The Devil's Candy The Anatomy Of A Hollywood Fiasco

by Salamon, Julie

• ISBN13: 9780306811234
• ISBN10: 0306811235
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-05-30
• Publisher: Da Capo Press

Summary

When Brian De Palma agreed to allow Julie Salamon unlimited access to the film production of Tom Wolfe's best-selling bookThe Bonfire of the Vanities, both director and journalist must have felt like they were on to something big. How could it lose? But instead Salamon got a front-row seat at the Hollywood disaster of the decade. She shadowed the film from its early stages through the last of the eviscerating reviews, and met everyone from the actors to the technicians to the studio executives. They'd all signed on for a blockbuster, but there was a sense of impending doom from the startheart-of-gold characters replaced Wolfe's satiric creations; affable Tom Hanks was cast as the patrician heel; Melanie Griffith appeared mid-shoot with new, bigger breasts. This riveting insider's portrait provides a timeless account of an industry where art, talent, ego, and money combine and clash on a monumental scale.

Author Biography

Julie Salamon is a critic for the New York Times and the author of five books. She lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

The Players	ix
Prologue	xi
PART I Preproduction
The Devil's Candy	3	(16)
Great, Great, Great	19	(20)
Head Bangers	39	(25)
The Magic Hour	64	(27)
On Medicis, X-rays, and Bloody Fruit Flies	91	(16)
The War Zone	107	(18)
PART II The New York Shoot
Forty Million Dollars of Transformation	125	(16)
Silly Season in the Bronx	141	(24)
Demented Optimism	165	(29)
Wire Without a Net	194	(35)
PART III The Los Angeles Shoot
Hollywood Way	229	(28)
Leading Ladies	257	(32)
Nickel and Diming	289	(32)
PART IV Postproduction
``This Is the Best Movie We Ever Made''	321	(32)
It's in Your Bones	353	(22)
Junketeers	375	(26)
``You've Got to Be a Genius to Make a Movie This Bad''	401	(20)
Afterword: Ten Years Later	421	(12)
Author's Note	433	(3)
Index	436