The Bonfire Of The Vanities

A few months back, I wrote about a couple of movies based on books that are difficult to transition from page to screen. Brian De Palma had a similar case when he helmed 1990's The Bonfire Of The Vanities. Even though it was one of the more popular novels of the 80's, it's not one that lends itself easily to screen.

Sherman McCoy, Tom Hanks, is a Wall Street tycoon who it seems has a charmed life. That is until one night when he and his mistress Maria, Melanie Griffith, make a wrong turn off the expressway and hit a young African American male, putting him in a coma.

Sherman, not wanting his wife, Kim Cattrell, to know he was with Maria, takes the rap. Meanwhile, washed up, alcoholic writer Peter Fallow gets assigned the story. Seeing this as an opportunity for a comeback, Peter totally plays up the race card making Sherman a villain in both his community and with the under privelaged.

There was a lot of hate towards this movie when it came out, but I think De Palma does a decent job with the material. To be fair, there was a lot of butting heads between De Palma, Thomas Wolfe, who wrote the novel, and the studio. In the novel, there isn't any sympathetic characters, but the studio had the screenwriter, Michael Cristofer, soften up the Sherman McCoy role, much to the displeasure of De Palma and Wolfe. They also beefed up the character of the judge, Morgan Freeman, who was a minor character in the novel. I guess when you have Freeman, you want to give him as much screen time as possible.

One of the biggest squabbles was casting. For McCoy, De Palma wanted John Lithgow. Wolfe wanted Chevy Chase. The studio first picked Steve Martin, but when he turned it down they went with Hanks, who definately fit the studios more sympathetic vision of Sherman. De Palma's leading lady from Scarface, Michelle Pfeiffer, was originally slated to play Maria. She had to bow out and De Palma turned to another leading lady of his, Body Double's Griffith. De Palma originally wanted either Jack Nicholson or John Cleese to play Fallow, but when they turned it down, the studio forced De Palma to hire Willis. Supposedly Willis was a total prima donna on set and constantly butted heads with De Palma and the cast. F. Murray Abraham, who plays the district attorney, also butted heads with De Palma and the studio. When he found out that his name wouldn't be above the title, he had it removed from the film. Freeman was a last minute addition to the film, replacing Alan Arkin. The studio felt that the judge should be African American in hopes of avoiding protests and riots.

I was a fan of the novel, and, in most part, of the movie as well. I don't like how they softened it up. The book is pretty dark and doesn't really have anybody to root for. They should have kept that tone. Also, Hanks is a bit miscast as McCoy. He seems kind of wet behind the ears to play what is basically a bit of a bastard. Also, De Palma's pacing is kind of slow. The film has a great start and finish, but it drags some in the middle.

That being said, I do really enjoy this movie however. De Palma does get the humor of the material. And even though he was hard to work with, Willis is really good as Fallow. I miss funny Bruce Willis.

Overall, I enjoy this movie.

It's available on dvd.