine May for Ishtar | |
| Worst Actor (Ryan O'Neal) | Nominated | |
| Worst Actress (Debra Sandlund) | Nominated | |
| Worst New Star (Debra Sandlund) | Nominated | |
| Worst Picture (Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus) | Nominated | |
| Worst Screenplay (Norman Mailer) | Nominated | |
| Worst Supporting Actress (Isabella Rossellini, also for Siesta) | Nominated |
Soundtrack
The CD soundtrack composed and conducted by Angelo Badalamenti is available on Music Box Records label (website).
References
- ^ "Tough Guys Don't Dance (18)". British Board of Film Classification. October 9, 1987. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
- ^ Mann, Roderick (July 6, 1980). "MOVIES: THE HIGH ADVENTURES OF 'GREEN ICE'". Los Angeles Times. p. o25.
- ^ a b "The Unstoppables". Spy. November 1988. p. 92.
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: Tough Guys Don't Dance". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved July 25, 2009.
- ^ "Film Independent Spirit Awards". imdb.com. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ Schuyler, Ed (August 28, 2006). "Remembering Not To Forget Roger Donoghue". International Brotherhood of Prizefighters. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ "Tough Guys Don't Dance". IMDb.
- ^ Wood, Ann (September 23, 2015). "Norman Mailer Society brings 'Tough Guys' home". Provincetown Banner.
- ^ Tough Guys Don't Dance at Box Office Mojo
- ^ Tough Guys Don't Dance at Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ Hinson, Hal (September 18, 1987). "'Tough Guys Don't Dance' (R)". Washington Post. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (September 18, 1987). "Tough Guys Don't Dance". Roger Ebert. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Tough Guys Don't Dance". Jonathan Rosenbaum. Retrieved January 15, 2024.
- ^ Wilmington, Michael (September 17, 1987). "Tough Guys Don't Dance". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 15, 2024.
- ^ Kehr, Dave (September 18, 1987). "Mailer's Tough Guys clunker dialogue manages to click". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved January 15, 2024.
- New York Times. Retrieved January 15, 2024.
External links
- Tough Guys Don't Dance at IMDb
- Tough Guys Don't Dance at AllMovie
- Tough Guys Don't Dance at Box Office Mojo
- Tough Guys Don't Dance at Rotten Tomatoes
