Tony Scott Retrospective: “True Romance” (1993)

“True Romance” was the first screenplay Quentin Tarantino ever wrote (well, to completion, anyway) and, if things had gone his way, it would have been the first movie he ever directed. Cruel as Hollywood is, he couldn't raise the money to direct it, so he sold the script in order to fund what would be his “next” first movie. It was sold to some production company that specialized in B-movies and was set to be directed by William Lustig. Through a fateful set of circumstances, Tarantino was friends with a woman who was working for Tony Scott on “The Last Boy Scout” and she got him onto the set to meet Tony Scott. Tony was interested in what Quentin was working on (at that time, the screenplay for “Reservoir Dogs”) and QT gave TS the scripts for both “Reservoir Dogs” and “True Romance,” both of which Tony read on the plane ride home after completing photography on “The Last Boy Scout.”

Scott fell in love. He called Tarantino and said he wanted to shoot both scripts. Tarantino gave him the bad news that “Reservoir Dogs” was off-limits because it was going to be his own directorial debut and “True Romance” had already been sold. Undeterred, Tony Scott took it upon himself to commandeer the rights to “True Romance” and, I don't know if it was difficult or easy (either way, it probably wasn't cheap), but he obviously succeeded. Whatever the effort, it must have been worth it, because Tony Scott's enthusiasm for this project really shows in the final results. Tarantino himself remarked, “Tony had the love and the passion for it that it needed.”

Tarantino's script was pretty over the top to begin with and Tony Scott did stay pretty loyal to it in general (not so much the ending, but more on that later), but wherever Scott had artistic license, he really went overboard. For instance, in the scene where Clarence confronts Drexl and they fight it out, it was originally set at Drexl's apartment. It's just Drexl and Marty and three stoned hookers hanging out eating Chinese food and watching “The Mack.” In the film, it still may technically be Drexl's apartment, but it more closely resembles a night club. There's techno music blaring, colored lighting, dancing girls, a pool table and, for some reason, fish tanks on shelves from floor to ceiling. No reason to have any of that in there other than pure spectacle.

Another outrageous scene that originally was just there to further the plot: In the original script, when Clarence calls Dick Ritchie to inform him he's coming to L.A. with his new wife, they call from a hotel room. In the film, they're at a roadside phonebooth and decide to have sex in it while a confused Dick Ritchie sits on a toilet.

In L.A., when our heroes meet with Elliot Blitzer to discuss the cocaine deal, Tarantino originally set it at a zoo. Tony Scott decided to hold the discussion on a roller coaster because he thought it fit in better with the intensity of the story. It definitely did.

To read the famous “Sicilian scene” in Tarantino's script, it comes across as dead serious. Tony Scott was not only brave, but counter-intuitive to have Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper laugh in each other's faces as the scene escalates, making it the superlative scene in a film full of great scenes.

Tony Scott decided to have Alabama's confession to Clarence set on the walkway of a billboard outside of his apartment to make the characters seem more vulnerable and exposed. He had Clifford Woorley's trailer set right next to train tracks to create additional tension in the two scenes that occur at his homestead. Instead of a red Mustang, Clarence drives a purple Cadillac (because what else would a die hard Elvis fan drive). Scott thought it better to have the ruthless enforcer Virgil flirt with Alabama before beating her senseless. He inserted the scene where our lovebirds get matching tattoos. Elliot getting a blow job in the speeding Porsche was his idea, as was the honeybear bong for Brad Pitt's stoner character, and – of course – Tony Scott decided, after all this, that his lead characters had to live.

Tarantino was not involved in the production of “True Romance,” but he'd heard Scott wanted to change the ending and he challenged Scott on it. The director assured the screenwriter of two things: Number one, he would shoot both endings and decide which worked better. Number two, if he did decide to have Clarence and Alabama survive, it wouldn't be for the audience's sake, it would be for the characters' sake. Ultimately, Scott did opt to have Clarence and Alabama not only live, but get away with it. Tarantino wasn't happy with the final decision, but when he saw Tony Scott's version of his own vision, he changed his mind. “I think Tony's ending is better for the movie Tony made,” he said. “He did what a director's supposed to do: He made the material his own.” If that's not true love, what is?

Tony Scott Retrospective: “The Last Boy Scout” (1991)

This movie is a small miracle. It wouldn't appear so at first glance, but by all accounts, it was a nightmare to make and yet it somehow rises above itself. Roger Ebert's review of it is particularly insightful in that he points out how cynical, vicious, crude, and misogynistic the film is yet manages to still succeed as a well-crafted piece of entertainment.

For starters, the film was a war of egos. Tony Scott was a hot director and probably just starting to realize studios weren't going to rein him in or question his decisions since he'd demonstrated time and again he could rake in the millions. Damon Wayans was an up-and-coming star, just beginning to break through from his audience-pleasing characters on the TV show “In Living Color.” Bruce Willis had proven himself as a bankable action hero with the one-two punch of the first two “Die Hard” movies and Shane Black had proven the same as a writer with the first two “Lethal Weapon” movies. On top of all that, Joel Silver had produced both of those franchises and was primed to produce “The Last Boy Scout” as well. At the time, the script had sold for a record-breaking amount, so a lot was riding on this.

Needless to say, all of these men at the top of their game felt pretty powerful and had different ideas and none of them agreed on anything. Usually, that's a recipe for disaster because, even if morale is merely low on a film set, the results tend to come across in the finished product. In this case, morale wasn't simply low, the writers, directors, producers, and co-stars were at each other's throats. Yet, they all managed to pull it off. As Roger Ebert points out in his aforementioned review, “It is some kind of tribute to Tony Scott...that this material survives its own complete cynicism and somehow actually works.”

It's true. They really made magic out of the mess. Even though the overall theme is grim and defeatist, there are some great laughs. The plot is clever enough to be unpredictable. Although no one got along, the performances are strong and the chemistry is great. There are two back-to-back car chases that are both crucial to the plot as well as surprisingly unique (the first car chase literally has both cars drive side-by-side down a cliff). There are no less than four scenes where you wonder how the hell our heroes are gonna get outta this, but they do - and without “cheating” or relying on deus ex machina. Under all those circumstances, this film is exceptional.

While it was undoubtedly a miserable experience for Tony Scott, it definitely made him a better filmmaker. If nothing else, he met his wife Donna on this movie. Plus, his follow-up film was “True Romance,” which Scott - for a while, at least - considered his best work. His contempt for “The Last Boy Scout” shows through in “True Romance” in certain places. For one, the character of fictional film producer Lee Donowitz was modeled (quite obviously, shamelessly, and unkindly) after Joel Silver. Tony remarked, “Joel didn't talk to me for a long time after that.” In any case, “The Last Boy Scout” demonstrates what Chili Palmer said in the film “Get Shorty” about directors: “Sometimes you do your best work when you got a gun to your head.”