Bloodhounds Of Broadway
|
Supporting Role:
Hortense Hathaway |
Director:
Howard Brookner |
Studio:
Columbia, American Playhouse |
US Box Office (US$)
43,671 |
Bloodhounds of Broadway is a 1989 film based on four Damon Runyon stories. It was directed by Howard Brookner and starred an ensemble cast that included Matt Dillon, Jennifer Grey, Julie Hagerty, Rutger Hauer, Madonna, and Randy Quaid.
Bloodhounds of Broadway was Brookner's first feature-length film (and his last, as he died shortly before the film opened). The film was recut by the studio and Walter Winchellesque narration added.
Plot
Broadway, New Year's Eve, 1928. A muckraking reporter, Waldo Winchester, frames four major stories during the wild New Year's Eve of 1928.
We meet the players in a diner. The Brain (Rutger Hauer), a gangster with multiple girlfriends, is accompanied by a gambler named Regret (Matt Dillon) after the only horse he even won a bet on and an outsider who (with his bloodhounds) is being treated to a meal. Feet Samuels (Randy Quaid) so named because of his big feet is in love with a showgirl named Hortense Hathaway (Madonna), who is tossed out of the diner because of an unsavory reputation). Feet plans to have one wild night before committing suicide, having sold his exceptionally large feet to a doctor who expects delivery the next day.
Harriet MacKyle (Julie Hagerty), a sheltered but friendly socialite, makes arrangements with a smooth-talking fixer for a big party that night at her estate, where many of the players will later attend. She has an interest in the exciting but dangerous criminal element. A girl selling flowers comes in after Feet makes a full payment of a debt to the Brain, so the Brain offers $5 for a 25-cent flower, telling her to keep the change. But before he can leave, a hitman for the Brooklyn Mob stabs him. The wounded Brain tells his men to take him "home." Unfortunately, his many girlfriends refuse to allow him in for various reasons.
Feet gets involved in a high-stakes craps game. With considerable luck, he wins a massive payoff of money and jewelry. Regret suggests they find another game, but Feet reveals his plan to kill himself. Regret tries to talk him out of it, but Feet, sworn to see his last promise fulfilled, is adamant. Regret dials up the reporter, who is now at MacKyle's party, and asks him to talk to Hortense (his niece) and get her to realize Feet is smitten with her.
Hortense must try to persuade Feet that she wants to quit her life as a lounge singer, move to New Jersey and raise a family. Regret, meanwhile, continues to be the world's unluckiest gambler, but showgirl Lovey Lou (Jennifer Grey) is in love with him anyway.
Background
As a student at Phillips Exeter, Mr. Brookner wrote an avant-garde play with a toilet as its centerpiece. The work won a New England prep school award. For his master's thesis at New York University he made a film about the writer William S. Burroughs. The film was screened at the 1984 New York Film Festival and Janet Maslin wrote of it in The New York Times: ''Rarely is a documentary as well attuned to its subject as Howard Brookner's 'Burroughs,' which captures as much about the life, work and sensibility of its subject as its 86-minute format allows.''
Brookner’s profile was on the rise. As Madonna later remarked: ''I sort of knew about Howard on the scene, hanging out in clubs. I thought his Burroughs documentary was hysterically funny. And he didn't try to flatter me.''
After two years of trying to break into the movies by commuting to Hollywood from his apartment in New York, he interested ''American Playhouse'' and David Puttnam, then the chairman of Columbia Pictures, in ''Bloodhounds.'' The idea of using the Damon Runyon stories had been suggested to Mr. Brookner by Colman deKay, an Exeter classmate who became the movie's co-writer and associate producer.
Brookner, finished the rough cut of ''Bloodhounds'' during the summer of 1988, at the same time as his first visit to hospital.
Four months before the movie was to start, Mr. Brookner knew that he was ill. The only person he told about the swollen lymph glands and the fungus infection in his throat was the man he had lived with for eight years, Brad Gooch, a novelist. He doctored himself with medical and mystical remedies, but from then on, the movie and the disease were in a race.
Production
Mr. Brookner made it hip to get a part in ''Bloodhounds of Broadway.'' He got Matt Dillon to play a lowlife character in ''Bloodhounds'' by taking the actor to Umberto's Clam House in Manhattan for lunch and presenting him with an envelope. Inside were photographs of the gangster Joey Gallo lying murdered on the floor of the restaurant.
Columbia thought Mr. Brookner's rough cut of the intricate, stylized film was confusing in its attempt to mix dozens of characters with names like Hotfoot Harry and Feet Samuels. The picture was re-cut by the studio and narration was added.
Much earlier, when ''The Bloodhounds of Broadway'' was only a dozen signatures on legal documents, Mr. Brookner had asked Lindsay Law, the head of the ''American Playhouse'' series on PBS, which had given him seed money: ''What do we do when Columbia wants final cut? You never allow that, do you?''
Mr. Law says: ''I told him, 'Howard, this is the first feature film of a long career; you can't expect a studio to give you final cut.' He said, 'But what if this is my only film?' Those words echo now.''
In November, he discontinued AZT. ''He said AZT was clouding his mind, making him tired and unfocused,'' Mr. Gooch says. ''It was a very clear choice, a very Howard Brookner choice, reckless but incredibly dedicated.''
Howard Brookner did not give his life to make ''Bloodhounds of Broadway.'' AIDS had already laid claim to it. It was a question only of when the disease would take delivery. He traded his days and months for the power of shivering behind a camera. By giving up AZT, he may also have allowed the virus to creep into his brain.
His exhaustion was chalked up to the cold nights of shooting on too low a budget and too short a schedule. Only his mother and Madonna noticed that he wasn't eating. ''He would take two bites and stop,'' his mother recalls. ''I thought: 'He's not eating. That's what wrong.' Mothers always think that.''
Madonna says: ''I knew something was wrong halfway through the movie, but I wasn't going to press him. He had a right to keep it private. Later, when he phoned and said, 'I have to tell you something,' he couldn't get it out. I said, 'I already know.' I think it was kind of a relief that I knew and that my feelings about him weren't going to change.''
Brookner laced self-pity with vinegar. ''You look like you've seen a ghost,'' he told Randy Quaid, when the actor came to read to him toward the end.
Like many of his friends, Madonna is haunted by a specific memory: ''Long before I knew anything, Howard asked me if I had ever seen anybody die. He wanted all the gory details about a friend who had AIDS and I nursed him to the end and was in the room when he died.''
''When I die, my education dies with me,'' Mr. Brookner observed that fall. ''All those years of Latin, French, Italian. We all share the same education, including television, film, music, events. But each person's mix is slightly different. My particular mix will be removed soon from this planet.''
Early in 1989, Columbia sold Mr. Brookner's movie to Vestron, and ''Bloodhounds'' was even further removed from him. (After Mr. Brookner's death, Vestron got into financial trouble and returned the film to Columbia.) ''When I told Howard that the movie wouldn't be released until fall,'' Lindsay Law says, ''he said, 'I won't be alive.' He said it as someone might tell you your bank balance.''
''In February, Howard decided to die,'' says Mr. Gooch. ''It was a very clear decision. Suddenly the movie wasn't the movie he wanted to stay alive to see.''
Against the odds and rapidly deteriorating health Brookner had succeeded in writing, producing and directing ‘Bloodhounds’, albeit that he did not live long enough to see his film released.
''That he had done it amazed him,'' says his mother, Elaine. ''If I can believe in superstitions, it's almost as though he got this movie in exchange for what was coming.''
When he died of AIDS on 27 April 1989, he left two statements. The first was 8,100 feet of celluloid called ''The Bloodhounds of Broadway,'' the second, written in the sardonic manner in which he handled his illness, was taped to his refrigerator during the last year of his life: ''There's so much beauty in the world. I suppose that's what got me into trouble in the first place.''
Howard Brookner was buried on his 35th birthday.
Reception and Awards
Reviews were mixed. The New York Times reviewer commented: In spite of its large, talented cast, including Matt Dillon, Madonna, Julie Hagerty and Randy Quaid, ''Bloodhounds of Broadway'' never gets going. It ambles pleasantly. Even though the movie ends about 15 minutes before it actually stops, ''Bloodhounds of Broadway'' plays as if it were a series of vaguely connected opening sequences.
Every scene seems to be introductory, which is the built-in fault of the screenplay by Howard Brookner (who also directed) and Colman deKay. It's not easy handling this many characters who, though colorful, are not necessarily distinctive.
Though ''Bloodhounds'' is well cast, and every performer enters into the fablelike spirit of the project, the movie is too fragile for its own good.
In the UK a respective review by Time Out noted that “the performances aren't too bad - even Madonna's” but went on to specifically single out Madonna for criticism observing that “her squeaky disco voice is manifestly unsuited to period crooning.” However the overall review was poor – “…even the all-star cast can't impose order or interest on the ludicrous and mystifyingly convoluted plot. Madonna's confession that she wants to drop being a jazz baby and retire to a 'quarter-acre in Newark' to raise babies and chickens might just be worth your attention. But ultimately the film delivers its own epitaph: 'The Brain is dead'. I'm afraid so.”
Interestingly one of the goofs in ‘Bloodhounds’ was a reference to famous police detective Dick Tracy, however the film is set in 1928 and the Dick Tracy comic wasn't released until 1931. Ironically, Madonna’s next film project was none other than - ‘Dick Tracy’!
Madonna earned a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress for her performance in the film.
Miscellaneous
The experience of witnessing the decline and eventual demise of Howard Brookner, who was one of many artists afflicted by AIDS in this period, prompted Madonna to include the AIDS information leaflet that appeared in her studio album ‘Like A Prayer’ which was released in March 1989, a month before Brookner’s passing.
Madonna and Jennifer Grey perform a duet, "I Surrender Dear", during the film. As this track was never released, either as a single or on a soundtrack album, the video release remains the only format on which the track is available.
UK Video Releases
There are three different commercial versions of the video. The rarest is the limited number that were issued for rental purposes. This version has artwork with a cream background housed in a large box. This was joined by the alternative blue-background artwork in the regular-sized box for standard release.
For all promo items see the video entry within the PROMO page
Bloodhounds of Broadway was Brookner's first feature-length film (and his last, as he died shortly before the film opened). The film was recut by the studio and Walter Winchellesque narration added.
Plot
Broadway, New Year's Eve, 1928. A muckraking reporter, Waldo Winchester, frames four major stories during the wild New Year's Eve of 1928.
We meet the players in a diner. The Brain (Rutger Hauer), a gangster with multiple girlfriends, is accompanied by a gambler named Regret (Matt Dillon) after the only horse he even won a bet on and an outsider who (with his bloodhounds) is being treated to a meal. Feet Samuels (Randy Quaid) so named because of his big feet is in love with a showgirl named Hortense Hathaway (Madonna), who is tossed out of the diner because of an unsavory reputation). Feet plans to have one wild night before committing suicide, having sold his exceptionally large feet to a doctor who expects delivery the next day.
Harriet MacKyle (Julie Hagerty), a sheltered but friendly socialite, makes arrangements with a smooth-talking fixer for a big party that night at her estate, where many of the players will later attend. She has an interest in the exciting but dangerous criminal element. A girl selling flowers comes in after Feet makes a full payment of a debt to the Brain, so the Brain offers $5 for a 25-cent flower, telling her to keep the change. But before he can leave, a hitman for the Brooklyn Mob stabs him. The wounded Brain tells his men to take him "home." Unfortunately, his many girlfriends refuse to allow him in for various reasons.
Feet gets involved in a high-stakes craps game. With considerable luck, he wins a massive payoff of money and jewelry. Regret suggests they find another game, but Feet reveals his plan to kill himself. Regret tries to talk him out of it, but Feet, sworn to see his last promise fulfilled, is adamant. Regret dials up the reporter, who is now at MacKyle's party, and asks him to talk to Hortense (his niece) and get her to realize Feet is smitten with her.
Hortense must try to persuade Feet that she wants to quit her life as a lounge singer, move to New Jersey and raise a family. Regret, meanwhile, continues to be the world's unluckiest gambler, but showgirl Lovey Lou (Jennifer Grey) is in love with him anyway.
Background
As a student at Phillips Exeter, Mr. Brookner wrote an avant-garde play with a toilet as its centerpiece. The work won a New England prep school award. For his master's thesis at New York University he made a film about the writer William S. Burroughs. The film was screened at the 1984 New York Film Festival and Janet Maslin wrote of it in The New York Times: ''Rarely is a documentary as well attuned to its subject as Howard Brookner's 'Burroughs,' which captures as much about the life, work and sensibility of its subject as its 86-minute format allows.''
Brookner’s profile was on the rise. As Madonna later remarked: ''I sort of knew about Howard on the scene, hanging out in clubs. I thought his Burroughs documentary was hysterically funny. And he didn't try to flatter me.''
After two years of trying to break into the movies by commuting to Hollywood from his apartment in New York, he interested ''American Playhouse'' and David Puttnam, then the chairman of Columbia Pictures, in ''Bloodhounds.'' The idea of using the Damon Runyon stories had been suggested to Mr. Brookner by Colman deKay, an Exeter classmate who became the movie's co-writer and associate producer.
Brookner, finished the rough cut of ''Bloodhounds'' during the summer of 1988, at the same time as his first visit to hospital.
Four months before the movie was to start, Mr. Brookner knew that he was ill. The only person he told about the swollen lymph glands and the fungus infection in his throat was the man he had lived with for eight years, Brad Gooch, a novelist. He doctored himself with medical and mystical remedies, but from then on, the movie and the disease were in a race.
Production
Mr. Brookner made it hip to get a part in ''Bloodhounds of Broadway.'' He got Matt Dillon to play a lowlife character in ''Bloodhounds'' by taking the actor to Umberto's Clam House in Manhattan for lunch and presenting him with an envelope. Inside were photographs of the gangster Joey Gallo lying murdered on the floor of the restaurant.
Columbia thought Mr. Brookner's rough cut of the intricate, stylized film was confusing in its attempt to mix dozens of characters with names like Hotfoot Harry and Feet Samuels. The picture was re-cut by the studio and narration was added.
Much earlier, when ''The Bloodhounds of Broadway'' was only a dozen signatures on legal documents, Mr. Brookner had asked Lindsay Law, the head of the ''American Playhouse'' series on PBS, which had given him seed money: ''What do we do when Columbia wants final cut? You never allow that, do you?''
Mr. Law says: ''I told him, 'Howard, this is the first feature film of a long career; you can't expect a studio to give you final cut.' He said, 'But what if this is my only film?' Those words echo now.''
In November, he discontinued AZT. ''He said AZT was clouding his mind, making him tired and unfocused,'' Mr. Gooch says. ''It was a very clear choice, a very Howard Brookner choice, reckless but incredibly dedicated.''
Howard Brookner did not give his life to make ''Bloodhounds of Broadway.'' AIDS had already laid claim to it. It was a question only of when the disease would take delivery. He traded his days and months for the power of shivering behind a camera. By giving up AZT, he may also have allowed the virus to creep into his brain.
His exhaustion was chalked up to the cold nights of shooting on too low a budget and too short a schedule. Only his mother and Madonna noticed that he wasn't eating. ''He would take two bites and stop,'' his mother recalls. ''I thought: 'He's not eating. That's what wrong.' Mothers always think that.''
Madonna says: ''I knew something was wrong halfway through the movie, but I wasn't going to press him. He had a right to keep it private. Later, when he phoned and said, 'I have to tell you something,' he couldn't get it out. I said, 'I already know.' I think it was kind of a relief that I knew and that my feelings about him weren't going to change.''
Brookner laced self-pity with vinegar. ''You look like you've seen a ghost,'' he told Randy Quaid, when the actor came to read to him toward the end.
Like many of his friends, Madonna is haunted by a specific memory: ''Long before I knew anything, Howard asked me if I had ever seen anybody die. He wanted all the gory details about a friend who had AIDS and I nursed him to the end and was in the room when he died.''
''When I die, my education dies with me,'' Mr. Brookner observed that fall. ''All those years of Latin, French, Italian. We all share the same education, including television, film, music, events. But each person's mix is slightly different. My particular mix will be removed soon from this planet.''
Early in 1989, Columbia sold Mr. Brookner's movie to Vestron, and ''Bloodhounds'' was even further removed from him. (After Mr. Brookner's death, Vestron got into financial trouble and returned the film to Columbia.) ''When I told Howard that the movie wouldn't be released until fall,'' Lindsay Law says, ''he said, 'I won't be alive.' He said it as someone might tell you your bank balance.''
''In February, Howard decided to die,'' says Mr. Gooch. ''It was a very clear decision. Suddenly the movie wasn't the movie he wanted to stay alive to see.''
Against the odds and rapidly deteriorating health Brookner had succeeded in writing, producing and directing ‘Bloodhounds’, albeit that he did not live long enough to see his film released.
''That he had done it amazed him,'' says his mother, Elaine. ''If I can believe in superstitions, it's almost as though he got this movie in exchange for what was coming.''
When he died of AIDS on 27 April 1989, he left two statements. The first was 8,100 feet of celluloid called ''The Bloodhounds of Broadway,'' the second, written in the sardonic manner in which he handled his illness, was taped to his refrigerator during the last year of his life: ''There's so much beauty in the world. I suppose that's what got me into trouble in the first place.''
Howard Brookner was buried on his 35th birthday.
Reception and Awards
Reviews were mixed. The New York Times reviewer commented: In spite of its large, talented cast, including Matt Dillon, Madonna, Julie Hagerty and Randy Quaid, ''Bloodhounds of Broadway'' never gets going. It ambles pleasantly. Even though the movie ends about 15 minutes before it actually stops, ''Bloodhounds of Broadway'' plays as if it were a series of vaguely connected opening sequences.
Every scene seems to be introductory, which is the built-in fault of the screenplay by Howard Brookner (who also directed) and Colman deKay. It's not easy handling this many characters who, though colorful, are not necessarily distinctive.
Though ''Bloodhounds'' is well cast, and every performer enters into the fablelike spirit of the project, the movie is too fragile for its own good.
In the UK a respective review by Time Out noted that “the performances aren't too bad - even Madonna's” but went on to specifically single out Madonna for criticism observing that “her squeaky disco voice is manifestly unsuited to period crooning.” However the overall review was poor – “…even the all-star cast can't impose order or interest on the ludicrous and mystifyingly convoluted plot. Madonna's confession that she wants to drop being a jazz baby and retire to a 'quarter-acre in Newark' to raise babies and chickens might just be worth your attention. But ultimately the film delivers its own epitaph: 'The Brain is dead'. I'm afraid so.”
Interestingly one of the goofs in ‘Bloodhounds’ was a reference to famous police detective Dick Tracy, however the film is set in 1928 and the Dick Tracy comic wasn't released until 1931. Ironically, Madonna’s next film project was none other than - ‘Dick Tracy’!
Madonna earned a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress for her performance in the film.
Miscellaneous
The experience of witnessing the decline and eventual demise of Howard Brookner, who was one of many artists afflicted by AIDS in this period, prompted Madonna to include the AIDS information leaflet that appeared in her studio album ‘Like A Prayer’ which was released in March 1989, a month before Brookner’s passing.
Madonna and Jennifer Grey perform a duet, "I Surrender Dear", during the film. As this track was never released, either as a single or on a soundtrack album, the video release remains the only format on which the track is available.
UK Video Releases
There are three different commercial versions of the video. The rarest is the limited number that were issued for rental purposes. This version has artwork with a cream background housed in a large box. This was joined by the alternative blue-background artwork in the regular-sized box for standard release.
For all promo items see the video entry within the PROMO page
UK Video - 1989 rental-only release with cream sleeve in large case
UK Video - 1989 release with blue sleeve in standard case
UK Video - 1992 reissue with additional 'Madonna' information on sleeve
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© madonna-decade 2013
© madonna-decade 2013