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The Bonfire of the Vanities (film)
Encyclopedia
The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1990 American film adaptation
of the best-selling novel of the same name
by Tom Wolfe
. The film was directed by Brian De Palma
and stars Tom Hanks
as Sherman McCoy, Bruce Willis
as Peter Fallow, Melanie Griffith
as Maria Ruskin, and Kim Cattrall
as Judy McCoy, Sherman's wife. The screenplay was written by Michael Cristofer
, and the original music score was composed by Dave Grusin
. The film was marketed with the tagline "An outrageous story of greed, lust and vanity in America."
) is a Wall Street
investor who makes millions while enjoying the good life and the sexual favors of Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith
), a Southern belle gold digger. Sherman and Maria are driving back to Maria's apartment from JFK airport when they take a wrong turn on the expressway and the two find themselves in the "war-zone" of the South Bronx. When they are approached by two black youths, Maria guns the engine, running over one of the teenagers and putting him in a coma. The two drive away and decide not to report the accident to the police.
Meanwhile, indigent alcoholic journalist Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis
), anxious for a story to make good with his editor, comes upon the hit-and-run case as a rallying point for the black community calling upon Jewish district attorney
Abe Weiss (F. Murray Abraham
), who is the Bronx District Attorney seeking re-election. According to Judge Leonard White (Morgan Freeman
), almost all of DA Weiss' prosecutions end up with black and Puerto Rican defendants going to prison and Weiss is seeking a white defendant for purposes of convincing the minority-majority community that he is worth re-electing.
Weiss recognizes the press coverage inherent in prosecuting the callow Sherman, who has been discovered as the hit-and-run driver, in order to cultivate the image as an avenger for the minorities and be propelled to the mayor
ship of New York City. As Sherman is brought to his knees, the New York community fragments into different factions who use the case to suit their own cynical purposes.
Finally, Sherman is left without any allies to support him except for the sympathetic Judge Leonard White and the remorseful Fallow. Fallow gains a tremendous advantage and insight into the case when he is dating a woman who is the sub-letting landlady
of Maria's apartment, and knows of secret recordings of conversations in the apartment made by the authorities to prove that the woman is not in fact living in the rent-controlled apartment herself. She discovers information about the McCoy case, which she gives to Fallow, who in turn covertly supplies it to Sherman McCoy's defense lawyer.
Sherman gets his hands on a tape and plays the recording in court, where it reveals Maria directly contradicting the evidence she has just given, showing she has been perjuring
herself and causing her to faint. Sherman plays the tape in a tape recorder inside his briefcase connected to a small loudspeaker that he holds on the desk.
When the judge orders that he approach the bench with this evidence, he asserts that the tape is all his (making it admissible evidence and it is technically truthful since it refers only to the dummy tape he was holding and ignores the real tape that is hidden which is not his), resulting in his acquittal.
The people in the court go into an uproar, to which Judge White launches into a tirade that they have no right to act self-righteous and smarmy, or that they are above Sherman, considering Reverend Bacon (John Hancock
) claims to help disadvantaged New Yorkers but actually engages in race baiting, or that the District Attorney Weiss pushed this case not in the interest of justice but in the interest of appealing to minority voters to further his political career by appealing to their desire to "get even".
The film ends as it begins, where there is a large audience applauding Peter Fallow's premiere of his book. Fallow says that Sherman McCoy has moved away from New York City to an unknown destination, presumably to live in obscurity.
Cristofer's original script ended cynically with the supposed victim of the hit-and-run walking out of the hospital, suggesting that the whole scenario was concocted. That ending did not test well with audiences and was dropped.
The Fallow character, who was English in the book but American in the film, narrates in voice-over.
and John Cleese
(Fallow was English in the novel) by Brian De Palma, but both turned down the role. When De Palma was unable to deliver an actor, the studio forced the director to cast Bruce Willis (who had starred in the successful 1988 film Die Hard
) as Fallow instead.
Walter Matthau
was initially offered the role of the judge, but demanded a fee of $1 million. The producers balked at meeting his price and signed Alan Arkin
instead for a modest $150,000. Arkin was replaced by Morgan Freeman
when the studio decided to change the judge's ethnicity from Jewish to African-American in order to moderate criticism of the film's racial politics, and dialogue was added to have the judge give the final denouncement towards the manipulative actions of the main characters. Lastly, F. Murray Abraham
, who has a significant part in the film, chose to not be credited over a contract dispute.
Also, the studio took liberties with the source material, making Sherman McCoy more sympathetic and adding a subplot involving a minor character, Judge Leonard White. The controversies surrounding the film would be detailed in a book called The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood (1991), written by Julie Salamon.
For instance, the book shows that Brian de Palma had a difficult relationship with then-rising-star Bruce Willis who, in words of Julie Salamon, "was generally disliked by most of the cast and crew [due to his ego]." In one notorious instance, during the filming of one scene in which Willis was with Alan King (the scene in which the character played by King dies), Willis challenged the crew to make the whole scene move along faster, allegedly because it was very hot on the set.
Even though Willis was called out of the set by de Palma to discuss this incident, this particular scene ended up being considerably shorter and simpler than originally intended. Brian De Palma described The Devil's Candy as "a very good book. I let Julie Salamon
see everything. She portrayed it all very accurately. But I mean, nobody realized it was going wrong when we were making it. We were very enthusiastic about what we were doing." Salamon's book was re-released in 2002 with a revised title, The Devil's Candy: The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco, and further material by Salamon (in which she describes Bruce Willis's negative reaction to the book).
In one notable visual scene in the film, Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith
) arrives in New York on an Air France
Concorde. The film's Second Unit Director, Eric Schwab, calculated the time and day when a runway at JFK would line up exactly with the setting sun, to serve as a backdrop, and managed to film in the single 30-second time period when this occurs in any given year, while winning a bet that he could make the scene an essential part of the movie. The 5-camera shot cost $80,000 and lasted just 10 seconds in the final cut. Schwab also directed the opening title shot — an almost equally elaborate and expensive set-up requiring a 24-hour timelapse of Manhattan, from a camera platform beside a gargoyle
on top of the Chrysler Building
.
Several of the sets parodied the home decorated by Robert Denning
and Vincent Fourcade
for Carolyne Roehm and Henry Kravis
.
The cover of Peter Fallow's book in the film has a similar design to the original first edition of Tom Wolfe's novel from 1987.
.
The exteriors that were supposed to be Park Avenue really were Park Avenue, late at night. The rain and the phone box were fake. The lobby scenes were shot at 77 Park Avenue—De Palma said he hated that lobby, but it was all co-producer Fred Caruso could come up with. "Don't worry," said Caruso. "Director of Photography Vilmos Zsigmond
said he's going to make it beautiful." "I hate beautiful," retorted the director. But he sucked it up.
The courthouse scenes, after a frantic search that drove the executive producers crazy, were finally shot at Queens County Courthouse, at night. The shoot took eight nights.
Another courthouse scene was shot at the Essex County Courthouse in Newark. This was a farcical scene depicting Sherman McCoy and the judge battling the protesters, featuring Tom Hanks
fighting with the sword from the statue of blind justice. After three separate test audiences said they hated it, the $2 million scene that had taken five nights to shoot was dropped.
The five-minute Steadicam
shot of Peter Fallow arriving at the Palm Court of the Winter Garden was a tour de force for operator Larry McConkey. He had to track backwards, get on a golf cart, ride it for 380 ft, get off it again, track backwards 234 ft, get into the elevator, get out again, track for another 250 ft. A camera assistant was injured on the first attempt. The actress playing the P.R. woman who accompanies Bruce Willis
during the shot is Rita Wilson
, Tom Hanks
's real-life wife.
The huge party scenes in Act 3 were shot at the L.A. Natural History Museum.
Courthouse exteriors were at the Mario Merola Building / Bronx County Courthouse. The subway entrance was fake — there is no subway station there.
.
Critical reception was overwhelmingly negative. The film scores a 23% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes
, based on thirty reviews.
Many critics complained about the casting, especially the casting of Hanks and Willis as McCoy and Fallow. Others complained that despite opening with a well-executed tracking shot, the first two acts of the film were horribly paced and that too much time was spent making Sherman McCoy a likeable character rather than advancing the plot of the story.
Of the way Tom Wolfe's story was adapted, Brian De Palma said "the initial concept of it was incorrect. If you’re going to do The Bonfire of the Vanities, you would have to make it a lot darker and more cynical, but because it was such an expensive movie we tried to humanize the Sherman McCoy character – a very unlikeable character, much like the character in The Magnificent Ambersons
. We could have done that if we’d been making a low-budget movie, but this was a studio movie with Tom Hanks in it. We made a couple of choices that in retrospect were wrong. I think John Lithgow
would have been a better choice for Sherman McCoy, because he would have got the blue-blood arrogance of the character."
De Palma has, however, been quick to downplay the notion that the movie suffered because of studio interference: "The initial producers, once we had cast Tom Hanks, moved on and went over to Columbia Pictures
, so I was sort of left to my own devices and pursued ways in which I thought I could make this movie more commercial and keep some edge of the book...I thought we were going to get away with it, but we didn’t. I knew that the people who read the book were going to be extremely unhappy, and I said, “Well, this is a movie; it isn’t the book.” And I think if you look at the movie now, and you don’t know anything about the book, and you get it out of the time that it was released, I think you can see it in a whole different way."
Overall, the film was nominated for 5 Golden Raspberry Awards
, including Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Actress (Melanie Griffith
), Worst Supporting Actress (Kim Cattrall
) and Worst Screenplay, but did not win any of those categories.
However, the film achieved a cult status in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe, and it is considered one of De Palma's major works. For example, in the countries of former Yugoslavia
it has been aired on various TV stations dozens of times, and it is almost regularly being aired every year.
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...
of the best-selling novel of the same name
The Bonfire of the Vanities
The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1987 novel by Tom Wolfe. The story is a drama about ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed in 1980s New York City and centers on four main characters: WASP bond trader Sherman McCoy, Jewish assistant district attorney Larry Kramer, British expatriate...
by Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
. The film was directed by Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
and stars Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
as Sherman McCoy, Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
as Peter Fallow, 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...
as Maria Ruskin, and Kim Cattrall
Kim Cattrall
Kim Victoria Cattrall is an English actress. She is known for her role as Samantha Jones in the HBO comedy/romance series Sex and the City, and for her leading roles in the 1980s films Police Academy, Big Trouble in Little China, Mannequin, and Porky's...
as Judy McCoy, Sherman's wife. The screenplay was written by Michael Cristofer
Michael Cristofer
Michael Ivan Cristofer is an American playwright, filmmaker and actor. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play for The Shadow Box in 1977....
, and the original music score was composed by Dave Grusin
Dave Grusin
David Grusin is an American composer, arranger and pianist. Grusin has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy award and 12 Grammys...
. The film was marketed with the tagline "An outrageous story of greed, lust and vanity in America."
Plot
Sherman McCoy (Tom HanksTom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
) is a Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
investor who makes millions while enjoying the good life and the sexual favors of Maria Ruskin (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...
), a Southern belle gold digger. Sherman and Maria are driving back to Maria's apartment from JFK airport when they take a wrong turn on the expressway and the two find themselves in the "war-zone" of the South Bronx. When they are approached by two black youths, Maria guns the engine, running over one of the teenagers and putting him in a coma. The two drive away and decide not to report the accident to the police.
Meanwhile, indigent alcoholic journalist Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
), anxious for a story to make good with his editor, comes upon the hit-and-run case as a rallying point for the black community calling upon Jewish district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
Abe Weiss (F. Murray Abraham
F. Murray Abraham
Fahrid Murray Abraham is an American actor. He became known during the 1980s after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. He has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films such as All the President's Men and Scarface...
), who is the Bronx District Attorney seeking re-election. According to Judge Leonard White (Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
), almost all of DA Weiss' prosecutions end up with black and Puerto Rican defendants going to prison and Weiss is seeking a white defendant for purposes of convincing the minority-majority community that he is worth re-electing.
Weiss recognizes the press coverage inherent in prosecuting the callow Sherman, who has been discovered as the hit-and-run driver, in order to cultivate the image as an avenger for the minorities and be propelled to the mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
ship of New York City. As Sherman is brought to his knees, the New York community fragments into different factions who use the case to suit their own cynical purposes.
Finally, Sherman is left without any allies to support him except for the sympathetic Judge Leonard White and the remorseful Fallow. Fallow gains a tremendous advantage and insight into the case when he is dating a woman who is the sub-letting landlady
Landlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...
of Maria's apartment, and knows of secret recordings of conversations in the apartment made by the authorities to prove that the woman is not in fact living in the rent-controlled apartment herself. She discovers information about the McCoy case, which she gives to Fallow, who in turn covertly supplies it to Sherman McCoy's defense lawyer.
Sherman gets his hands on a tape and plays the recording in court, where it reveals Maria directly contradicting the evidence she has just given, showing she has been perjuring
Perjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
herself and causing her to faint. Sherman plays the tape in a tape recorder inside his briefcase connected to a small loudspeaker that he holds on the desk.
When the judge orders that he approach the bench with this evidence, he asserts that the tape is all his (making it admissible evidence and it is technically truthful since it refers only to the dummy tape he was holding and ignores the real tape that is hidden which is not his), resulting in his acquittal.
The people in the court go into an uproar, to which Judge White launches into a tirade that they have no right to act self-righteous and smarmy, or that they are above Sherman, considering Reverend Bacon (John Hancock
John Hancock (actor)
John Hancock was an American film and television actor.Born in Hazen, Arkansas, Hancock is possibly best remembered for his role as "Scotty" in the ABC miniseries Roots: The Next Generations...
) claims to help disadvantaged New Yorkers but actually engages in race baiting, or that the District Attorney Weiss pushed this case not in the interest of justice but in the interest of appealing to minority voters to further his political career by appealing to their desire to "get even".
The film ends as it begins, where there is a large audience applauding Peter Fallow's premiere of his book. Fallow says that Sherman McCoy has moved away from New York City to an unknown destination, presumably to live in obscurity.
Cristofer's original script ended cynically with the supposed victim of the hit-and-run walking out of the hospital, suggesting that the whole scenario was concocted. That ending did not test well with audiences and was dropped.
The Fallow character, who was English in the book but American in the film, narrates in voice-over.
Cast
- Tom HanksTom HanksThomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
as Sherman McCoy - Bruce WillisBruce WillisWalter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
as Peter Fallow - Melanie GriffithMelanie GriffithMelanie 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...
as Maria Ruskin - Morgan FreemanMorgan FreemanMorgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
as Judge Leonard White - Kim CattrallKim CattrallKim Victoria Cattrall is an English actress. She is known for her role as Samantha Jones in the HBO comedy/romance series Sex and the City, and for her leading roles in the 1980s films Police Academy, Big Trouble in Little China, Mannequin, and Porky's...
as Judy McCoy - Saul RubinekSaul RubinekSaul Rubinek is a Canadian actor, director, producer and playwright, known for his work in TV, film and the stage.-Early life:...
as Jed Kramer - Alan KingAlan King (comedian)Alan King was an American actor and comedian known for his biting wit and often angry humorous rants. King became well known as a Jewish comedian and satirist. He was also a serious actor who appeared in a number of movies and television shows. King wrote several books, produced films, and...
as Arthur Ruskin - John HancockJohn Hancock (actor)John Hancock was an American film and television actor.Born in Hazen, Arkansas, Hancock is possibly best remembered for his role as "Scotty" in the ABC miniseries Roots: The Next Generations...
as Reverend Bacon - Kevin DunnKevin DunnKevin Dunn is an American actor who has appeared in supporting roles in a number of films since the 1980s. His roles include Colonel Hicks in the 1998 version of Godzilla, Sam Witwicky's father in Transformers, and Oscar Galvin, the primary antagonist in the 2010 action thriller...
as Tom Killian - Donald MoffatDonald MoffatDonald Moffat is an English-born actor, now a naturalized American citizen.-Early life:Moffat was born in Plymouth, Devon, the only child of Kathleen Mary and Walter George Moffat, who was an insurance agent. His parents ran a boarding house in Totnes...
as Mr McCoy - Barton Heyman as Detective Martin
- Norman Parker as Detective Goldberg
- Louis GiambalvoLouis GiambalvoLouis Giambalvo is an American actor, frequently seen on television in guest roles.His television credits include: Barney Miller, Hart to Hart, St...
as Ray Andruitti - Mary AliceMary AliceMary Alice is an American actress.Alice was born Mary Alice Smith in Indianola, Mississippi, the daughter of Ozelar and Sam Smith. In 1987 she received a Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her work in Fences...
as Annie Lamb - Kurt FullerKurt FullerKurt Fuller is an American character actor. He has appeared in a number of television, film, and stage projects. He graduated from Lincoln High School in Stockton, California in 1971.-Career:...
as Pollard Browning - Robert StephensRobert StephensSir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...
as Sir Gerald Moore - Richard LibertiniRichard LibertiniRichard Libertini is an American stage, film and television actor known for playing numerous character roles and his ability to speak in numerous accents....
as Ed Rifkin - Andre GregoryAndre GregoryAndre William Gregory is an American theatre director, writer and actor.Gregory studied at Harvard University.During the 1960s and 1970s, Gregory directed a number of avant-garde productions developed through ensemble collaboration, the most famous of which was Alice In Wonderland , based on Lewis...
as Aubrey Buffing - Clifton JamesClifton JamesGeorge Clifton James is an American actor. He is probably best known for his role as the bumbling Sheriff J.W. Pepper alongside Roger Moore in the James Bond films Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun and his role alongside Sean Connery in The Untouchables .-Personal life:James was...
as Albert Fox - Beth BroderickBeth BroderickElizabeth Alice "Beth" Broderick is an American actress famous for her portrayal of the character Zelda Spellman in the television sitcom Sabrina, the Teenage Witch from 1996–2003 on ABC and then the Warner Bros. network.-Early life:Broderick was born in Falmouth, Kentucky and grew up in...
as Caroline Heftshank - Adam LeFevreAdam LeFevreAdam LeFevre is an American character actor, poet and playwright who works in cinema, television, theater and commercials....
as Rawlie Thorpe - Kirsten DunstKirsten DunstKirsten Caroline Dunst is an American actress, singer and model. She made her film debut in Oedipus Wrecks, a short film directed by Woody Allen for the anthology New York Stories...
as Campbell McCoy - Geraldo RiveraGeraldo RiveraGeraldo Rivera is an American attorney, journalist, author, reporter, and former talk show host...
as Robert Corso - Rita WilsonRita Wilson-Early life:Wilson was born Margarita Ibrahimoff in Los Angeles, California.Her father, a Bulgarian who worked at a racetrack, was born in Greece. Before immigrating to the US, he had lived in Bulgaria and Turkey....
as P.R. Woman - F. Murray AbrahamF. Murray AbrahamFahrid Murray Abraham is an American actor. He became known during the 1980s after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. He has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films such as All the President's Men and Scarface...
(uncredited) as D.A. Abe Weiss
Production
The film was plagued by controversy: the role of Peter Fallow was offered to both Jack NicholsonJack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
and John Cleese
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
(Fallow was English in the novel) by Brian De Palma, but both turned down the role. When De Palma was unable to deliver an actor, the studio forced the director to cast Bruce Willis (who had starred in the successful 1988 film Die Hard
Die Hard
Die Hard is a 1988 American action film and the first in the Die Hard film series. The film was directed by John McTiernan and written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. It is based on a 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp titled Nothing Lasts Forever, itself a sequel to the book The Detective, which...
) as Fallow instead.
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
was initially offered the role of the judge, but demanded a fee of $1 million. The producers balked at meeting his price and signed Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and...
instead for a modest $150,000. Arkin was replaced by Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
when the studio decided to change the judge's ethnicity from Jewish to African-American in order to moderate criticism of the film's racial politics, and dialogue was added to have the judge give the final denouncement towards the manipulative actions of the main characters. Lastly, F. Murray Abraham
F. Murray Abraham
Fahrid Murray Abraham is an American actor. He became known during the 1980s after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. He has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films such as All the President's Men and Scarface...
, who has a significant part in the film, chose to not be credited over a contract dispute.
Also, the studio took liberties with the source material, making Sherman McCoy more sympathetic and adding a subplot involving a minor character, Judge Leonard White. The controversies surrounding the film would be detailed in a book called The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood (1991), written by Julie Salamon.
For instance, the book shows that Brian de Palma had a difficult relationship with then-rising-star Bruce Willis who, in words of Julie Salamon, "was generally disliked by most of the cast and crew [due to his ego]." In one notorious instance, during the filming of one scene in which Willis was with Alan King (the scene in which the character played by King dies), Willis challenged the crew to make the whole scene move along faster, allegedly because it was very hot on the set.
Even though Willis was called out of the set by de Palma to discuss this incident, this particular scene ended up being considerably shorter and simpler than originally intended. Brian De Palma described The Devil's Candy as "a very good book. I let Julie Salamon
Julie Salamon
Julie Salamon , is an American journalist, critic and author.She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and raised in Seaman, a rural village located in Adams County, Ohio, where her father was the town doctor. After graduating from Tufts University, she moved to New York City, where she received her law...
see everything. She portrayed it all very accurately. But I mean, nobody realized it was going wrong when we were making it. We were very enthusiastic about what we were doing." Salamon's book was re-released in 2002 with a revised title, The Devil's Candy: The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco, and further material by Salamon (in which she describes Bruce Willis's negative reaction to the book).
In one notable visual scene in the film, Maria Ruskin (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...
) arrives in New York on an Air France
Air France
Air France , stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...
Concorde. The film's Second Unit Director, Eric Schwab, calculated the time and day when a runway at JFK would line up exactly with the setting sun, to serve as a backdrop, and managed to film in the single 30-second time period when this occurs in any given year, while winning a bet that he could make the scene an essential part of the movie. The 5-camera shot cost $80,000 and lasted just 10 seconds in the final cut. Schwab also directed the opening title shot — an almost equally elaborate and expensive set-up requiring a 24-hour timelapse of Manhattan, from a camera platform beside a gargoyle
Gargoyle
In architecture, a gargoyle is a carved stone grotesque, usually made of granite, with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building thereby preventing rainwater from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar between...
on top of the Chrysler Building
Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco style skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan in the Turtle Bay area at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Standing at , it was the world's tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State...
.
Several of the sets parodied the home decorated by Robert Denning
Robert Denning
Robert Denning was an American interior designer whose lush interpretations of French Victorian decor became an emblem of corporate raider tastes in the 1980s.-Early life:...
and Vincent Fourcade
Vincent Fourcade
Vincent Gabriel Fourcade was a French interior designer and the business and life partner of Robert Denning...
for Carolyne Roehm and Henry Kravis
Henry Kravis
Henry R. Kravis is an American businessman and private equity investor. He is the co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a private equity firm with over $62 billion in assets as of 2011. He has an estimated net worth of $3.7 billion as of September 2011, ranked by Forbes as the 88th richest...
.
The cover of Peter Fallow's book in the film has a similar design to the original first edition of Tom Wolfe's novel from 1987.
Locations
Sherman and Judy McCoy's luxury apartment was built on the Warner Bros. stage in Burbank, designed by Richard SylbertRichard Sylbert
Richard Sylbert was an Academy Award-winning production designer and art director, primarily for feature films....
.
The exteriors that were supposed to be Park Avenue really were Park Avenue, late at night. The rain and the phone box were fake. The lobby scenes were shot at 77 Park Avenue—De Palma said he hated that lobby, but it was all co-producer Fred Caruso could come up with. "Don't worry," said Caruso. "Director of Photography Vilmos Zsigmond
Vilmos Zsigmond
Vilmos Zsigmond, A.S.C. is a Hungarian-American cinematographer.In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild placed Zsigmond among the ten most influential cinematographers in history.-Biography:...
said he's going to make it beautiful." "I hate beautiful," retorted the director. But he sucked it up.
The courthouse scenes, after a frantic search that drove the executive producers crazy, were finally shot at Queens County Courthouse, at night. The shoot took eight nights.
Another courthouse scene was shot at the Essex County Courthouse in Newark. This was a farcical scene depicting Sherman McCoy and the judge battling the protesters, featuring Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
fighting with the sword from the statue of blind justice. After three separate test audiences said they hated it, the $2 million scene that had taken five nights to shoot was dropped.
The five-minute Steadicam
Steadicam
A Steadicam is a stabilizing mount for a motion picture camera that mechanically isolates it from the operator's movement, allowing a smooth shot even when moving quickly over an uneven surface...
shot of Peter Fallow arriving at the Palm Court of the Winter Garden was a tour de force for operator Larry McConkey. He had to track backwards, get on a golf cart, ride it for 380 ft, get off it again, track backwards 234 ft, get into the elevator, get out again, track for another 250 ft. A camera assistant was injured on the first attempt. The actress playing the P.R. woman who accompanies Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
during the shot is Rita Wilson
Rita Wilson
-Early life:Wilson was born Margarita Ibrahimoff in Los Angeles, California.Her father, a Bulgarian who worked at a racetrack, was born in Greece. Before immigrating to the US, he had lived in Bulgaria and Turkey....
, Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
's real-life wife.
The huge party scenes in Act 3 were shot at the L.A. Natural History Museum.
Courthouse exteriors were at the Mario Merola Building / Bronx County Courthouse. The subway entrance was fake — there is no subway station there.
Reception
The film itself was a critical and commercial flop when it was first released. The film cost an estimated US$47 million to make, but initially grossed just over US$15 million at the US box office, making it a huge box office bombBox office bomb
The phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...
.
Critical reception was overwhelmingly negative. The film scores a 23% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, based on thirty reviews.
Many critics complained about the casting, especially the casting of Hanks and Willis as McCoy and Fallow. Others complained that despite opening with a well-executed tracking shot, the first two acts of the film were horribly paced and that too much time was spent making Sherman McCoy a likeable character rather than advancing the plot of the story.
Of the way Tom Wolfe's story was adapted, Brian De Palma said "the initial concept of it was incorrect. If you’re going to do The Bonfire of the Vanities, you would have to make it a lot darker and more cynical, but because it was such an expensive movie we tried to humanize the Sherman McCoy character – a very unlikeable character, much like the character in The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize for novel. It was the second novel in his Growth trilogy, which included The Turmoil and The Midlander . In 1925 the novel was first adapted for film under the title Pampered Youth...
. We could have done that if we’d been making a low-budget movie, but this was a studio movie with Tom Hanks in it. We made a couple of choices that in retrospect were wrong. I think John Lithgow
John Lithgow
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...
would have been a better choice for Sherman McCoy, because he would have got the blue-blood arrogance of the character."
De Palma has, however, been quick to downplay the notion that the movie suffered because of studio interference: "The initial producers, once we had cast Tom Hanks, moved on and went over to Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, so I was sort of left to my own devices and pursued ways in which I thought I could make this movie more commercial and keep some edge of the book...I thought we were going to get away with it, but we didn’t. I knew that the people who read the book were going to be extremely unhappy, and I said, “Well, this is a movie; it isn’t the book.” And I think if you look at the movie now, and you don’t know anything about the book, and you get it out of the time that it was released, I think you can see it in a whole different way."
Overall, the film was nominated for 5 Golden Raspberry Awards
Golden Raspberry Awards
A Golden Raspberry Award, or Razzie for short, is an award presented in recognition of the worst in movies. Founded by American copywriter and publicist John J.B. Wilson in 1981, the annual Razzie Awards ceremony in Los Angeles precedes the corresponding Academy Awards ceremony by one day...
, including Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Actress (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...
), Worst Supporting Actress (Kim Cattrall
Kim Cattrall
Kim Victoria Cattrall is an English actress. She is known for her role as Samantha Jones in the HBO comedy/romance series Sex and the City, and for her leading roles in the 1980s films Police Academy, Big Trouble in Little China, Mannequin, and Porky's...
) and Worst Screenplay, but did not win any of those categories.
However, the film achieved a cult status in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe, and it is considered one of De Palma's major works. For example, in the countries of former Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
it has been aired on various TV stations dozens of times, and it is almost regularly being aired every year.