Outrageous Fortune | |
---|---|
Directed by | Arthur Hiller |
Written by | Leslie Dixon |
Produced by | Ted Field Robert W. Cort |
Starring | |
Cinematography | David M. Walsh |
Edited by | Tom Rolf |
Music by | Alan Silvestri |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution Co. |
Release date |
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Running time | 100 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $52.9 million |
Outrageous Fortune is a 1987 American comedy film written by Leslie Dixon, directed by Arthur Hiller and starring Shelley Long and Bette Midler. The title is taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet ("...the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune..."). It is the tenth film of Touchstone Pictures.
The film was successful at the box office, and Midler was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and won an American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture (Leading Role).
Refined but struggling actress Lauren Ames (Shelley Long) finally has a chance to study with the great theatre professor Stanislav Korzenowski (Robert Prosky). Sandy Brozinsky (Bette Midler), a brash, loud actress, decides through happenstance to also study with Korzenowski. Lauren and Sandy take an instant dislike to each other when they first meet in Korzenowski's class, but unknown to each other, both women begin dating the same man, Michael Santers (Peter Coyote).
When Michael "dies" in a gas explosion at a local store, Lauren and Sandy figure out that Michael may have faked his death, and they form an uneasy alliance to follow leads across the country to find him and force him to choose between them. During their quest, Lauren and Sandy are chased by CIA agents, as well as Russian assassins who are also after Michael.
When Lauren and Sandy finally find Michael, he tries to kill both of them and they are forced to run until they are captured by the federal agents. Lauren and Sandy learn that Michael is a double agent for the CIA who has now gone rogue, also working for the KGB, and that he has stolen a toxin that could destroy huge areas of nature with just a few drops. The CIA wants to find Michael to force him to give back the toxin bio-weapon, while the Russian assassins are men cheated by the double agent who works for Korzenowski, their theatre professor.
The chase leads to rural New Mexico when Lauren is taken hostage by Michael and his rogue associates who force a trade with the CIA for the toxin, and with Korzenowski with the stolen cash he intended to give to Michael. When the trade goes awry, Lauren gets away with both the money and the toxin, with Michael in hot pursuit. Cornered on a series of mountain tops, Lauren uses her former ballet skills to evade him, culminating in a grand jeté, as pursuing Michael slips and is presumably killed on the rocks far below while the money is lost to Native Americans. The women form a lasting friendship, and go on to perform Hamlet together, with Lauren in the title role and Sandy as Ophelia.
Both Shelley Long and Bette Midler were promised top billing when they signed to do the film; however, neither was willing to give up top billing to the other. To compromise, Long received top billing in advertising west of the Mississippi River, and Midler received the honor in the east. This agreement extended through the original LaserDisc and VHS release of the title, with discs shipped to retailers in the west featuring Shelley Long and retailers on the east receiving discs featuring Bette Midler. [1]
On an episode of Oprah , Midler remarked that working with Long was "rough," echoing similar sentiments amongst Long's bosses on her hit TV series Cheers . [2]
Suzanne Somers has said that Michael Eisner offered her a three-movie deal with Disney which included Outrageous Fortune, but she turned it down. She would have played Bette Midler's part. [3]
Being "top billed" is when an actor has their name listed first in the movie, on posters, and all the promotional material for a film. It is important for actors, because it shows their importance (and negotiating power). On this film, the stars shared top billing. [5]
Two different prints of the movie were made, one listing Shelley Long's name first and the other listing Bette Midler's name first. [6] Not only that, two different covers to take-home products (LaserDisc and VHS) were also made, with different names first. The art was mirrored, so that the names aligned with the actors images.
The film received mixed reviews from critics. [7] [8] [9] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 58% of 26 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.3/10. [10] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 55 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore were more positive, giving the film an average grade of "A−" on a scale of A+ to F. [11]
Roger Ebert gave the film 2 stars out of 4, saying that the movie is "painstakingly crafted as a product," and focused on assembling "standard cliches" and expensive stunts rather than exploring the humanity of its characters. [12] Gene Siskel gave it 2 and a half stars, praising Bette Midler for providing "big laughs" but saying she "is the only reason to watch this uneven comedy." [13] Janet Maslin of The New York Times described the two leads as "hilarious," saying Shelley Long does her role "to perfection" and Bette Midler "has flawless phrasing and timing." She said the film "has a light tone, a steady pace and an enjoyable professionalism that help take the edge off the material's occasional lapses." [14]
For her performance, Midler received a Golden Globe nomination.
Outrageous Fortune was financially successful, debuting at number 2 at the US box office with a gross of $6.4 million in its opening weekend, a record for Disney at the time. [15] It went on to gross $52.9 million in the US and Canada. [16] [17]
Bette Midler is an American actress, comedian, singer, and author. Throughout her five-decade career Midler has received numerous accolades, including four Golden Globe Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and a Kennedy Center Honor, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and a British Academy Film Award.
The Rose is a 1979 American musical drama film directed by Mark Rydell, and starring Bette Midler, Alan Bates, Frederic Forrest, Harry Dean Stanton, Barry Primus, and David Keith. Loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin, the film follows a self-destructive rock star in the late 1960s, who struggles to cope with the pressures of her career and the demands of her ruthless business manager.
Shelley Long is an American actress, singer, and comedian. For her role as Diane Chambers on the sitcom Cheers, Long received five Emmy nominations, winning in 1983 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She also won two Golden Globe Awards for the role. Long reprised her role as Diane Chambers in three episodes of the spin-off Frasier, for which she received an additional guest star Emmy nomination. In 2009, she began playing the recurring role of DeDe Pritchett on the ABC comedy series Modern Family.
Ruthless People is a 1986 American black comedy film directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker and written by Dale Launer. It stars Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold, Anita Morris, and Helen Slater, with Bill Pullman in a supporting role in his film debut. The film is the story of a couple who kidnap their ex-boss's wife to get revenge and extort money from him. They soon realize he does not want her back and was planning to kill her himself. Meanwhile, the boss's mistress plans a blackmail attempt on him, which also fails to go as planned.
Outrageous! is a 1977 Canadian comedy-drama film written and directed by Richard Benner. The film stars Craig Russell as female impersonator Robin Turner, and Hollis McLaren as Turner's schizophrenic roommate Liza Conners. The plot begins in Toronto, with later scenes in New York City.
Russell Craig Eadie, better known by his stage name Craig Russell, was a Canadian female impersonator and actor.
Big Business is a 1988 American comedy film starring Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin, each playing two roles, as sets of identical twins mismatched at birth. The nature versus nurture farce adapts The Comedy of Errors, but with female siblings in contemporary society: one of each twin being reared in a wealthy urban setting, while the others grew up in a poor rural environment.
"Wind Beneath My Wings" is a song written in 1982 by Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley.
"Beast of Burden" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, featured on their 1978 album Some Girls. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song No. 435 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Leslie Dixon is an American screenwriter and producer.
The Rose is the soundtrack to the feature film of the same name starring Bette Midler, released in 1979.
Some People's Lives is the seventh studio album by American singer Bette Midler. It was released by Atlantic Records on September 4, 1990, in the United States. It contains one of her biggest hits, "From a Distance," which won songwriter Julie Gold a Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1991.
That Old Feeling is a 1997 American romantic comedy film directed by Carl Reiner, his final film as director before his death in 2020. It stars Bette Midler and Dennis Farina.
Misery is a 1990 American psychological thriller film directed by Rob Reiner, based on Stephen King's 1987 novel of the same name, starring James Caan, Kathy Bates, Lauren Bacall, Richard Farnsworth, and Frances Sternhagen. The plot centers around an author who is held captive by an obsessive fan who forces him to rewrite the finale to his novel series.
Isn't She Great is a 2000 American biographical comedy-drama film that presents a fictionalized biography of author Jacqueline Susann, played by Bette Midler. An international co-production between the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan, the film was directed by Andrew Bergman from a screenplay by Paul Rudnick based on a 1995 New Yorker profile by Michael Korda. The film covers Susann's entire life, focusing on her early struggles as an aspiring actress relentlessly hungry for fame, her relationship with press agent husband Irving Mansfield, with whom she had an institutionalized autistic son, her success as the author of Valley of the Dolls, and her battle with and subsequent death from breast cancer. In addition to Midler and Lane, the film stars Stockard Channing as Susann's "gal pal" Florence Maybelle, David Hyde Pierce as book editor Michael Hastings, and John Cleese as publisher Henry Marcus. John Larroquette, Amanda Peet, Christopher McDonald, Debbie Shapiro, and Paul Benedict have supporting roles.
Stella is a 1990 American drama film produced by The Samuel Goldwyn Company and released by Touchstone Pictures. The screenplay by Robert Getchell is the third feature film adaptation of the 1923 novel Stella Dallas by Olive Higgins Prouty. Previous film versions were Stella Dallas (1937) and the silent film Stella Dallas (1925).
Beaches: Original Soundtrack Recording is the soundtrack to the Academy Award-nominated 1988 film starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. Midler performs most of the tracks on the album, released on the Atlantic Records label. The album also reunited her with producer Arif Mardin. It features one of Midler's best-known songs, the ballad "Wind Beneath My Wings", which was a number-one hit.
The Harlettes, also known as The Staggering Harlettes, is a trio of backup singers who support Bette Midler during her live musical performances. The Harlettes' line-up has changed many times since their inception.
Get Bruce is a 1999 American documentary film starring Bruce Vilanch, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Lily Tomlin, Shirley MacLaine, Steven Seagal, Carol Burnett and Michael Douglas. The film is directed by Andrew J. Kuehn.
Sophie von Haselberg is an American actress. She is best known for co-starring in Woody Allen's 2015 film Irrational Man, alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone. Other notable roles have been in FX's The Assassination of Gianni Versace (2018) and the Lifetime television series American Princess (2019). She is the daughter of Bette Midler and Martin von Haselberg.