Stormy Monday is the 1988

1988 in film

-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:* Act of Piracy* Action Jackson, starring Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, Vanity, Sharon Stone* The Adventures of Baron Munchausen* Akira* Alice...

 feature film debut of director Mike Figgis

Mike Figgis

Michael "Mike" Figgis is an English film director, writer, and composer.-Personal life:Figgis was born in Carlisle, England and grew up in Africa. Figgis for several years had a relationship with the actress Saffron Burrows and cast her in several films...

. Starring Sean Bean

Sean Bean

Shaun Mark "Sean" Bean is an English film and stage actor. Bean is best known for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, previously, British Colonel Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe...

, Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and film director. He has received three Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive....

, Sting and Melanie Griffith

Melanie Griffith

Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...

, it is an atmospheric, noirish thriller. The notable jazz soundtrack is also by Figgis. Being set in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, the film is something of an homage to Get Carter

Get Carter

Get Carter is a 1971 British crime film directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine as Jack Carter, a gangster who sets out to avenge the death of his brother in a series of unrelenting and brutal killings played out against the grim background of derelict urban housing in the city of...

. The film's title is named after blues guitarist/singer T-Bone Walker

T-Bone Walker

Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker was a critically acclaimed American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who was one of the most influential pioneers and innovators of the jump blues and electric blues sound. He is the first musician recorded playing blues with the...

's signature song "Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad)

Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)

"Call It Stormy Monday " is a blues song written by T-Bone Walker and first recorded in 1947. Confusingly, it is also sometimes referred to as "Stormy Monday Blues", although that is the title of a 1942 song by Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine...

"

Plot summary

A young man, Brendan (Sean Bean), seeks work in a jazz club ('The Key Club') owned by Finney (Sting). There is some suggestion that Finney has past connections with organised crime but is attempting to leave these behind. Two gangsters arrive to make Finney an offer 'he cannot refuse' for his club but Brendan overhears them and warns Finney, who then turns the tables on them. At the same time Newcastle is preparing to host a visit from a group of American investors that it hopes to engage in a grandiose regeneration project. Kate (Melanie Griffith), a waitress, has been recruited to service the delegation. Kate and Brendan meet and fall in love. Among the visiting group is Cosmo (Tommy Lee Jones) a corrupt businessman who we learn uses Kate as a prostitute to secure business deals. It is Cosmo who has been putting the pressure on Finney as the club stands in the way of his plans for the city leading to an eventual conflict.

A subplot involves an avant-garde jazz group called the "Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

 Jazz Ensemble" who visit Newcastle to perform and become entangled in the conflict. One of the film's longest scenes is a celebration to which the group is invited; this takes place among members of Newcastle's Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 community.

Production

The production was initially a low budget project funded by Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 and British Screen. When the film attracted American financing it was suggested that the film be recast with American actors. Both Melanie Griffith's and Tommy Lee Jones' careers were in a dip at the time and agreed to take parts at a lower fee. Between the time of the film being shot and its release Working Girl

Working Girl

Working Girl is a 1988 romantic comedy film written by Kevin Wade and directed by Mike Nichols. It tells the inspiring story of a Staten Island-raised secretary, Tess McGill , working in the mergers and acquisitions department of a Wall Street investment bank...

was released and Griffith became an Oscar-nominated star. This secured Stormy Monday greater attention on its US release helping revive interest in Jones and propel Figgis and Bean to Hollywood.

Television series

The film was followed by the ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 series Finney in 1994, starring David Morrissey

David Morrissey

David Mark Morrissey is an English actor and director. Morrissey grew up in the Kensington and Knotty Ash areas of Liverpool, and learned to act at the city's Everyman Youth Theatre. At the age of 18, he was cast in the television series One Summer , which won him recognition throughout the country...

as Finney in the years before Stormy Monday is set. Finney was also produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark.