What, you may well ask, would prompt me to watch this thirty-one year old movie? A movie that was pretty much panned - it was nominated for Razzie Awards in multiple categories - when it came out, that co-starred an actor for whom I don't especially care, and is generally swept under the carpet when the film oeuvre of the great Tom Hanks is discussed? Well, it was a podcast that did it. Specifically Season 2 of TCM's "The Plot Thickens" podcast. This one is called "The Devil's Candy", and it is based upon a book of the same name by critic Julie Salamon, who had daily access to the set of "Bonfire of the Vanities" when it was being filmed by director Brian DePalma.
The podcast is a fascinating look into how the sausage gets made on a major motion picture, and back in 1989 when this was being filmed, it was quite a controversial story. "Bonfire of the Vanities" was a major literary event in the 1980's, a best selling novel by Tom Wolfe (Full disclosure: I have never read it), and Warner Bros. was banking on it being their BIG Oscar bait movie for 1990. The novel skewered Wall Street, White Priviledge (before that was an actual term), and cast an especially bad light on crime and racism in New York City at the time. The backlash was immediate from the powers that be in NYC, and it ranged from the producers not being able to gain access to locations in the city, protests and picketing when filming took place, and even the cast and crew being pelted with eggs by residents of the Bronx when some scenes were being filmed.
The podcast also confirmed that (a) Bruce Willis was, and probably still is, an jerk, (b) Melanie Griffith was, and probably still is, foul mouthed, and (c) that Tom Hanks REALLY is the nice guy that we all know him to be. He's about the only person in the whole shebang who comes off as a decent human being. Oh, and Morgan Freeman, who has a juicy role as a judge, has a great quote in the podcast. Remember, this was 1989, and Freeman wasn't nearly as ubiquitous then as he is now. He was appearing in Shakespeare in the Park in New York when this was being filmed, and much of his background was on the stage. In an interview with Salamon he said that unlike the other principals in the film, he wasn't a "movie star", and he wasn't sure he wanted to be one because "when you get to be a movie star, you don't have to worry about having to act anymore."
The Podcast is really good stuff, and I highly recommend it if you love movies.
So, all of the above is a long way of saying that I became curious to actually watch this movie, which Mrs. Grandstander and I did yesterday. The opening scene is a five minute single take tracking shot that, from a pure movie-making standpoint, is outstanding. The rest of the film? Meh.
Actually, I went into the movie expecting to revel in the sheer awfulness of it all, but that didn't happen. A contemporary review of the movie by Roger Ebert, which I read afterwards, was semi-complimentary but said that if you read and liked the Wolfe novel, you would no doubt hate the movie, and that appears to be the consensus of other reviews that I found on line. DePalma apparently took some bones from the book and crafted a very different movie. Not the first time that's been done, and it surely hasn't been the last time, either.
I thought the movie was somewhat overdone, and the performances were over the top by just about everybody (e.g., F. Murray Abraham as a conniving and politically ambitious District Attorney). It was a bit jarring to see Hanks as a Heel in this one, but he was, well, Tom Hanks, and this movie was a break away for him from the comedy roles that he had been playing up to that time. Griffith chewed scenery as Hanks' southern bell malaproping mistress, although she looked amazing in not one but two separate scenes where she wore nothing but a bra-and-panties set. Both Willis and his character were unlikable. About the only decent character in the whole movie was Freeman's judge.
Oh, and if you like seeing actors who were no big deal then but who went on to other things later....Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) played Hanks' wife, a then seven year old Kirsten Dunst played their daughter, and Rita Wilson (Mrs. Tom Hanks, although I'm not sure if she was at the time) played a P.R. aide early in the movie. Also, in that opening tracking shot I mentioned, Brian DePalma himself appeared as a security guard. It was the only way he could actually direct the scene as it was being filmed. Learned that fact from the podcast.
So, if I were to watch "Bonfire of the Vanities" cold, having no idea of all of it's historical baggage and having not read the book, what would I say?
Not great, somewhat entertaining, and it did hold my interest. Two Stars from The Grandstander.
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