Most people with a rapid knowledge of Hollywood history have a general understanding that today’s cinema stars were the unknowns (or barely known) of yesterday, and that most of the actors make their debut in Projects that are barely seen or existing at a certain level of discredit. It is a bit of camp pleasure to discover some of these first improbable works and to see the future talent of the list A present in B-MOVIES: Tom Hanks in “Il Knows You’re alone”, for example, or Meg Ryan in “Amityville 3-D,” or Denzel Washington in “Carbon Copy”. Then there is the setback of this phenomenon, where a future star obtains a great juicy role in a prestige photo made by a established director, like Dev Patel in “Slumdog Millionaire” or Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”.
There is also, however, a happy happy with these two extremes: a film directed by a Hollywood legend which launches a future movie star even if the film itself does not make a huge splash. This rarer category sums up perfectly “Blind Date” in 1987, which presents the leading role of film credited for Bruce Willis. Although the film was not an abject failure – it made $ 39.3 million on a budget of $ 16 million – it was not seriously well received, and it could not be said to the film career by Willis (this honor goes to successful success “Die Hard”, released a year later in 1988). Instead, it is the platonic ideal of a Curio: for director Blake Edwards, it is a footnote in an illustrious Hollywood career. For Willis, this is a first film that gives a glimpse of what his screen personality was, as well as an explanation of the place where he would end up going once his star has increased completely.
How Blake Edwards had trouble keeping the farce alive during the age of sexual comedy
If you know the name Blake Edwards, you probably know in one of the many classic films he has made, in particular “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, “Days of Wine and Roses”, “The Pink Panther” (and several From his consequences), “The Great Race”, “The Party” and “Victor / Victoria”. Although Edwards became known for his comedy chops, it was not a genre in which he worked exclusively. He also made several black films (“Experiment in terror”, “Gunn” and “The Tamarind Seed”), Westerns (“Wild Rovers”), and even a gravelly procedural thriller based on a novel by Michael Crichton, “The Carey Treatment.
However, apart from his gold comedy films, it is likely that Edwards is best known for a trend that he inadvertently helped to launch: the sexual comedy of the 80s. His 1979 success ” 10 “became a complementary part of the wave of sexual comedy that struck cinemas at that time; Where films like “Animal House” and “Porky” were addressed to an excited demographic teenager, “10” and his laying – films like “Blame It On Rio” and “Hardbodies” – appealed to man D ‘Average age that seeks to have a throwing. While Edwards did not suddenly pivoted and plunged to make a bunch of sexual comedies for adults, he sometimes tried to overthrow this new brand.
He played with the iconography of an aging sexual symbol like Burt Reynolds in “The Man who loved women”, leaned further in the farce with “Skin Deep”, and returned the script on a misogynist in misogynists The transforming in the body of a woman in “Switch.” While the majority of the comedy in “Blind Date” is Edwards who continues his penchant for the farce, he also contains a “star” pay attention to what you want “For Randy Men, giving the character of Willis a beautiful woman (Kim Basinger) as a blind date which then proves too much for him.
“ Blind date ” and the myth of television actors who do it in the film
Even if Bruce Willis was in no way a movie star when “Blind Date” created, that does not mean that he was not a star. Willis was already familiar to the public as a co-star of the Rom-Com Mystery Spectacle which succeeds “Moonlighting”, in which he appeared from 1985 to 1989. In “Moonlighting”, Willis played David Addison, a chief of The head of a detective in Los Angeles in Los Angeles Agency who teams up with the former model Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) when she realizes that she has the agency of David as a tax cancellation. The show has become largely famous due to the classic chemistry of the romance of vis -à -vis between Willis and Shepherd, resulting in one of the longest and controversial “, they will not do” romances in history of television.
It only takes a brief overview of “Blind Date” to realize that the film was trying to capitalize on the character “Moonlighting” by Willis. The film makes him make sarcastic jokes while romantizing a beautiful blonde and putting himself in depth, near life or death, just like “Moonlighting”. It would be almost tempting to accuse the film of being a vehicle specifically designed for Willis, without the fact that he started his life as a script intended for Madonna and Sean Penn. However, there is no doubt that “Blind dates” was trying to see if Willis could make a big screen on the big screen that on the small one, and the irony is that he could; Quite simply not with this same type of character. The lukewarm reception at “Blind Date” only served to strengthen the old myth according to which the successful television actors could not go to films. However, Willis’s cinema by Willis helped dissipate this myth: if he had received a different type of character to play instead of such a close (but not quite) his role of popular television, then who knows ? He may not need to “die hard” to break out on the big screen.
Willis has never completely left the comic strip man of “Blind Date” behind
You can even see from the “Blind Date” trailer How Willis was able to go from the unfortunate comic to the hero of the Macho action – he looks so great all ruffled and beaten, all he needs is to play someone who runs to attack the bad guys as often that he fled. While Willis could have stayed only in hero of action after the success of “Die Hard”, however, his long cinematographic career shows that he has never left his original comic character or his talent. Of course, Willis has finally acquired a reputation (especially in his last years) for having played characters who were so brilliant and sullen that they could be called completely without humor. However, he kept his gift for a wide and comical comic character work in “Death Bedis Her” and “Breakfast of champions”, and his eccentric comic timing was still of first order in “The Whole Nine Yards” and his suite, “The ten whole meters.”
If you are curious to know if Willis has already tried to completely combine the archetypes of characters who made him famous, the answer is yes: he rather played a romantic role clumsy and clumsy combined with a macho hero with square jaw in 1991 “Hudson Hawk”. This film has become sadly famous for having undergone various creative differences and other shelves behind the scenes, which gave it the reputation of being a failure even before its release to scathing criticism. However, it has been appreciated over the years as cult favorite, especially due to Willis’ unique performance. One thing is certain – for someone else’s career, “Blind Date” could look like an anomaly. For Willis and Edwards, it was a relationship that at least made sense on paper.
