| The Cotton Club | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Francis Ford Coppola |
| Screenplay by | William Kennedy Francis Ford Coppola |
| Story by | William Kennedy Francis Ford Coppola Mario Puzo |
| Based on | The Cotton Club byJames Haskins |
| Produced by | Robert Evans |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Stephen Goldblatt |
| Edited by | Barry Malkin Robert Q. Lovett |
| Music by | John Barry |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $58 million |
| Box office | $25.9 million[1] |
The Cotton Club is a 1984 Americanmusicalcrimedrama film co-written and directed byFrancis Ford Coppola and based onJames Haskins' 1977 book of the same name. The story centers on theCotton Club, a 1930sHarlemjazz club. The film starsRichard Gere,Gregory Hines,Diane Lane, andLonette McKee, withBob Hoskins,James Remar,Nicolas Cage,Allen Garfield,Gwen Verdon,Fred Gwynne andLaurence Fishburne in supporting roles.
The film was noted for going over budget on its production costs and taking a total of five years to complete. Despite being adisappointment at the box-office, the film received generally positive reviews and was nominated for several awards, includingGolden Globe Awards forBest Director andBest Picture (Drama) andAcademy Awards forBest Art Direction andBest Film Editing.[2]
A musician named Dixie Dwyer begins working withmobsters to advance his career but falls in love with Vera Cicero, the girlfriend of ganglandkingpinDutch Schultz. Sandman Williams, a dancer from Dixie's neighborhood, and his brother Clay are hired by theCotton Club, ajazz club where most of the performers are black and the customers are white.Owney Madden, a mobster, owns the club and runs it with his right-hand man, Frenchy Demange.
Dixie becomes a Hollywood film star, thanks to the help of Madden and the mob but angering Schultz. He also continues to see Schultz'sgun moll, Vera Cicero, whose new nightclub has been financed by the jealous gangster. In the meantime, Dixie's ambitious younger brother Vincent becomes a gangster in Schultz's mob and eventually a public enemy, holding Frenchy as a hostage.
Sandman alienates Clay at the Cotton Club by agreeing to perform a solo number there. While the club's management interferes with Sandman's romantic interest in Lila Rose Oliver, a singer, its cruel treatment of the performers leads to an intervention byHarlem criminal "Bumpy" Rhodes on their behalf. Schultz is violently dealt with by Madden's men while Dixie and Sandman perform on the Cotton Club's stage.
Inspired to makeThe Cotton Club by a picture-book history ofthe nightclub byJames Haskins,Robert Evans was the film's original producer.[3] Evans hoped the film would bring public attention toAfrican-American history in a similar way thatGone with the Wind did for theAmerican Civil War and theReconstruction era. On December 12, 1980, it was announced that Evans andParamount Pictures would serve as co-producers of the film whileRobert Altman would direct andMario Puzo would write. However, Evans and Altman's filmPopeye premiering that day became a box-office flop. Although Evans secured $12 million worth of financing from Saudi business tycoonAdnan Khashoggi, Paramount Pictures withdrew from the film in 1981. Evans worked to secure sole ownership of thefilm negative to recoup his losses from recent poor stock-market investments and a cocaine trafficking arrest. However, this action alienated potential investors who would be unable to profit from television and home video distribution rights. The production was finally delayed when Evans reached aplea bargain to produce anadvertising campaign of anti-drugpublic service announcements in exchange for an expungement of his record.[4]
In 1984, Evans, who intended to direct the film himself after Altman departed, hiredWilliam Kennedy andFrancis Ford Coppola to re-write Puzo's story and screenplay. Evans eventually decided that he did not want to direct the film and asked Coppola at the last minute.[5] Evans and Coppola had an adversarial relationship from the production of theGodfather films but Coppola accepted the jobs as screenwriter and then director because he needed the money – he was deeply in debt from makingOne from the Heart with his own money and his studioZoetrope Studios wentbankrupt.[4][6]Richard Sylbert said that he told Evans not to hire Coppola because "he resents being in the commercial, narrative, Hollywood movie business".[7] Coppola said that he had letters from Sylbert asking him to work on the film because Evans was crazy. Coppola also said that "Evans set the tone for the level of extravagance long before I got there".[7]
By the time Evans decided not to direct and brought in Coppola, at least $13 million had already been committed.[7]Las Vegas casino owners Edward and Fred Doumani, along with businessman Victor L. Sayyah, put $30 million into the film in exchange for a fifty-percent ownership stake in the film. Evans received further loans by mortgaging his mansion inBeverly Hills and stock inGulf + Western as collateral.[4] Other financial backers included Arab arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and vaudeville promoterRoy Radin, who was murdered in May 1983. The killers later alleged thatthey had been hired by Evans and Radin's girlfriend Karen Greenberger, adrug dealer who felt she was cut out of profits from the film.[8] In the 1989 "Cotton Club Trial", Evans invoked hisFifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to testify.[4]
According to William Kennedy in an interview withVanity Fair, the budget of the film was $47 million. However, Coppola told the head ofGaumont Film Company, Europe's largest distribution and production company, that he thought the film might cost $65 million.[3]
Evans castAl Pacino,Sylvester Stallone, andHarrison Ford to portray Michael "Dixie" Dwyer before Gere was hired.[4]Richard Pryor was considered for the role of Delbert "Sandman" Williams.[9] Robert Evans wanted to cast his friendAlain Delon in a two-scene role asLucky Luciano but this did not occur.[10] The role of Luciano was instead portrayed byJoe Dallesandro, starting the dramatic film career for the formerWarhol Superstar.
Author Mario Puzo was the original screenwriter and was eventually replaced by William Kennedy,[6] who wrote a rehearsal script in eight days which the cast used for three weeks prior to shooting. According to actorGregory Hines, a three-hour film was shot during rehearsals.[3] From July 15 to August 22, 1983, twelve scripts were produced, including five during one 48-hour non-stop weekend. Kennedy estimates that between 30 and 40 scripts were turned out.[3] Production began on August 22, 1983, atKaufman Astoria Studios inQueens.[4] Over 600 people built sets, created costumes and arranged music at a reported $250,000 a day.[3] During the production many crew members were abruptly fired. Within several weeks the film was already over budget, allowing Evans to deduct from the $4 million salary of Coppola, who had not yet been fully paid because the script was still being rewritten and thus incomplete. Coppola reacted by walking off set and refusing to continue directing the film until he was fully paid.[4]
As costs on the film continued to rise, the Doumani brothers convincedOrion Pictures to advance costs for the film on the condition that Evans step down as producer and hired mobster Joseph Cusamano to intimidate Evans into giving up his share of the partnership. Evans initially agreed but stopped them by filing arestraining order against them after learning Sayyah was not involved in the deal.[4] On June 7, 1984, Sayyah filed a lawsuit against the Doumani brothers, their lawyer David Hurwitz, Evans and Orion Pictures for fraud and breach of contract.[5] Sayyah invested $5 million and said that he had little chance of recouping his money because the budget escalated from $25 to $58 million. He accused the Doumanis of forcing out Evans and said that an Orion loan to the film of $15 million unnecessarily increased the budget. Evans, in turn, sued Edward Doumani to keep from acting as general partner on the film.[5] The court ruled in favor of Evans but also gave Coppola's close associateBarrie M. Osborne full control overpost-production, essentially barring Evans from the completion of the film. Sayyah and the Doumani brothers would also be uncredited as producers.[4]
The soundtrack for the film was written byJohn Barry. It released on December 14, 1984, viaGeffen Records. The album won theGrammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band at the28th Annual Grammy Awards in 1986.[11]
Embassy Home Entertainment paid a record $4.7 million for North Americahome video rights.[12]The film appeared onvideotape andvideodisc in April 1985. It was the first to use theMacrovisioncopy protection system on VHS.[13]
In 2015, Coppola found an oldBetamax video copy of his original cut that ran 25 minutes longer. When originally editing the picture, he acquiesced to distributors who wanted a shorter film with a different structure. Between 2015 and 2017, Coppola spent over $500,000 of his own money to restore the film to the original cut. This version, titledThe Cotton Club: Encore and running 139 minutes, debuted at the44th Telluride Film Festival on September 1, 2017.[14]Lionsgate (owner of the Zoetrope Corporation backlog, and working in association with original studio Orion Pictures) released that version theatrically, and onDVD andBlu-ray in the fall of 2019.
The Film Stage gaveThe Cotton Club: Encore a rating of A−, whileRolling Stone described the result of this version as "eye-opening".[15][16]
The Cotton Club premiered on December 2, 1984 at thePalace Theatre inAlbany, New York. (NY Times article,December 2, 1984, Section 1, Page 46). It was released on December 14, 1984, in the United States and Canada on 808 screens and grossed $2.9 million on its opening weekend, fifth place behindBeverly Hills Cop,Dune,City Heat and2010: The Year We Make Contact.[17][18] Evans took the blame for hiring Coppola while Coppola responded that if he had not been hired, the film would have never been made. Evans said that Coppola made the budget escalate dramatically by rejecting the script, hiring his own crew, and falling behind schedule.[18] The film was acommercial failure, grossing just under $26 million against a $58 million budget. After the film's release stock traders began selling Orion Pictures shares with the expectation that the studio would suffer financially.[4]
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film has a 76% rating based on 33 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Energetic and brimming with memorable performers,The Cotton Club entertains with its visual and musical pizazz even as its plot only garners polite applause."[19] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68% based on reviews from 14 critics.[20]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times rated the film 4 out of 4 stars.[21] The film appeared on bothSiskel and Ebert's best of 1984.[22]
The film was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Art Direction (Sylbert,George Gaines andLeslie Bloom) and theAcademy Award for Best Film Editing (Barry Malkin andRobert Q. Lovett) at the57th Academy Awards. The film was also nominated for theGolden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama and theGolden Globe Award for Best Director (Coppola) at the42nd Golden Globe Awards. The film won theBAFTA Award for Best Costume Design (Milena Canonero) and was nominated for theBAFTA Award for Best Sound (Edward Beyer, Jack C. Jacobsen and David Carroll) at the39th British Academy Film Awards.
The film was also nominated for theJapan Academy Film Prize for Outstanding Foreign Language Film and theGolden Reel Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film (Maurice Schell).Diane Lane was nominated for theGolden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress for this film andStreets of Fire at the5th Golden Raspberry Awards.
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