Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle is a 1994 American biographical drama film directed by Alan Rudolph from a screenplay written by Rudolph and Randy Sue Coburn. The film stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as writer Dorothy Parker and depicts the members of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, actors and critics who met almost every weekday from 1919 to 1929 at Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel.
The film was an Official Selection at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Palme d'Or. The film was a critical but not a commercial success. Leigh won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress.
Peter Benchley, who plays editor Frank Crowninshield, was the grandson of humorist Robert Benchley, who once worked underneath Crowninshield. Actor Wallace Shawn is the son of William Shawn, the longtime editor of The New Yorker.
==Plot==
During the Prohibition era in the United States, the Algonquin Hotel is a hub for the "Vicious Circle," a group of intellectuals. Among them is Dorothy Parker, a successful writer. Dealing with a troubled marriage to a drug addict, she finds solace in the genuine friendship of Robert Benchley, a colleague at Vanity Fair. The "Vicious Circle" successfully stages an improvisational theatrical performance, leading Dorothy to cross paths with Charles Mac Arthur. Their relationship results in abandonment and an abortion, further shaping her sharp and skeptical character.
Amidst depression, Dorothy attempts suicide, but Robert intervenes, choosing not to pursue a romantic involvement due to fear of potential heartbreak. Without the prospect of love, Dorothy and Robert navigate separate paths, seeking solace in different relationships and experiences. In 1945, Dorothy discovers Robert's death from cirrhosis of the liver, adding another layer of hardship. Attempts at psychoanalysis fail to alleviate the darkness within her. In 1958, aged and increasingly isolated in New York, she receives a significant literary award.
==Cast==
* Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dorothy Parker
* Campbell Scott as Robert Benchley
* Matthew Broderick as Charles MacArthur
* Peter Gallagher as Alan Campbell
* Jennifer Beals as Gertrude Benchley
* Andrew McCarthy as Eddie Parker (Edwin Pond Parker II)
* Wallace Shawn as Horatio Byrd
* Martha Plimpton as Jane Grant
* Sam Robards as Harold Ross
* Lili Taylor as Edna Ferber
* James LeGros as Deems Taylor
* Gwyneth Paltrow as Paula Hunt
* Nick Cassavetes as Robert Sherwood
* David Thornton as George S. Kaufman
* Heather Graham as Mary Kennedy Taylor
* Tom McGowan as Alexander Woollcott
* Chip Zien as Franklin P. Adams
* Gary Basaraba as Heywood Broun
* Jane Adams as Ruth Hale
* Stephen Baldwin as Roger Spalding
* Matt Malloy as Marc Connelly
* Rebecca Miller as Neysa McMein
* Jake Johannsen as John Peter Toohey
* Amelia Campbell as Mary Brandon Sherwood
* David Gow as Donald Ogden Stewart
* Leni Parker as Beatrice Kaufman
* J. M. Henry as Harpo Marx
* Stanley Tucci as Newt Hunter
* Mina Badie as Joanie Gerard
* Randy Lowell as Alvan Barach
Given the historical impact of many of the people portrayed in the film, the ensemble nature of the cast led to opening credits displaying all 30 actors listed above. Other historical characters, in brief appearances, included portrayals by Keith Carradine as Will Rogers, Jon Favreau as Elmer Rice, lead character Robert Benchley's grandson – Jaws author Peter Benchley – as Frank Crowninshield, Malcolm Gets as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gisele Rousseau as Polly Adler.
Category:1994 films
Category:1994 drama films
Category:1990s biographical drama films
Category:1990s English-language films
Category:American biographical drama films
Category:Films directed by Alan Rudolph
Category:Films scored by Mark Isham
Category:Films set in hotels
Category:Films set in Manhattan
Category:Films set in the 1920s
Category:Films set in the 1930s
Category:Films set in the 1940s
Category:Films set in the 1950s
Category:Films shot in Montreal
Category:Cultural depictions of American people
Category:1994 independent films
Category:1990s American films
Category:American independent films