Bullets Over Broadway

Bullets Over Broadway is a 1994 American black comedy crime film directed by Woody Allen, written by Allen and Douglas McGrath and starring an ensemble cast including John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri, and Jennifer Tilly.
The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including
Allen for Best Director, Allen and McGrath for Best Original Screenplay, Palminteri for Best Supporting Actor, and both Tilly and Wiest for Best Supporting Actress, with the latter winning for her performance, the second time Allen directed her to an Academy Award. Considered one of his best works, Bullets Over Broadway is the most recent film directed by Allen with a shared writing credit.
Plot
In 1928, David Shayne is an idealistic young playwright newly arrived on Broadway from Pittsburgh. Desperate to gain financing for his play, God of Our Fathers, he is convinced by producer Julian Marx to cast actress Olive Neal, the girlfriend of gangster Nick Valenti, in a minor role.
Compensating for his frustration with the demanding and talentless Olive, Shayne is thrilled to cast alcoholic faded star Helen Sinclair in the lead role, along with the dieting British thespian Warner Purcell. Rehearsals are soon thrown into chaos when Olive shows up escorted by Cheech, a mob henchman, who insists on watching rehearsals.
Eventually Cheech starts giving notes on the script to Shayne, who is initially angered by the intrusion but quickly realizes the ideas are excellent. Cheech, who barely learned to read before burning down his school, has a natural talent for playwriting, but is not interested in taking any credit. The cast members herald the revised script as genius, disparaging his initial draft as dull and pompous.
Buoyed by their imminent success, Shayne and the actors succumb to their vices. His partner, Ellen, catches him cheating on her with Helen. Warner indulges in overeating and begins an affair with Olive, which he attempts to break off when Cheech threatens his life. Growing increasingly frustrated with Olive's poor acting, Cheech tries to have her fired from the production. After Shayne reminds him he cannot get rid of Olive, Cheech murders her and dumps her body in a river.
Olive's murder is widely assumed to be part of an inter-gang conflict, but Shayne immediately senses the truth and argues with Cheech. Regretting his mistakes, Shayne is dismayed to learn that Ellen is leaving him for his hedonistic Marxist friend Sheldon Flender.
On opening night, Valenti accuses Cheech of Olive's murder, which he denies. Henchmen Rocco and Aldo chase Cheech backstage while the play is being performed, shooting him. With his dying words, Cheech gives Shayne a new final line for the play. The play is a critical and commercial success, but Shayne skips the after-party to confront Flender. He confesses his lack of talent and proposes marriage to Ellen, who accepts his newfound desire to leave high society and move back to Pittsburgh.
Cast
Production
The film's locales include the duplex co-op on the 22nd floor of 5 Tudor City Place in Manhattan.
The film's title may have been an homage to a lengthy sketch of the same title from the 1950s television show Caesar's Hour; one of Allen's first jobs in television was writing for Sid Caesar specials after the initial run of the show.
The film featured the last screen appearance of Benay Venuta. Allen cast her in a cameo role as a well-wishing wealthy theatre patron. She died of lung cancer in September 1995.
Soundtrack
"Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goo' Bye!)" – Written by Dan Russo, Ernie Erdman and Gus Kahn – Performed by Al Jolson with the Vitaphone Orchestra
"Crazy Rhythm" – Lyrics by Irving Caesar – Music by Joseph Meyer (songwriter) & Roger Wolfe Kahn
"You've Got to See Mamma Every Night or You Can't See Mamma at All" – Lyrics by Billy Rose – Music by Con Conrad
"Make Believe" – Music by Jerome Kern – Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II – Performed by The Three Deuces Musicians
"That Jungle Jamboree" – Written by Andy Razaf, Harry Brooks & Fats Waller – Performed by Duke Ellington
"Lazy River" – Written by Hoagy Carmichael & Sidney Arodin – Performed by New Leviathan Oriental Fox Trot Orchestra
"Nagasaki" – Music by Harry Warren – Lyrics by Mort Dixon
"Let's Misbehave" – By Cole Porter – Performed by Irving Aaronson and his Commanders
"You Took Advantage of Me" – Music by Richard Rodgers – Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
"When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along)" – Written by Harry M. Woods
"Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me" – Lyrics by Sidney Clare – Music by Con Conrad – Performed by Eddie Cantor with Henri Rene and His Orchestra
"Thou Swell" – Music by Richard Rodgers – Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
"At the Jazz Band Ball" – Written by Nick LaRocca & Larry Shields – Performed by Bix Beiderbecke
"Poor Butterfly" – Music by Raymond Hubbell – Lyrics by John Golden – Performed by Red Nichols and His Five Pennies
"That Certain Feeling" – Music by George Gershwin – Lyrics by Ira Gershwin
"Who" – Music by Jerome Kern – Lyrics by Otto A. Harbach & Oscar Hammerstein II – Performed by George Olsen
Reception
Bullets Over Broadway received a positive response from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 60 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "A gleefully entertaining backstage comedy, Bullets Over Broadway features some of Woody Allen's sharpest, most inspired late-period writing and direction."
Janet Maslin of The New York Times described the film as "a bright, energetic, sometimes side-splitting comedy with vital matters on its mind, precisely the kind of sharp-edged farce [Allen] has always done best." Todd McCarthy of Variety similarly called it "a backstage comedy bolstered by healthy shots of prohibition gangster melodrama and romantic entanglements" and wrote, "In its mixing of showbiz and gangsters, this is a nice companion piece to Allen's Broadway Danny Rose, and about as amusing." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised, "Bullets Over Broadway shares a kinship with a more serious film by Allen, Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which a man committed murder and was able, somehow, to almost justify it. Now here is the comic side of the same coin. The movie is very funny and, in the way it follows its logic wherever it leads, surprisingly tough."
The film grossed $13.4 million in the United States and Canada and $24.1 million internationally for a worldwide total of $37.5 million.
Awards and nominations
Year-end lists
4th – National Board of Review
4th – Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News
4th – Sean P. Means, The Salt Lake Tribune
5th – Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News
8th – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
8th – Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
8th – John Hurley, Staten Island Advance
10th – Yardena Arar, Los Angeles Daily News
11th – Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Top 9 (not ranked) – Dan Webster, The Spokesman-Review
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Bob Ross, The Tampa Tribune
Top 10 (not ranked) – Dennis King, Tulsa World
Top 10 (not ranked) – Howie Movshovitz, The Denver Post
Top 5 runners-up (not ranked) – Scott Schuldt, The Oklahoman
Honorable mentions – Mike Clark, USA Today
Honorable mention – Duane Dudek, Milwaukee Sentinel
Honorable mention – Michael MacCambridge, Austin American-Statesman
Guilty pleasure – Douglas Armstrong, The Milwaukee Journal
Stage musical
Allen adapted the film as a stage jukebox musical, titled Bullets Over Broadway the Musical. The musical is directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, produced by Julian Schlossberg and Allen's younger sister Letty Aronson, with a score from the American songbook using songs from the 1920s and 1930s. The new musical premiered on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on April 10, 2014. A staged reading was held in June 2013. The cast features Zach Braff as David Shayne, Brooks Ashmanskas, Betsy Wolfe, Lenny Wolpe, and Vincent Pastore. Marin Mazzie stars as Helen Sinclair, and Karen Ziemba appears as Eden Brent. Musical supervisor Glen Kelly has adapted and written additional lyrics for songs including "Tain't Nobody's Bus'ness", "Running Wild", "Let's Misbehave", and "I Found a New Baby". The musical closed on August 24, 2014, after 156 performances and 33 previews.
References
External links
Where's Woody? in Boston Review: article discussing the Nietzschean influences in Bullets Over Broadway
1994 films
1994 black comedy films
1994 comedy films
1994 crime films
1990s American films
1990s crime comedy films
1990s English-language films
1990s satirical films
American crime comedy films
American satirical films
English-language crime comedy films
Films about playwrights
Films about actors
Films about theatre
Films adapted into plays
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films directed by Woody Allen
Films with screenplays by Woody Allen
Films with screenplays by Douglas McGrath
Films produced by Robert Greenhut
Films set in 1928
Films set in a theatre
Films set in New York City
Films set in the Roaring Twenties
Films shot in New York City
Mafia comedy films
Miramax films