The Hot Spot

The Hot Spot (1990) is a neo-noir at odds with itself. Dennis Hopper directs as if he’s making an art house film complete with an all-star band that featured the likes of John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis and Taj Mahal performing the score. He even secured a world premiere at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival. However, this is at odds with the pulpy source material – an adaptation of Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams – and the casting of television actor Don Johnson in the lead role. That being said, the film does live up to its title with the casting to its two female leads – Jennifer Connelly and Virginia Madsen – arguably at the apex of their sexual allure. Hopper even admitted at the time that his aim was to make something akin to The Last Tango in Paris (1972) only with the action set in Texas. The Hot Spot is most definitely not on the level of Bernardo Bertolucci’s film, but it is quite faithful to its source material (it helps that the author adapted his own work) and takes a slow burn approach to its pacing with plenty of plots twists as is custom with noirs.

Hopper sets a hot and humid tone right from the get-go as Harry Madox (Don Johnson) arrives from the scorching desert to a small Texas town where he proceeds to impress the owner (Jerry Hardin) of a local car dealership by wandering onto the lot and within minutes sells a car. We’re never quite sure what motivated Harry to do this – maybe he needed some money, maybe he always wanted to sell cars or maybe it was the gorgeous young woman (Jennifer Connelly) he spotted walking into the dealership. Her name is Gloria Harper and Harry accompanies her to collect from a deadbeat by the name of Sutton (played with smug, sleazy hillbilly charm by William Sadler).

Harry senses that there’s something going on between Gloria and Sutton by how uncomfortable she is in his presence. She lies to Harry, but he covers for her back at the dealership. When a nearby fire clears out the local bank (all but one employee are volunteer firefighters), Harry devises a plan to knock it over by staging a fire as a decoy. If this wasn’t enough potential trouble, he starts a hot and heavy affair with Dolly Harshaw (Virginia Madsen), the boss’ wife and a sultry vamp that radiates sexuality with every gesture and look she gives Harry.

Many noir protagonists tend to be a little on the dull side as their sole purpose is to get involved in a complicated plot that ultimately dooms them. Don Johnson plays Harry as something of an intriguing enigma. We’re never quite sure what his motivations are – money? sex? boredom? With his Robert Mitchum-esque physique, Johnson has the look of a classic noir protagonist and plays Harry as a cynical opportunist ambitiously trying to play all the angles. He’s canny enough to plan the bank heist and isn’t afraid to resort to violence as evident in the way he handles Sutton. His weakness, like most noir protagonists, is women and in The Hot Spot he gets involved with two: Dolly and Gloria.

Virginia Madsen gets to sink her teeth into the juicy role of a heartless femme fatale. It was the first time she played such an overtly sexual character that uses her body to manipulate men to do her bidding. Madsen applies a thick Texan accent like her character applies lipstick. The actress gets the flashiest role in the film and makes the most of it, but she falls short of being one of the all-time great femme fatales. It certainly isn’t from a lack of trying. You have to give her an A for effort, but the material isn’t up to her level of performance with, at times, blandly predictable dialogue that her character has to spout or silly moments like when Dolly leaps onto a giant pile of sawdust and proceeds to climb back up it as a form of birth control.

Jennifer Connelly plays the beautiful girl-next-door type that appears to be innocent, but harbors a deep, dark secret of her own. The actress doesn’t really have much to do, but act wholesome and look beautiful, which she does. One wonders if she did The Hot Spot to show that she could make the transition from child actress to more mature roles. She has classic Hollywood looks from a bygone era that were used much more effectively in The Rocketeer (1991).

Hopper rounds out the cast with seasoned character actors like Barry Corbin playing the savvy local sheriff who’s out to nail Harry for the bank job, Jerry Hardin as the perpetually grumpy car dealership owner, Charles Martin Smith playing a useless car salesman, and Jack Nance as, what else, a quirky bank manager with a hankering for strip clubs.

If Dolly reflects the man that Harry is, then Gloria represents the kind of man he aspires to be – nice and respectful, but ultimately he can never have that kind of happiness because he will always remain true to his baser instincts, which is revealed so well at the end of the film. The Hot Spot really comes to life during the scenes between Harry and Dolly as we’re not sure if they are going to devour each other or kill each other.

Based on his own novel, Hell Hath No Fury, Charles Williams wrote a screenplay version with Nona Tyson in 1962 with Robert Mitchum in mind to play Harry Madox. Nothing came of this idea and many years later, Dennis Hopper found the script and updated it. He would go on to describe his version as “Last Tango in Texas. Real hot, steamy stuff.” Don Johnson claimed that he was originally attached to the project based on a heist movie script by Mike Figgis. The actor said, "Three days before we started shooting, Dennis Hopper came to all of us, he called a meeting on a Sunday, and he said, “Okay, we’re not making that script. We’re making this one." That script was the Williams/Tyson version.

The production was rife with tension. Despite a bedroom scene that originally called for her to be naked, Virginia Madsen decided to wear a negligee instead because “Not only was the nudity weak storywise, but it didn’t let the audience undress her.” Later on, Hopper admitted that she was right. There were also reports that Hopper and his leading man, Don Johnson, did not get along. According to the director, “He has a lot of people with him. He came on to this film with two bodyguards, a cook, a trainer, ah let’s see, a helicopter pilot, he comes to and from the set in a helicopter, very glamorous, let’s see, two drivers, a secretary, and, oh yes, his own hair person, his own make-up person, his own wardrobe person. So when he walks to the set he has five people with him.” Johnson felt that the film was “too long and I felt that it was self-indulgent on some levels, which I told Dennis and which the studio told Dennis. The cast was perfect and the script was challenging. But, as a filmmaker, Dennis should have been more responsible.” Madsen had nothing but good things to say about Hopper: “He was very kind and he was respectful of me at a time when a lot of men in the industry were not.”

By the end of principal photography, Hopper and Johnson were no longer speaking to each other with the actor refusing to promote The Hot Spot. Hopper said, “He says he’s not going to do anything for this picture until he reads the reviews.” Johnson claimed that he was unable to because of his commitment to filming Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991) with Mickey Rourke. Madsen remembers that at the time, “I was very upset when I saw the film because I was such a sexual being in that movie. He had given me the freedom to play that part without repercussions.”

The Hot Spot received mixed to favorable reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and praised Madsen’s performance: “It’s the kind of work that used to be done by Lana Turner or Barbara Stanwyck – the tough woman with the healthy sexual interest, who sizes a guy up and makes sure he knows what she likes in a man.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Mr. Hopper’s direction is tough and stylish, in effective contrast with the sunny look of Ueli Steiger’s cinematography.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “The film might have been a camp hoot if it weren’t for the fact that Hopper still believes in all this stuff – he likes his women molten, duplicitous, and in kinky high heels.” Los Angeles Times’ Peter Rainer said of Johnson’s performance: “As long as Johnson is playing above the action he’s effective, but his lightweight style doesn’t work in his big scenes with Dolly.” Finally, in his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, “Hot Spot will never go down as timeless, neoclassic noir. But, with its Hopperlike moments, over-the-top performances and infectious music, it carries you along for a spell.”

With its sun-baked Texas setting and pretensions to art house cinema, The Hot Spot, at times, feels like a tamer version of David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990), but Hopper lacks Lynch’s knack for the absurd and how he can go from oddball humor to nightmarish horror in a heartbeat all wrapped up in Americana iconography. Hopper has the look down cold, but is missing that crucial ingredient that makes Lynch’s films so unique. A few years later, Red Rock West (1993) was more successful at approximating a neo-noir with Lynchian affectations. As a result, The Hot Spot more closely resembles the Jack Nicholson/Jessica Lange remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), which also brought the sex and violence to the foreground as opposed to classic film noirs where so much had to be implied. Out of the class of 1990 neo-noirs, The Hot Spot ranks below After Dark, My Sweet and The Grifters, hampered by a weak script. Hopper tries to give the pulpy material a classy look when he should have embraced it completely. The end result is a flawed film that has its moments.

SOURCES

Harris, Will. "Don Johnson on Cold In July, Dennis Hopper, and auditioning for Miami Vice." The A.V. Club. May 30, 2014.

Hayward, J. “Screen Sirens Sense & Sexuality.” Courier-Mail. June 9, 1990.

Krum, S. “Why Dennis Got Back on His Bike.” Herald. April 18, 1990.

Longsdorf, Amy. “Don Johnson Says He Turned the Right Corner into Paradise.” The Morning Call. October 4, 1991.

Malcolm, Derek. “The Hopper File.” The Guardian. November 29, 1990.

Thomas, Bob. “Director Hopper’s Back in Hot Spot with New Film.” The Advertiser. November 22, 1990.

Topel, Fred. “SXSW 2014 Interview: Virginia Madsen on The Wilderness of James.” CraveOnline. March 7, 2014.

Trebbe, Ann. “Hopper, Hopping Mad at Johnson.” USA Today. September 11, 1990.

Italian Horror Blog-a-thon: Phenomena

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Italian Horror Blog-a-thon over at Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies blog run by Kevin J. Olson. Please check out all the fantastic contributions over there.

Some fans of Dario Argento’s films feel that Phenomena (1985) should have been the third film in The Three Mothers trilogy and not the official installment Mother of Tears (2007). Structurally and, at times, visually Phenomena bears a striking resemblance to Suspiria (1977), the first film in the trilogy, in that they have a dark fairy tale vibe and feature young women battling against malevolent forces. Both films also begin with the brutal murder of a beautiful young woman. In Phenomena, a school girl (Fiore Argento, the director’s daughter) in Switzerland just misses her bus and looks for help at a nearby house. Argento cuts repeatedly to someone or something trying to free itself from chains attached to a wall. The killer chases the girl through the woods and then kills her with scissors in a way that evokes the first operatic death in Suspiria.

Inspector Rudolf Geiger (Patrick Bauchau) and his assistant Kurt (Michele Soavi) enlist the help of Professor John McGregor (Donald Pleasence) to help them solve a series of murders via a radical theory that involves using insects to tell them the time of death. Meanwhile, Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly), an American student, attends the Richard Wagner Academy for Girls in Switzerland, chaperoned by Frau Bruckner (Daria Nicolodi). We learn that she has a natural affinity for insects. She’s also a child of divorce who has been dumped there by her globetrotting father, a famous actor, and her estranged mother who lives in India. There is a really nice scene where Jennifer bonds with her roommate Sofie (Federica Mastroianni) as she tells her about how her parents split up. This scene is crucial in that it personalizes the film as we go from an objective third person perspective to the first person, empathizing with this poor girl who has been dumped into a foreign world with no friends or family.

Jennifer experiences eerie nightmares scored to Iron Maiden and is prone to sleepwalking on the ledge of a school building where she witnesses a murder and is eventually hit by a car. Only Argento could get away with orchestrating such an audacious sequence. Much like David Lynch he is able to seamlessly blend the dream world with reality. To make matters worse, Jennifer’s habit of sleepwalking makes her an outcast among her fellow classmates and a guinea pig to her teachers who poke and prod her like a lab rat. She meets McGregor and he helps develop her telepathic power over insects and they team up to stop the serial killer. He is the father figure that she is looking to fill the void left by her absent parent. In a nice bit of casting against type, veteran character actor Donald Pleasence plays a kindly old man, an academic type fascinated with the pursuit of knowledge along with his trusty chimpanzee attendant Inga (Tanga). The professor’s relationship with Jennifer is quite touching even though they make for an unlikely pair of amateur detectives.

With only one film on her resume prior to Phenomena (Sergio Leone’s gangster epic Once Upon A Time in America) and a background in modeling, Jennifer Connelly delivers a grounded, naturalistic performance devoid of the acting tics she would develop later on in her career. Under Argento’s expert direction, she creates a fiercely independent girl who also has a vulnerable side as evident in the tour de force scene where her classmates tease and torment Jennifer until she lashes out with her powers and the façade of the school is enveloped by flies while she looks on. Your heart really goes out to her as she’s misunderstood by her teachers and ostracized by her classmates. In addition, she’s learning to use and understand her telepathic powers. It’s a lot for a young girl to deal with and this is all beautifully realized by Connelly who acts very mature and poised for her age.

The origins for Phenomena came from a German news item that Argento discovered about crime investigators studying the behavior of insects in a room where a murder had been committed, leading to clues pertaining to the crime. He was intrigued by this idea and talked to the police who were quite supportive of this technique even though it was mostly theoretical and had only been applied once and not in a serious way. Argento then went to France and met with a famous entomologist who told him about how the world of insects applied to the criminal world. Co-screenwriter Franco Ferrini and Argento came up with the idea not to make a horror film but rather a supernatural thriller with this element introduced via Jennifer’s ability to telepathically control insects.

Argento sent actress Daria Nicolodi to the United States to cast Phenomena but she was met with a lot of rejection because of the subject matter. Argento originally wanted to cast Liv Ullman’s daughter Lynn in the role of Jennifer but when her agent read the screenplay he turned it down because it was a “splatter movie.” Another woman threw the script in Nicolodi’s face telling her, “You can’t torture an adolescent with such violent images.” Argento was taken with Jennifer Connelly’s beauty, in particular her eyes, and Nicolodi organized a meeting between them. She even showed the young actress’ parents a few scenes from Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), which they liked. Nicolodi even became good friends with Connelly and they bonded over dinner. The two became close during filming with Connelly regarding Nicolodi as a kind of second mother.

Like most of Argento’s films, he creates an incredible mood and atmosphere and this is particularly evident in the way cinematographer Romano Albani photographs the forests that feature prominently throughout. For example, the establishing shot of Professor McGregor’s house shows trees blowing ominously in the wind at night – the elements at their most primal. Argento also employs his trademark saturated lighting in a given scene, like bathing Jennifer in cool blue while she dreams. Heavy metal and horror films have been linked together for a long time – both are marginalized genres within their respective mediums, never getting the respect they deserve and never being particularly interested in getting it. So, it makes sense that for Phenomena, Argento uses songs by Iron Maiden and Motorhead along with a creepy electronic score courtesy of Simon Boswell, Claudio Simonetti, the Goblins, and a slumming Bill Wyman.

As is typical with many of Argento’s films, Phenomena builds to an absolute batshit crazy finale as Jennifer confronts the killer along with the help of a straight razor wielding chimpanzee. At times, the film tends to defy logic (like how the chimp obtains said razor) but that was never one of his main concerns. Phenomena follows its own kind logic, which can be maddening sometimes (like the boneheaded choices Jennifer occasionally makes) but one ultimately has to surrender to the fairy tale vibe that Argento creates and enjoy one of the more original Italian horror films to come out of the 1980’s. Much to his chagrin, the film’s title was changed to Creepers in the U.S. by distributor New Line Cinema and almost 30 minutes was cut, including bits of gore and crucial character development. Thankfully, it has been restored in recent years and Argento considers it his most personal and best film to date.

The Rocketeer

With the massive commercial success of Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), other Hollywood studios scrambled to find their own comic book franchise in the hopes of replicating the boffo box office of the Caped Crusader. With the notable exception of Dick Tracy (1990), most of these films failed to appeal to a mainstream audience. These included pulp serial heroes The Shadow (1994) and The Phantom (1996), and the independent comic book The Rocketeer. Originally created by the late Dave Stevens, it paid homage to the classic pulp serials of the 1930s. For some reason, Disney decided that it would be their tent-pole summer blockbuster for 1991, cast two unproven leads – Billy Campbell and Jennifer Connelly – and hired Steven Spielberg protégé, Joe Johnston to direct. Despite promoting the hell out of it and spending a ton of money on merchandising, The Rocketeer (1991) underperformed at the box office.

It’s a shame because out of the lot of retro comic book films done in the 1990s, The Rocketeer was the best one and the most faithful to its source material. While both The Shadow and The Phantom looked great, they were flawed either in casting or with their screenplays while Dick Tracy was top-heavy with villains and director (and star) Warren Beatty’s ego, but The Rocketeer had the advantage of its creator actually being involved in bringing his vision to the big screen. The end result was a fun, engaging B-movie straight out Classic Hollywood Cinema albeit with A-list production values. The film has quietly cultivated a cult following and deserves to be rediscovered.

Cliff Secord (Billy Campbell) is a young, hotshot pilot who races planes for a living with the help of his trusted mechanic and good friend Peevy (Alan Arkin). One day, while out testing his new plane, Cliff stumbles across an experimental jetpack stolen from Howard Hughes (Terry O’Quinn). Soon, he finds himself mixed up with the FBI, who want to recover it, and unscrupulous gangsters who stole it in the first place. Also thrown into the mix is Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton), an Errol Flynn-type matinee idol who wants the jetpack for his own nefarious agenda. Cliff’s beautiful girlfriend Jenny Blake (Jennifer Connelly) is an aspiring actress who catches Sinclair’s eye which further complicates Cliff’s life. With Peevy’s help, Cliff figures out how to use the jetpack and fashions himself an alter ego by the name of the Rocketeer.

Billy Campbell does a fine job as the scrappy Cliff Secord. He certainly looks the part and has great chemistry with co-star Jennifer Connelly (they fell in love while making the film). Connelly plays Jenny as the gorgeous girl-next-door and looks like she stepped out of a 1930s film. Jenny loves Cliff but dreams of being a movie star, not hanging around the airfield. Connelly, with her curvy figure, shows off her outfits well and does the best with what is ostensibly a damsel in distress role.

Timothy Dalton has a lot of fun playing the dashing cad as evident in the scene where he “accidentally” wounds a fellow actor during filming for stealing a scene form him. Sinclair is a vain movie star with big plans and there’s a glimmer in Dalton’s eye as he relishes playing the dastardly baddie. Alan Arkin is also good in the role of Peevy – part absent-minded professor-type and part father figure to Cliff.

The Rocketeer features a solid supporting cast with the likes of Ed Lauter playing a no-nonsense FBI agent, Terry O’Quinn as the brilliant Howard Hughes, Jon Polito as the money-grubbing airfield owner, and Paul Sorvino as a blustery gangster begrudgingly in league with Sinclair. His casting is a nice nod to the patriarchal mobster he played in GoodFellas (1990) only a lot less menacing (this is Disney after all). The always entertaining O’Quinn is particularly fun to watch as a dashing Hughes that could have easily stepped out of Francis Ford Coppola’s love letter to American ingenuity, Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988).

The attention to period detail, in particular the vintage planes, is one The Rocketeer’s strengths. The film gets it right with the clothes that people wear and how they speak so that you feel transported back to this era in a way that The Phantom and The Shadow were unable to do. The recreation of old school opulence is fantastic as evident in the South Seas nightclub sequence where Sinclair works his charms on Jenny. Even Joe Johnston’s direction feels like a throwback to classic Hollywood filmmaking as he gives the flying sequences the proper visual flair that they deserve. He wisely keeps things simple, never trying to get too fancy or show-offy as he takes a page out of his mentor, Steven Spielberg’s book. There’s never any confusion as to what is happening or where everyone is – something that seems to be missing from a lot of action films thanks to the popularity of the Bourne films. Johnston is an interesting journeyman director who’s best work is old school action/adventure films, like Hidalgo (2004), or slice-of-life Americana, like October Sky (1999), which is why he was the wrong choice to helm the ill-fated reboot of The Wolfman (2010) and the right director for the upcoming Captain America film.

Filmmaker Steve Miner (Friday the 13th, Parts II and III) was the first person to option the film rights to Dave Stevens’ independent comic book The Rocketeer but he ended up straying too far from the original concept and his version died an early death. Screenwriters Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo (Trancers and Zone Troopers) were given the option in 1985. Stevens liked them because “their ideas for The Rocketeer were heartfelt and affectionate tributes to the 1930’s with all the right dialogue and atmosphere. Most people would approach my characters contemporarily, but Danny and Paul saw them as pre-war mugs.” Their subsequent screenplay kept the comic book’s basic plot intact but fleshed it out to include the Hollywood setting and the climactic battle against a Nazi zeppelin. They also tweaked Cliff’s girlfriend to avoid comparisons (and legal hassles) to Bettie Page (Stevens’ original inspiration), changing her from a nude pin-up model to a Hollywood extra while also changing her name from Betty to Jenny.

Bilson and DeMeo submitted their seven-page outline to Disney in 1986. They studio put the script through an endless series of revisions and, at one point, frustrated by the seemingly endless process, the two screenwriters talked to Stevens about doing The Rocketeer as a smaller film shot in black and white. The involvement of Disney put the project on a much bigger level as the writers remembered, “you can imagine the commitment Disney was making to develop a series of movies around a character. They even called it their Raiders of the Lost Ark.” With Stevens’ input, Bilson and DeMeo developed their script with director William Dear (Harry and the Hendersons) who changed the zeppelin at the film’s climax to a submarine. Over five years, the mercurial studio fired and rehired Bilson and DeMeo three times. DeMeo said, “Disney felt that they needed a different approach to the script, which meant bringing in someone else. But those scripts were thrown out, and we were always brought back on.”

They found this way of working very frustrating as the studio would like “excised dialogue three months later. Scenes that had been thrown out two years ago were put back in. what was the point?” Disney’s biggest problem with the script was all of the period slang peppered throughout. Executives were worried that audiences wouldn’t understand what the characters were saying. One of their more significant revisions over this time period was to make Cliff and Jenny’s “attraction more believable … how do we bring Jenny into the story and revolve it around her, and not just create someone who’s kidnapped and has to be saved?” DeMeo said. In 1990, their third major rewrite finally got the greenlight from Disney. However, when the studio acquired the rights to the Dick Tracy film from Universal Studios, DeMeo was worried that executives would dump The Rocketeer in favor of the much more high-profile project. However, when Dick Tracy failed to perform as well at the box office as Disney had hoped, DeMeo’s fears subsided.

All kinds of actors were considered for the role of Cliff Secord, including Bill Paxton, who almost got it, and Vincent D’Onofrio, who was offered the role but turned it down. Johnston wanted to cast an unknown but the studio wanted a Tom Cruise. According to the director, “Fortunately, all of the people they wanted didn’t want to do it.” Finally, Billy Campbell was cast as Cliff. Prior to this film, his biggest role to date was regular on the Michael Mann-produced television show, Crime Story. For the role of Jenny, Sherilyn Fenn, Kelly Preston, Diane Lane, and Elizabeth McGovern were all considered but lost out to Jennifer Connelly, fresh from making the comedy, Career Opportunities (1991). Dave Stevens wanted Lloyd Bridges to play Peevy but he turned the film down and Alan Arkin was cast instead. The Neville Sinclair role was offered to Jeremy Irons and Charles Dance before Timothy Dalton accepted the role.

Campbell wasn’t familiar with Stevens’ comic book when he got the part but quickly read it and books on aviation while also listening to period music. The actor also had a fear of flying but overcame it with the help of the film’s aerial coordinator Craig Hosking. To ensure Campbell’s safety, he was doubled for almost all of the Rocketeer’s flying sequences. Hosking said, “What makes The Rocketeer so unique was having several one-of-a-kind planes that hadn’t flown in years,” and this included a 1916 standard bi-wing, round-nosed, small-winged Gee Bee plane.

The numerous delays forced William Dear to leave the production and director Joe Johnston signed on to direct. He was a fan of the comic book and when he inquired about its film rights was told that Disney already had it in development. After making Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), he was not eager to work with Disney again because of the battles he had with the studio. However, in order to get a chance to direct Honey he had to sign a contract giving the studio the option for two more films – standard industry practice.” They’ll sign anybody to a three-picture deal, just in case you do a good movie,” Johnston said.

After Honey was a big box office hit, he was offered movies like White Fang (1991) and Arachnophobia (1990) – all of which he turned down. It became obvious that Disney was going to hold Johnston to his commitment. Fortunately, he wanted to direct The Rocketeer. Johnston said, “One of the great appeals of Stevens’ work was his attention to detail, which really placed the reader in the period. I’ve tried to do the same thing cinematically.” Pre-production on the film started in early 1990 with producer Larry Franco in charge of securing locations for the film. He found an abandoned World War II landing strip in Santa Maria, which the filmmakers used to build the mythical Chaplin Air Field. The Rocketeer’s attack on the Nazi zeppelin was filmed near the Magic Mountain amusement park in Indian Dunes. The film was shot over 96 days and ended up going over schedule due to weather and mechanical problems.

When the production started, the studio agreed to a $25 million budget and 76-day shooting schedule despite the original schedule was set for 96 days. Johnston knew it would cost more and take longer. In anticipation of this, he scheduled scenes that would take more time and cost more money at the end of the shoot so that it would cost the studio more to fire him then to let him finish. After all the dust settled, the budget escalated and the film took 96 days to shoot. Disney also inundated him with written notes about a variety of issues, from costumes to the script. The director’s solution was to have his assistant read them, summarize them and write replies for him. He also fought the studio over the tone of the film. Originally, it was going to be geared more towards adults and then Disney changed their minds and wanted to attract families instead.

The Rocketeer received mixed to positive reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, “The virtues of the movie are in its wide-eyed credulity, its sense of wonder.” Rolling Stone magazine’s Peter Travers enjoyed Timothy Dalton’s performance: “An elegant if stiff James Bond, Dalton finally loosens up onscreen and steals every scene he's in. He's a swashbuckling Dr. Strangelove.” Leonard Maltin concurred and found that the film, “captures the look of the '30s, as well as the gee-whiz innocence of Saturday matinée serials, but it's talky and takes too much time to get where it's going. Dalton has fun as a villain patterned after Errol Flynn.”

However, The New York Times’ Janet Maslin wrote, “Cliff's good deeds never have any particular stature, even though they supposedly involve earthshaking world affairs. Within the film itself, the polarities of good and evil are too indistinct to matter. Any hint of real risk or sacrifice comes from the other, better films that are invoked.” In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson wrote, “Partly by design, partly by accident, The Rocketeer seems better suited to an audience of kiddies than adults. It stays on its feet and doesn't ask too much of us, and that may be enticement enough for younger folks. It's a humble little item, actually, easily digested and easily forgotten.”

Like The Right Stuff (1983) before it, The Rocketeer is a love letter to the wonders of aviation and the brave souls that risked their lives pushing the envelope. In a nice touch, Cliff even chews Beeman’s gum, the same kind that Chuck Yeager uses in The Right Stuff. The comic book is masterfully translated to the big screen, right down to recreating the iconic Bull Dog Diner. The filmmakers also got all the details of Cliff and his alter ego right, including the casting of Billy Campbell. The same goes for Jenny, although, because Disney backed the film, they downplayed the blatant homage her character was to famous pin-up model Bettie Page. With Dave Stevens untimely passing in 2008, watching this film is now a bittersweet experience but there is some comfort in that at least he got to see his prized creation brought vividly to life even if failed to catch on with the mainstream movie-going public. The Rocketeer is flat-out wholesome fun with nothing more on its mind than to tell an entertaining story and take us on an exciting adventure.

Also, check Mr. Peel's take on the film at his blog.

SOURCES

Arar, Yardeina. “Honey…They Shrunk His Rocketeer Budget.” Los Angeles Daily News. June 24, 1991.

Bonin, Liane. “Way of the Hunk.” Entertainment Weekly. September 8, 2000.

Cagle, Jess. “Bill Paxton.” Entertainment Weekly. July 19, 1991.

“Blast Off!” Entertainment Weekly. July 12, 1991.

“Rocketeer to the Rescue.” Prevue. August 1991

Schweiger, Daniel. “Rocketeer.” Cinefantastique. August 1991.