48 Hrs.

Director Walter Hill had a terrific run of films in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s with the likes of The Driver (1978), The Warriors (1979) and Southern Comfort (1981). He acquired a reputation for making visceral, no-nonsense action movies populated by tough-talking cops and criminals. Hill continued this trend with 48 Hrs. (1982), a gritty buddy cop action comedy that provided a breakout role for comedian Eddie Murphy and launched a very successful series of movies for him during the ‘80s. Amazingly, the project survived movie studio moves and a rocky production that saw Murphy’s role re-written extensively and executives butting heads with Hill over his depiction of on-screen violence. His instincts were validated with the film’s critical and commercial success that helped kickstart a resurgence in the buddy cop genre and led to a rather lackluster sequel in 1990.

Hill starts things off in dramatic fashion with a daring road gang escape as Albert Ganz (James Remar) is freed by his partner in crime Billy Bear (Sonny Landham) and, in the process, kills two prison guards. This sequence is depicted in Hill’s trademark efficient fashion complete with crisp editing and meat and potatoes camerawork that always tell us where everyone is and what’s going on. He has always had a knack for conveying kinetic action and it is certainly on display in 48 Hrs. with some nicely staged sequences that aren’t showy, but aren’t supposed to be – that’s not Hill’s style. He definitely harkens back to classic journeymen directors like Don Siegel or contemporaries like John Flynn (Best Seller).

He then cuts to a familiar scene for any Nick Nolte fan – a tired, grumpy burn-out of a man (also see North Dallas Forty, Teachers, etc.) who embodies that famous line from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.” Nolte is Jack Cates, a police detective who wakes up with a coffee mug full of booze and an argument with his long-suffering girlfriend (a lovely Annette O’Toole). “That’s a fairly crummy way to start a morning,” she tells him, to which he replies, “Maybe I got a fairly crummy day ahead.” Through their behavior and actions, Nolte and Annette O’Toole tell us more than a few things about Cates and his attitude towards life. Visually, Hill informs us of the man’s profession without explicitly spelling it out. Also, Cates drives a beat-up old convertible that mirrors his rumpled appearance. It’s refreshing to see a filmmaker that assumes the audience has a modicum of intelligence.

While providing back-up for two fellow police detectives (one of whom played by reliable character actor Jonathan Banks) on a routine call (aren’t they always?), Cates runs afoul of Ganz and Billy in a violent hotel lobby showdown that leaves his co-workers dead and his gun in the crooks’ possession. Wracked with guilt over one of them being killed with his gun, Cates makes it his personal mission to find Ganz and Billy and take them down. It turns out that they had been tracking down other members of a gang that pulled off an armed robbery a few years ago and Ganz wants to collect the loot. One of them – Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) – is still in prison and makes a deal with Cates: if he can be temporarily released from prison he’ll help the lawman catch Ganz, but they only have 48 hours to do it.

Right from the get-go Cates makes it clear that he doesn’t like Reggie and lays out how it’s going to be: “Now, get this – we ain’t partners, we ain’t brothers and we ain’t friends. I’m puttin’ you down and keepin’ you down until Ganz is locked up or dead. And if Ganz gets away you’re going to be sorry you ever met me.” And so begins a contentious partnership that sees the two men bicker, trade insults and, at one point, even come to blows until they develop a grudging respect for one another.

Nick Nolte brings his customary intensity to the role. For example, there’s a scene where Cates “questions” one of Ganz’s gang (the always reliable David Patrick Kelly) by repeatedly slamming him into a car door in a way that looks really painful and done with what looks like genuine ferocity while a bemused Reggie cracks jokes. Nolte plays well off of Murphy with his surly cop routine bouncing off of the comedian’s wisecracking convict. They have an antagonistic relationship complete with plenty of cussing each other out and racial slurs that are particularly jarring in this day and age of political correctness. It’s not that Cates is racist per se, but that he is saying those things to be mean and keep Reggie under control as he states early on.

From his first appearance in prison singing “Roxanne” by the Police in a hilarious falsetto to how he takes control of a redneck bar, Eddie Murphy is a revelation in 48 Hrs. and it is easy to see why this film made him a star. Watch how he works the room in the aforementioned bar sequence, putting everyone in their place through sheer force of will, swagger and tons of charisma to burn as he tells one upstart patron, “I’m your worst fuckin’ nightmare. I’m a nigger with a badge and that means I got permission to kick your fuckin’ ass whenever I feel like it.” It is a testimony to Murphy’s skills as a performer that he is able to pull that scene off so convincingly. Reggie also gives as good as he gets, standing up to Cates’ bullying tactics and racial slurs, which culminates in a drop down, drag out fist fight between the two men. In a nice bit of role reversal, Reggie turns the tables on Cates late on in the film when they meet at an African American nightclub, which Hill makes a point of showing the contrast in music and atmosphere to the redneck bar earlier on. It is now Cates’ turn to feel out of place. They also get to share a moment shortly afterwards and put their differences aside for a few minutes.

James Remar is good (maybe a little too good) as the nasty Ganz, a man not above kidnapping the girlfriend of one of his ex-partners and threatening to “put holes in her you never even thought of” if he doesn’t get his money. The actor is scarily convincing and conveys a ruthless intensity that makes Ganz a legitimate threat to our heroes. Looking lean and mean, the appropriately wild-eyed Remar seems to relish his role of a sociopath that enjoys killing cops. He has a pretty simple outlook on life: if he wants something, he takes it. Someone gets in his way, he kills them. It’s a testimony to Remar’s skills as an actor that the final showdown, as cliché as it is, is such a tense affair, which Hill milks for all its worth. Throughout the film, Remar continually demonstrates what a potent threat Ganz is to our heroes in the way he carries himself and the complete disregard he has for those around him.

Producer Lawrence Gordon had an idea for crime movie set in Louisiana that involved the kidnapping of the governor’s daughter. She had dynamite strapped to her head and if the ransom wasn’t delivered in 48 hours, the bad guys planned to kill her. So, her family gets the meanest cop to rescue her and he recruits one of the most vicious criminals, who also happens to be the kidnapper’s cellmate, out of worst prison to help him.

Editor Roger Spottiswoode wanted to direct and Hill, whom he had worked with in the past, suggested he rewrite the story. Spottiswoode changed the location, removed the dynamite and made it more realistic. At the time, the project was at Columbia Pictures, but Gordon had a deal with Paramount Pictures and it moved over to them. After several more drafts, the studio asked Hill to rewrite it for Clint Eastwood. The actor wasn’t interested in playing the cop and wanted to be the criminal instead. However, he decided to make Escape from Alcatraz (1979) and lost interest in 48 Hrs.

Hill suggested Richard Pryor play the criminal. The studio didn’t agree and so Hill went off to make The Long Riders (1980) and Southern Comfort. Meanwhile, the script for 48 Hrs. languished at Paramount for years. The problem wasn’t with it, but the casting of the two lead characters. Hill got a call from Gordon and was told that Nick Nolte wanted to make the film and was he interested in directing? He agreed and tried again to cast Pryor, but was unable to. Hill then tried Gregory Hines but he wasn’t available either. The president of production Don Simpson saw Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live and studio head Michael Eisner agreed that he would be perfect to play the convict opposite Nolte.

Once they got the greenlight, Hill brought in Larry Gross to tweak the script to the personalities of Nolte and Murphy, rewriting the latter’s character up to the very last day of shooting. Murphy couldn’t get out of his commitment to Saturday Night Live and joined the production two weeks after principal photography had begun. During filming, studio executives didn’t think Murphy’s scenes were funny enough. Eisner wanted to meet with Hill about it, but Gordon refused and this prompted Eisner to threaten shutting the production down. Gordon backed down and Hill told Eisner that he was getting good stuff from the comedian. Hill butted heads with the studio again when they suggested that the first cut of the film be shown to a preview audience. Hill refused and the studio insisted until the director backed down. In addition, Hill hated the marketing campaign the studio created for the film.

48 Hrs. enjoyed mostly positive reviews from critics at the time. Roger Ebert gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote, “The movie’s story is nothing to write home about. It’s pretty routine. What makes the movie special is how it’s made. Nolte and Murphy are good, and their dialogue is good, too – quirky and funny.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Mr. Nolte, as the grouch of the pair, handles the less showy role expertly, while Mr. Murphy runs away with every comic situation that comes his way.” The Chicago Reader’s Dave Kehr wrote, “Hill excels as usual with his chugging, stylized action scenes, and his use of San Francisco achieves something I’d thought impossible—it gives this most clichéd of movie locations a fresh, highly charged new look.”

The mismatched buddy cop formula has been done to death by now and so one has to remember how fresh 48 Hrs. was back in 1982. There had been all kinds of buddy cop movies in the ‘70s, but in keeping with the tone of the decade, many ended ambiguously or on a down note. Hill’s film has one foot in that decade, with its gritty violence and salty dialogue, while also anticipating the blockbuster mentality of the ‘80s with its comedic set pieces and happy ending. It is also amazing to see how much anger is directed at various characters and the intensity of it, which certainly earned the film its R rating. In our current climate a lot of the film’s edges would’ve been softened by studio notes, test screenings and the ratings board, which makes one appreciate how much Hill got away with in the final cut. After 48 Hrs. it seemed like Hollywood was practically handing out buddy cop movies to every comedian/dramatic actor combination they could dream up. Most of them pale in comparison including Another 48 Hrs. (1990), which Hill returned to direct and came across as simply a rehash of the first film.

SOURCES

McGilligan, Patrick. “Walter Hill: Last Man Standing.” Film International. June 2004.

Schwartz, Tony. “Hollywood’s Hottest Stars.” New York Magazine. July 30, 1984.

Zelazny, Jon. “Kicking Ass with Walter Hill.” The Hollywood Interview. December 8, 2012.


Further reading: check out Sean Gill's awesome review over at his blog.

North Dallas Forty

There are few sports movies that rise above the tried and true conventions of the genre. For every Bull Durham (1988) that gets it right, there are a hundred ones like The Scout (1994). The 1970s was a particularly strong decade for sports movies with the likes of The Bad News Bears (1976) and Slap Shot (1977) offering gritty, funny takes on baseball and hockey respectively. These films dug a little deeper and were unafraid to present a cynical and irreverent look at sports, offering unfiltered insight inside the locker room. More so than these two sports, American football was scrutinized and satirized with comedies like The Longest Yard (1974) and Semi-Tough (1977).

It was North Dallas Forty (1979), however, that stirred up a fair amount of controversy with its highly critical look at the professional game. Adapted from Peter Gent’s novel of the same name, the film focused on the hard-partying and hard-playing team known as the North Dallas Bulls, based on the Dallas Cowboys. Gent had played for them for five seasons and then wrote a fictionalized account about his experiences. His uncompromising take on the physical punishment players endured on the field and the toll that the mind games of the coaches took on them in the locker room was authentically conveyed in director Ted Kotcheff’s film. So much so that upon its release there were accusations that the NFL blackballed some of the players that appeared in the film.

The first image we get of Nick Nolte’s character is his disheveled mug waking up after what I can only imagine was a hell of a bender the night before. His nose is bloodied and he looks beaten up. There are all kinds of scars running up and down a leg from numerous surgeries. Phil is a wreck and one has to give Nolte credit for having zero vanity as an actor. Sure enough, a brief series of flashbacks show Phil taking several hits during a game, which result in the run-down human being we see shuffling stiffly through his home.

Later that day, a few of his teammates take him on a hunting trip. Phil uses this as an opportunity to lament his lack of playing time to his friend and team quarterback Seth Maxwell (Mac Davis) who tells him, “You gotta learn how to fool ‘em. Give them what they want. I know, I’ve been foolin’ them bastards for years.” Phil replies, “If you start pretending to be somebody else that’s when you’re gonna end up being somebody else.” Seth lays it out for him, “You had better learn how to play the game. And I don’t just mean the game of football. Hell, we’re all whores anyway, might as well be the best.” This conversation establishes North Dallas Forty’s central theme and the dilemma that Phil faces. Does he play by the rules or try to fight the system? It’s also a really good bit of acting as these guys cut through the dumb jock stereotype.

Of course, the next scene demonstrates why that stereotype exists as we witness a wild team party that involves one guy throwing a television into a swimming pool; a smooth-talking scam artist trying to take advantage of any player that will listen to his pitch; and one teammate that batters his hand bloody in the hopes that it will illicit sympathy from a woman he plans to have sex with. While Seth shows just how well he knows how to play the game by schmoozing with various guests and surrounding himself with beautiful women, Phil wanders around in a state of bemusement. He meets a dark-haired woman named Charlotte Caulder (Dayle Haddon) who definitely looks out of place. She’s not like the kind of bimbos that populate these parties and this intrigues Phil.

Their conversation is cut short when she attempts to leave the party only to be intercepted by Joe Bob Priddy (Bo Svenson), one of the two biggest guys on the team and living proof of Social Darwinism. When he makes his crude intentions towards her body blatantly known, Phil steps in only to anger Joe Bob who proceeds to choke the life out of him. Fortunately, a smooth-talking Seth quickly steps in as the voice of reason. It is a fascinating look at the dynamics of a professional football years before Any Given Sunday (1999) gave it a go (and showed that not much had changed over the years). The party serves as a significant turning point for Phil who has gotten tired of the same old routine and with Charlotte’s influence begins to think about a life after football. He’s tired and his body just can’t take the game-to-game punishment like it used to.

North Dallas Forty is at its best when it shows us the inner workings of pro football with unflinching honesty, like the fascinating scene that shows how various players get ready in the locker room before a big game. Some psych each other up, some pray, some get angry and fired up, some look scared while others joke around like they don’t have a care in the world. It is an interesting look at the mindset of a pro athlete and how they prepare, each in their own way.

Nick Nolte is excellent as one of the few players on the team who is self-aware. He certainly looks and acts the part of a pro football player that is nearing the end of his career. Phil has grown weary of the whole lifestyle and Charlotte may provide a way out. Being an ex-jock himself, Nolte understands this world well and this knowledge informs everything he does in the film. This was the beginning of an illustrious run for the actor playing burnt-out protagonists, from the disheveled cop in 48 HRS. (1982) to the perpetually rumpled educator in Teachers (1984) to playing a dead-end bum in Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Nolte has cornered the market on world-weary wastoids.

Mac Davis more than holds his own with Nolte. He’s very good as Phil’s savvy teammate who is equally self-aware about how pro football really works, but is better at playing by the rules, or more willing to than Phil. Davis has loads of good ol’ boy charm, but also takes us under this façade to show a man who’s never been in love and leads a pretty empty life. Davis has several good scenes with Nolte where they talk honestly about life and football.

The supporting cast features notable character actors like G.D. Spradlin as the coldly analytical Tom Landry-esque head coach, Charles Durning as the perpetually angry assistant coach, Dabney Coleman as a smug, smooth-talking team executive, and a frightening Bo Svenson as a Neanderthal player alongside an actual ballplayer John Matuszak who gets a great moment late in the film where he takes out his frustration on a coach by telling him, “Every time I call it a game, you call it a business. And every time I call it a business, you call it a game.”

Peter Gent played five seasons of professional football as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys from 1964 to 1968 when the legendary Tom Landry was the head coach and Don Meredith was the quarterback. Gent wrote a fictionalized account of his experiences that was published in 1973. His novel circulated Hollywood for five years before being made. It went through seven or eight different screenplays and, at one point, Robert Altman was interested in directing. Nick Nolte had read the novel and used his newfound clout (from films like The Deep and Who’ll Stop the Rain) to help get it made.

Not surprisingly, the NFL did not cooperate in the making of North Dallas Forty, but 18 active players, including then-Oakland Raider John Matuszak, appeared in the film. In addition, Fred Biletnikoff, who also played for the Raiders (for 14 years), was hired to train Nolte who had played college football. He said that the actor was “pretty much a natural athlete,” and “catches the ball well, runs patterns well, and he has a fine natural run that makes him look like a receiver.” Principal photography began in December 1978 and lasted over ten weeks with scenes often shot after being written the night before. The Dallas Cowboys initially agreed to allow the production to film at their facilities, but then refused once they heard about all the sex in the script. One of the film’s producers Frank Yablans said that the team was “totally uncooperative.” They ended up using the Los Angeles Rams’ facilities for filming instead. To get the best out of the players they hired for the film, the producers paid them a certain amount a day based on how many hits they did. In addition, they were awarded bonuses for the play of the film, the catch of the film and the hit of the film.

Controversy arose when the NFL shunned three players, who had key acting and advisory roles in the film. Running back Tommy Reamon was cut in training camp by the San Francisco 49ers and claimed he was “blackballed” by the league for being in the film. Tom Fears was an All-Pro receiver with the L.A. Rams and after retiring from the game began a scouting service for several teams. He was an advisor on the film and after it came out, three NFL teams that had subscribed to his service, dropped him. Yablans called these incidents, “pretty strange coincidences,” and said, “with a borderline player, well, this movie might be the catalyst for a team to get rid of him.” He went on to say that Dallas Cowboys defensive end Harvey Martin was offered a part that Matuszak ultimately played, but backed out. Yablans suspected the team pressured him not to do the film. Naturally, the NFL Commissioner called these suggestions of conspiracy, “absolutely ridiculous … when you talk about blacklisting, you’re talking about a league conspiracy and that’s ludicrous.” On the other hand, Matuszak, a starter for the Raiders, said he didn’t encounter any problems and signed a new three-year contract after making the film.

In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “The central friendship in the movie, beautifully delineated, is the one between Mr. Nolte and Mac Davis, who expertly plays the team's quarterback, a man whose calculating nature and complacency make him all the more likable, somehow.” Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “North Dallas Forty retains enough of the original novel's authenticity to deliver strong, if brutish, entertainment.” Newsweek magazine’s David Ansen wrote, “The writers – Kotcheff, Gent and producer Frank Yablans – are nonetheless to be congratulated for allowing their story to live through its characters, abjuring Rocky-like fantasy configurations for the harder realities of the game. North-Dallas Forty isn't subtle or finely tuned, but like a crunching downfield tackle, it leaves its mark.”

However, the Globe and Mail’s Rick Groen wrote, “North Dallas Forty’s descents into farce and into the lone man versus the corrupt system mentality deprive it of real resonance. It's still not the honest portrait of professional athletics that sport buffs have been waiting for.” In his review for the Washington Post, Gary Arnold wrote, “Charlotte, who seemed a creature of rhetorical fancy in the novel, still remains a trifle remote and unassimilated. Dayle Haddon may also be a little too prim and standoffish to achieve a satisfying romantic chemistry with Nolte: Somehow, the temperaments don't mesh.” Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford had problems with the film, but praised Nolte’s performance: “If North Dallas Forty is reasonably accurate, the pro game is a gruesome human abattoir, worse even than previously imagined. Much of the strength of this impression can be attributed to Nick Nolte ... Unfortunately, Nolte's character, Phil Elliott, is often fuzzily drawn, which makes the actor's accomplishment all the more impressive.”

North Dallas Forty shows the corporatization of pro football. Teams are no longer owned by just one man, but by a corporation that views it as just one of many commodities that it owns. Conrad Hunter (Steve Forrest), the head of the corporation that owns the Bulls, gives Phil some advice that doubles as a warning: “People who confuse brains and luck can get in a whole lot of trouble. Seeing through the game is not the same as winning the game.” Along these lines, head coach B.A. Strother (G.D. Spradlin) consults a computer about whether to play someone or not and gives advice by quoting from The Bible. He reads the data and not the man, comparing the team to that of a machine. For example, during a team meeting, he spells it out for the players: “The key to being a professional is consistency. And the computer measures that quality. No one of you is as good as that computer.” He goes on to chastise Phil and Seth for deviating from the game plan even though it resulted in a touchdown.

North Dallas Forty is a fascinating look at the inner workings of a pro football team and how the game changed from individual ability and skill to facts and statistics. The film drags a bit during the scenes depicting the romantic subplot between Phil and Charlotte. Their purpose is to show what his life could be like without football – using his money to buy a chunk of land out in the country where he plans to build a horse ranch. It’s a goal to strive for, but one wonders how many more seasons he has to play for it to happen. However, these scenes aren’t as interesting as the rest of the film.

If North Dallas Forty doesn’t seem to be a revelation in terms of taking us behind the curtain and showing the inner workings of pro football with scenes depicting players taking B12 shots to numb injury-ridden limbs and popping painkillers like Chiclets to fight through the pain and keep playing, it’s that a lot of the things it reveals are now widely known. At the time, it raised quite a stink because someone finally had the courage to bring to light the brutal realities of the game. It came out at just the right time – during the ‘70s – when sports dramas could dispense with any kind of romantic notions of the game and present a gritty authenticity. North Dallas Forty deserves to be ranked right up there with the very best sports of movies of not just that decade but of all time. It shows how quickly the thrill of victory can change to the agony of defeat. It shows how many athletes give everything they’ve got for the sport and get fame and money in return, but often at a horrible cost when they permanently damage their bodies. Players like Phil are chewed up and spit out by the machinery that is the game – both on and off the field.

SOURCES

Hendrickson, Paul. “The Passion & Pain of North Dallas Forty.” Washington Post. August 14, 1979.

Jares, Joe. “Peering Into the Pro Psyche.” Sports Illustrated. May 7, 1979

Kornheiser, Tony. “NFL Accused of Blacklisting Those Who Aided Film.” Washington Post. September 6, 1979.

Cannery Row

Expectations for the cinematic adaptation of John Steinbeck’s famous novel Cannery Row were high. It marked the directorial debut of David S. Ward, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Sting (1973) and starred Nick Nolte and Debra Winger. He was coming off the disappointing Heart Beat (1980) while she was fresh from the modestly successful Urban Cowboy (1980). However, Steinbeck purists were upset that the film was a fusion of Cannery Row and its sequel Sweet Thursday with an emphasis on the latter, jettisoning the darker tone of the former for a more upbeat vibe. The film’s image was tarnished by a highly publicized lawsuit launched by Raquel Welch who had been fired after only five days of filming and replaced by Winger.

Critics and movie-going audiences were put off by the film’s stylized look (it was shot mainly on two massive soundstages) and optimistic tone resulting in poor box office results. However, time has been kind to this intriguing film, which has aged surprisingly well, anchored by sweet, funny performances from Nolte and Winger, and featuring incredibly detailed set design and absolutely gorgeous cinematography. This hermetically-sealed world recalls other stylized throwbacks to the classic Hollywood era fused with the Movie Brat sensibility that came out around the same time, chief among them Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York (1977) and Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart (1982) that, like Cannery Row (1982), were costly flops, but have enjoyed critical re-evaluation over the years with the exception of the latter, which remains criminally overlooked.

After the local fishing industry dried up and most of its denizens left, the remnants hang on living their lives in their own eccentric ways. Take Doc (Nick Nolte) for example. He’s a marine biologist that collects aquatic animals and sells them off to colleges and museums to make ends meet. He’s friends with Mack (M. Emmet Walsh) and his fellow derelicts who have “no family, no money and no ambition,” chief among them, Hazel (Frank McRae), the youngest and a man left with the “slightly diminished capacity,” and “the mind of a small boy grafted to the body of a bull,” as the wizened omniscient narrator (John Huston with a voice made for voiceover narration) informs us. They’re a bunch of lovable, grubby drunks, the kind that only exist in films of this sort.

Doc’s latest project is collecting octopi and studying them with the hopes of writing and then delivering a paper at the Congress of Marine Biologists in San Francisco. He sees it as making a mark on society even if it’s “only a scribble.” I like that the film takes the time to show him at work, wading in among the rocks along the shore uncovering marine life to study and then back at his place observing it all. Then, one day, Suzy (Debra Winger) comes into town looking for work. She’s a beautiful young woman that catches Doc’s eye. Not finding much luck at the local diner, she falls in with the prostitutes at the nearby brothel and is mentored by Fauna (Audra Lindley), the woman who runs the place and schools Suzy in their ways.

Pretty soon, a turbulent romance develops between Doc and Suzy. Their initial meet-cute is rather amusing as he suddenly gets tongue-tied around her, dazzled by her beauty. The awkward way Nick Nolte plays it is quite funny. Debra Winger matches him in adorable awkwardness as Suzy tells Doc a story about a guy she once knew who constantly talked about ordering a beer milkshake at a drive-in, but never did. The quirky little facial expression she gives at the end of unsuccessfully telling the story is a nice bit of comedy that acts as visual punctuation.

As he demonstrated with North Dallas Forty (1979), Nolte has a knack for comedy if given the right material. The scene where he orders and then tries a beer milkshake is a nice bit of understated comedy. The snappy exchanges of dialogue he has with Winger evoke old school Hollywood comedies much better than the awful, forced attempt at such with the later wannabe screwball comedy I Love Trouble (1994). In that film, he had zero chemistry with leading lady Julia Roberts. This is not the case with Winger in Cannery Row. Her and Nolte make for an unlikely romantic couple, but they make it work and you can sense their chemistry right from Doc and Suzy’s initial meeting by the way they look at each other. These characters are classic opposites attract couple who get off on the wrong foot when they argue over their respective lifestyles.

At this point in her career, Winger was on the cusp of mainstream success when she suffered a minor setback with the commercial and critical failure of this film. No matter, she is very good in Cannery Row, playing a fiercely independent woman who works long enough at the brothel so that she has the money to get her own place. With her good looks and distinctive scratchy voice, it is easy to see why Nolte’s Doc falls for Suzy’s scruffy charms. The scene that cements it is when Doc sneaks into the brothel to apologize to Suzy and they end up getting into another argument. During a lull, a catchy Bob Crosby tune comes on and Doc challenges her to dance with him. She puts on “In the Mood.” Their argument continues, but physically as they try to impress each other with their dancing abilities. Winger, in particular, impresses with her knack for physical comedy as Suzy repeatedly tries to pull off the “Over the Rainbow” dance move. The repeated failed attempts look as painful as they must’ve been for the actress, but she commits to it completely every time. Now, that’s dedication.

Cannery Row is a stunning film to look at with some frames composed like a something out of a painting. For example, there is a sequence where Mack and the boys go on an expedition to capture a bunch of frogs at night that is visually-arresting as it occurs during a full moon in a fog-enshrouded marshland, which creates a distinctive atmosphere quickly offset by several grown men leaping and splashing around like crazy. In addition, there is a shot early on in the film of Suzy walking through Cannery Row and in the background is a detailed matte painting showing the abandoned canneries against a cloud-filled sky at dusk. The use of rear projection is glaringly obvious in a few scenes, but this only adds to the stylized look of the film.

This is in turn complimented by sets filled with incredible attention to period detail that help flesh out this rich, colorful world. For example, later on in the film, Suzy moves into a large, abandoned boiler, transforming it into a cozy living space with her own hands and ingenuity. The finished product is an inspired bit of set design. Much like, New York, New York and One from the Heart, Cannery Row was praised for its look and criticized for being a failed experiment in style over substance. The problem these films faced was that people were still riding the residual high of the 1970s, which tended to champion gritty realism, breaking away from the old studio system of filming on backlots. Mainstream audiences weren’t ready for a throwback to that era and rejected what these filmmakers were trying to do.

First published in 1945, John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row was considered a difficult novel to adapt, but screenwriter David S. Ward found a way by combining it with the sequel Sweet Thursday. His screenplay for Cannery Row had made the rounds in Hollywood for three years and had been turned down by every studio twice. Even though it was highly regarded, the script didn’t follow the tried and true formula of a box office hit and nobody wanted to risk $10 million on a first-time director.

Successful movie producer Michael Phillips had worked on hits like The Sting and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and wanted to give his best friend Ward the opportunity to direct his script for Cannery Row. Ward had aspirations for the job, but his reputation had been tarnished when several plagiarism suits were brought against him after he won the Academy Award for The Sting. The studio settled them out of court, but the whole experience left a bad taste in his mouth. It took a year to acquire the film rights to both of Steinbeck’s novels, costing $50,000.

While developing Cannery Row, Ward pictured Paul Newman as Doc. The actor was interested and made several rewrite suggestions for the script, which Ward indulged for a year until Newman finally said no. Several other movie stars, including Jack Nicholson, turned down the role until one studio brought Nick Nolte on board. Nolte had wanted to play Doc for years, but thought he was too young until he turned 40. By the fall of 1979, Phillips and Ward were ready to make the film with anyone, but continued to hold out hope. This came in the form of then-new head of MGM David Begelman who came across Ward’s script in January 1980. He was enticed by the well-written script and the promise of Nolte as the lead. Known for being decisive, Begelman gave it the greenlight with a budget of $10.6 million. It didn’t hurt that the studio had a light schedule and he was looking for films to fill it.

Production designer Richard MacDonald spent two months in Monterey to see if it was feasible to shoot on location. It would have cost $2.5 million to restore the area to the state of decay depicted in the novel. Also, local merchants demanded sizable fees to shoot on their property. MacDonald concluded that the film should be made on the MGM backlot. It took him months to convince Phillips and Ward because backlot shooting had fallen out of fashion since the 1960s. MacDonald knew that Stage 30 was ideal as it had been built over a giant water tank and this would allow them to recreate the seaside town. He worked on a stage plan and created stunning color sketches of sets that eventually convinced Phillips and Ward to go that route. MacDonald hired a crew and sets began to be constructed. For him, the benefits of shooting on a soundstage were significant: “You can have whatever weather you want for however long you want. It’s a tremendous advantage. You don’t have to wait for four minutes of sunset. You can have sunset every day for a week.”

Phillips and Ward gave Raquel Welch a copy of the script and she read for the role of Suzy. The veteran actress was eager to prove that she could act and had been holding out for the right part for three years. They were impressed with her passion and Ward realized that he would have to rewrite the part because Welch was considerably older than the character. He knew that to get the film made it needed two recognizable lead actors. They had already considered Bo Derek, Liza Minnelli and Olivia Newton-John. With time running out, they finally decided to go with Welch. However, Begelman wanted her to do a nude scene, which not only surprised her (she had never done one before), but also Phillips and Ward who couldn’t recall such a scene in the script. Welch wanted to play the role so much that she swallowed her pride and agreed to do it.

Principal photography was scheduled to begin just after Labor Day, but the actors’ strike occurred from July to October. MacDonald used this time to get the finest craftsmen to build the sets, which included six working aquariums populated with exotic fish, backdrops for ten bridges, a Victorian brothel, and a fully stocked 1945-era grocery store. The high quality attention to detail attracted top talent like Sven Nykvist, Ingmar Bergman’s regular cinematographer, and editor David Bretherton, who won an Oscar for Cabaret (1972).

After the first three weeks of principal photography, Welch was fired for breach of contract. Some criticism labeled her a diva, which she denied, claiming that during her time she never shot a major dialogue scene and was never used when called. Ward admitted that Welch was a “casting mistake,” and “wasn’t delivering a performance I could live with.” Welch argued if that was the case then why didn’t the filmmakers realize it over the four weeks of pre-production? The actress ended up suing MGM for more than $24 million for breach of contract and eventually won.

If that wasn’t bad enough, early on during filming, Ward was under pressure from the studio when he fell behind schedule after the first week. Begelman felt that Ward was directing too slowly and Nolte was out of shape and looked disheveled. Doc was an ex-baseball player turned marine biologist and to prepare for the role, Nolte took spring training with the California Angels. He also read all of Steinbeck’s work, spent time with a marine biologist in order to gain insight into his character, and even slept on the set one night a week. After he was told to shape up, the actor went to the wardrobe department and put on a man’s girdle and a pair of pants two sizes too big. When he showed up on set, Phillips thought Nolte had lost weight.

Debra Winger had originally read for the role of Suzy and been turned down much to her disappointment. A few months later, after moving to New York City, she was offered the part. She joined the production immediately and during the first week she threw up so much that the actress lost eight pounds and suffered from anxiety attacks. Winger took a cue from Nolte and also slept on the set several times. A competitive spirit developed between the two that included pulling pranks on each other.

Cannery Row received mixed to negative reviews from critics that notably cited the exemplary work from production designer Richard MacDonald and cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Roger Ebert gave it two-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote, “And Nolte and Winger are almost able to make their relationship work, if only it didn’t seem scripted out of old country songs and lonely heart columns. It’s tough to pull of a movie like this, in the semi-cynical 1980s.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, “Even Steinbeck’s errantly sentimental fictions, however, deserve better than the awful fancies of this film.” The Washington Post’s Gary Arnold felt that it was “expendable and creaky, a lavishly mounted antique.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Jay Scott wrote, “Ward has failed to find for the production a pictorial style, and has allowed photographer Sven Nykvist’s camera to run away with its pretty self – film as an act of visual masturbation.”

Cannery Row seems even more of an anomaly now, but in a refreshing way. It is one of those rare films that features a cinematic world I’d want to visit if I could. Ward and his collaborators have created such a richly textured world, with its inviting diners and sun-kissed rocky shore, and populated it with all kinds of vivid, colorful people. It’s a rare comedy where you really feel like you’ve been on a journey with these characters, seen them experience ups and downs, and come out on the other side so that they are different then when we first met them. They say ignorance is bliss so maybe Cannery Row works best if you haven’t read Steinbeck’s novel and just let the film wash over you. Filled with eccentric characters who live carefree lives, the film version has little pretense towards reality and perhaps this is what turned off critics and audiences back in the day, having just come out of the ‘70s, a decade populated by realistic fare. Ward’s film is anything but that. There is also a kind of good-natured innocence that permeates throughout that might not have appealed to a more cynical age.

SOURCES

Harmetz, Aljean. “His Hometown Now Likes John Steinbeck Better.” The New York Times. February 9, 1982.

Orth, Maureen. “The Gamblers of Cannery Row.” Rolling Stone. April 2, 1981.

Stabiner, Karen. “A Film Set Restores Steinbeck’s World.” The New York Times. March 15, 1981.