Doctor Omega
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The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1990 American comedy-drama film adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name by Tom Wolfe, originally serialized in Rolling Stone. A critical and commercial flop, the movie 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."
The film was plagued by controversy: the role of Peter Fallow was offered to both Jack Nicholson 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.
When the project was first pitched and Mike Nichols was the original director, he wanted Steve Martin for the role of Sherman McCoy (which the studio rejected because they thought Martin was too old for the role). Tom Wolfe wanted Chevy Chase for McCoy as well.
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 then 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 denounce the manipulative actions of the main characters. Edward James Olmos was also considered for the role of the judge. F. Murray Abraham, who had a significant part in the film, chose to not be credited, because of a contract dispute. When he was denied the billing above the title that he had requested, he took his name off the picture.
The studio made significant changes to the source material, making Sherman McCoy more sympathetic and adding a subplot involving a minor character, Judge Leonard White. The controversies surrounding the film were detailed in a book called The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood (1991), written by Julie Salamon.
As an example, the book describes how Brian de Palma had a difficult relationship with then-rising-star Bruce Willis who, in the words of Julie Salamon, "was generally disliked by most of the cast and crew [due to his ego]." In one instance, during the filming of a 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.
Although Willis was called out of the set by de Palma to discuss the 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).
The film itself was a critical and commercial flop when it was 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 bomb.
Critical reception was fiercely negative. The film scores a 16% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 50 reviews. In Leonard Maltin's annual Movie Guide publication, the film was given a "BOMB" rating, and described as an "appallingly heavy-handed 'comedy'".
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.
Because of the bad reviews and reception, the movie was mocked in pop-culture. In a season seven episode of The Golden Girls called "The Monkey Show," Sophia says "I've seen everything twice, except The Bonfire of the Vanities. Woof."
However, the film achieved cult status in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe, where it is considered one of De Palma's major works. In the countries of the former Yugoslavia, it has been aired on various TV stations dozens of times and is still regularly aired each year.
But what are your thoughts and opinions on this much lambasted Brian De Palma movie?
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