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?