Tough Guys Don’t Dance
In some respects a twisted remake of his own An American Dream, Tough Guys Don’t Dance proves that as a movie director, Norman Mailer was a great writer. Mailer’s unwieldy attitude behind the camera doesn’t stop this 1987 noir from being entertaining and it’s helped by John Bailey’s beautiful cinematography and Angelo Badalamenti’s dreamy score. Ryan O’Neal takes one for the team and he’s joined by Isabella Rossellini who gives her Blue Velvet-best. Robert Towne did some rewrites to no avail.
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About Michael Schlesinger
Michael Schlesinger was widely acknowledged as the dean of classic film distributors, having worked for more than 25 years at MGM, Paramount and Sony, keeping hundreds of vintage movies in theatrical release (and later DVD), and instigating the restoration of many more, including the completion of Orson Welles' 1942 documentary It's All True some 50 years later. Behind the camera, he wrote and produced the American version of Godzilla 2000, co-produced such Larry Blamire parodies as The Lost Skeleton Returns Again and Dark and Stormy Night, and has written, produced and directed several short films featuring the faux-1930s comedy team of Biffle and Shooster. No power on Earth would have ever convinced him that It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World was not the Greatest. Movie. Ever. Sadly, Michael passed away on the morning of January 9, 2025.
In the list of Mailer’s vocations, you forgot getting laid!
Great quote from a 2002 interview with Norman Mailer:
“…I am not a liberal. The notion that man is a rational creature who arrives at reasonable solutions to knotty problems is much in doubt as far as I’m concerned. Liberalism depends all too much on having an optimistic view of human nature. But the history of the 20th century has not exactly fortified that notion. Moreover, liberalism also depends too much upon reason rather than any appreciation of mystery. If you start to talk about God with the average good liberal, he looks at you as if you are more than a little off. In that sense, since I happen to be—I hate to use the word religious, there are so many heavy dull connotations, so many pious self-seeking aspects—but I do believe there is a Creator who is active in human affairs and is endangered. I also believe there is a Devil who is equally active in our existence (and is all too often successful). So, I can hardly be a liberal. God is bad enough for them, but talk about the devil, and the liberal’s mind is blown. He is consorting with a fellow who is irrational if not insane. That is the end of real conversation.”
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/i-am-not-for-world-empire/