{"id":39065,"date":"2023-03-06T14:01:35","date_gmt":"2023-03-06T19:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=39065"},"modified":"2023-03-06T14:01:35","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T19:01:35","slug":"bad-movie-monday-tough-guys-dont-dance-1987","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/06\/bad-movie-monday-tough-guys-dont-dance-1987\/","title":{"rendered":"BAD MOVIE MONDAY: TOUGH GUYS DON’T DANCE (1987)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Can a good movie be bad? I like to think so, yes. There’s plenty of examples of award winning critical darlings, like Forrest Gump, that are considered utter trash today. Conversely, a bad movie can also be good<\/em>. Take something like Zardoz. Everyone hated it at the time, but now it’s mostly seen as a bold artistic and challenging film. With this paradox in mind, today I\u2019ll be reviewing TOUGH GUYS DON\u2019T DANCE starring Ryan O’Neal, Isabella Rossellini, Wings Hauser, and Lawrence Tierney.<\/p>\n

Quick Recap! When COVID shut down everything in early 2020, I started an online bad movie night get-together with some friends that we eventually dubbed \u201cBad Movie Monday\u201d. The premise was simple: We\u2019d torture each other every Monday with the worst trash we could find, tell a few jokes, cheer each other up, and in the process maybe discover some weird obscure cinema that we might never have seen any other way. This series of reviews will feature highlights of those night so you can all share in the fun and maybe get some ideas for your own movie night.<\/em><\/p>\n

The film has a bit of a reputation online for one particularly awkward line reading by O’Neal, but little else. It flopped hard at the box office, received lukewarm criticism, and then disappeared from public consciousness so completely that I doubt it will ever even rise to the heights of cult status. One of the issues was that Norman Mailer, who wrote the book, directed it himself and… well… umm… err… Let me put it this way. Mailer\u2019s film doesn\u2019t quite appeal to critics and certainly doesn’t appeal to a mass audience. I have no idea who he intended this for. Perhaps himself?<\/p>\n

Now, I’ll be one hundred percent honest here, I freakin’ LOVE this movie. Not only that, but it’s one of my favorite films of all time. On paper, this should<\/em> be a masterpiece. It has a great cast and it’s based on Norman Mailer’s own award winning book. It’s also very well shot, this has really interesting and gorgeous cinematography, and it\u2019s scored by the brilliant tragically departed Angelo Badalamenti. In fact, in a weird way, this feels very much like a lost David Lynch film because of the lush beautiful music and the presence of Isabella Rosellini. So if you whispered in my ear that Lynch did a little \u201cadvising\u201d to Mailer behind the scenes I’d believe you.<\/p>\n

However…<\/p>\n

Mailer seems to have a preference for spontaneous “in the moment” acting, which means that the film is filled with weird line deliveries and actors often making utterly bonkers choices. The result is that you often feel like you’re watching an acting workshop more than a movie. Much of this film feels like it was filmed in one take. Mailer is also in love with his book and didn’t seem to want to cut anything to make it more cinematic. So, many scenes that worked just fine as written prose don’t quite translate visually. There is also the issue that many scenes add nothing to the story he’s trying to tell. Digression may work in a book because your canvas can be so much bigger, but a film needs to be streamlined and focused. Something Mailer isn’t very good at. He likes to ramble a bit.<\/p>\n

Still, I think he does a lot of things right. He has a great eye for location, knows how to create this odd eerie surreal mood, and he picked the perfect actors. One wonderful discovery is Debra Sandlund, who had a career playing sexy sassy girls in TV shows like A-Team, Moonlighting, Who’s The Boss and Murder She Wrote, but nothing about her previous work will prepare you for how free and mad her performance is. She has delicious fun with most of her scenes, just going all out and with dialogue that sounds like it was written by a lunatic during a weekend coke binge, which it probably was.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the back of the VHS say?<\/p>\n

Writer, director and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner NORMAN MAILER presents the most daring film noir murder-thriller ever filmed! Starring RYAN O’NEAL (Love Story) and ISABELLA ROSSELLINI (Blue Velvet), it’s the critically acclaimed Tough Guys Don’t Dance!<\/strong><\/p>\n

His memory fractured by a two-week drinking binge, writer and ex-con Tim Madden (RYAN O’NEAL) awakens to find a pool of blood in his car, a woman’s head in his marijuana stash and a psychotic police chief (WINGS HAUSER) playing house with his former girlfriend (ISABELLA ROSSELLINI). More mutilated corpses turn up and Madden suspects everyone, including his ex-wife, a millionaire college pal – and himself! Embarking on a bizarre, tortured odyssey through a past filled with faithless love, drugs and decadence, Madden risks his life in a desperate search for the shocking, deadly truth!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don’t get fooled by the way, when the VHS said Tough Guys Don’t Dance was “critically acclaimed” it meant the book. That said, this is a good synopsis that really gets you in the mood to watch the movie without spilling any secrets.<\/p>\n

So, like I said, this is one of my favorite movies of all time. I watched it for the first time in 1988 when I was around 15 and starting my arthouse film journey, and have watched it several dozens of time since. Yes, the film can be a bit sloppy. I mean, it manages to meander so much that someone has a flashback within<\/em> their own flashback. That said, the mystery is compelling and the characters are certainly colorful.<\/p>\n

Now for my favorite part of the review where I list ten thoughts that popped in my head as I watched this movie:<\/p>\n

#1 Tierney and O’Neal really do look and behave like a father and son. There seems to be some gruff genuine affection between the two.<\/p>\n

#2 If this movie is any way indicative of reality, parties at Norman Mailer’s place must have been fucking wild!<\/p>\n

#3 Norman Mailer never met an odd awkward take he didn’t love. Either that or his cast was so drunk and stoned they couldn’t do more than one take.<\/p>\n

#4 Lawrence Tierney will always look like he wants to fight everyone in the same scene as him.<\/p>\n

#5 Ryan O’Neal is lost when he doesn’t have someone like Stanley Kubrick telling him exactly what to do. Then again, Mailer uses this rather well to show that O\u2019Neal\u2019s character is in a constant state of confusion.<\/p>\n

#6 Norman Mailer loved Provincetown, Massachusetts more than his actors, his story, or his movie.<\/p>\n

#7 There is a scene towards the end of the movie where Wings Hauser and Lawrence Tierney look like they’re legitimately trying to intimidate each other and HOLY SHIT is it intense!<\/p>\n

#8 Tragically, there is a distinct absence of bad dummies falling from a great height. However, there is massive amounts of casual wife swapping, so the film makes up for it.<\/p>\n

#9 Norman Mailer’s instructions for his actors was probably “Eh, whatever. Go with it!” more often than not.<\/p>\n

#10 Despite my joking around, you will respect every single actor in this by the end credits. They acted the shit out of this. Everybody gave it their all, even Ryan O\u2019Neal. Yes, that \u201cOh man! Oh God!\u201d clip on YouTube looks ridiculous out of context, but it fits the movie perfectly. Trust me on this.<\/p>\n

NOTE: I want to apologize for the somewhat pixelated images, but I like to include the period correct poster in these reviews and I cannot for the life of me find one with good resolution. So just adjust your eyes and pretend it looks good – JK<\/em><\/p>\n

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Can a good movie be bad? I like to think so, yes. There’s plenty of examples of award winning critical darlings, like Forrest Gump, that are considered utter trash today. Conversely, a bad movie can also be good. Take something like Zardoz. Everyone hated it at the time, but now it’s mostly seen as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3070],"tags":[3134,3129,3132,3128,3133,3130,3131],"class_list":["post-39065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badmoviemonday","tag-angelo-badalamenti","tag-isabella-rossellini","tag-laurence-tierney","tag-norman-mailer","tag-ryan-oneal","tag-surreal","tag-wings-hauser"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39065"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39079,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39065\/revisions\/39079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}