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Here's a quick list of all movies watched by the SMC. Or if you prefer, here's a more detailed examination.
"Don't threaten me with a Dead Fish!"
Our Director
Bruce Robinson
Our Stars
Richard E. Grant
Paul McGann
Premise: In 1969, two substance-abusing, unemployed actors retreat to the countryside for a holiday that proves disastrous.
* When director Bruce Robinson was appearing in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Julia (1968), the gay director tried constantly to seduce him. Robinson incorporated many of Zeffirelli's chat-up lines into Uncle Monty's dialog as he pursues Marwood.
* Daniel Day-Lewis was offered but declined the role of Withnail. Among the other actors who tested for it were Kenneth Branagh and Edward Tudor-Pole.
* It was this film that prompted the family of Jimi Hendrix to take back full control over the use of his songs. They had grown dismayed by the association of Hendrix with drug culture in general.
* Handmade Films kept back £30,000 of Bruce Robinson's fee to pay for the scenes when Withnail and Marwood are driving through the rainstorm to get to Uncle Monty's cottage. The producers didn't believe these scenes were needed, but the director considered them essential. He was never reimbursed his money after the film's success.
* Film debuts of Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann.
Members: @europe1 @MusterX @Scott Parker 27 @the muntjac @Cubo de Sangre @sickc0d3r @FrontNakedChoke @AndersonsFoot @Tufts @Yotsuya @jei @LHWBelt @moreorless87 @ArtemV @Bullitt68 @GSPSAKU @HenryFlower @Nailgun @Rimbaud82 @Deus Ex Machina @BeardotheWeirdo
Here's a quick list of all movies watched by the SMC. Or if you prefer, here's a more detailed examination.
"Don't threaten me with a Dead Fish!"
Our Director
Bruce Robinson
Such is the mythology that has sprung up around Bruce Robinson's first film, the openly autobiographical Withnail and I (1987), that it's often hard to separate fact from fiction. But the facts appear to be these: trained as an actor at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, he got off to a good early start when he was given a reasonably prominent part as Benvolio in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Julia (1968). But despite this and other parts for the likes of Ken Russell (The Music Lovers (1971)) and François Truffaut (the male lead in L'histoire d'Adèle H. (1975)), he found that acting mostly involved fruitless waiting for the phone to ring interspersed with the occasional TV commercial, while desperately trying to make ends meet. So he began writing screenplays in the mid-1970s, and was lucky enough to secure the patronage of producer David Puttnam who finally produced Robinson's script about Cambodia, The Killing Fields (1984) for which he was nominated for an Oscar. But cult success was to come a couple of years later when he wrote and directed Withnail and I (1987), a film about the squalid lives of two unemployed actors that was elevated to iconic status by students all over the world and which shot newcomer Richard E. Grant to stardom. Robinson's subsequent films, the advertising satire How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989) and the serial-killer thriller Jennifer 8(1992), while less memorable than his debut, both show that Robinson has more than enough intelligence and brio to make his future career worth following.
Our Stars
Richard E. Grant
Paul McGann
Budget: £1.1 Million
Box Office: £565,112
Box Office: £565,112
Trivia
(Courtesy of the IMDB)
* The first preview screening appeared to be a total disaster - the audience sat there stony-faced, never laughing once. It was only after the screening had concluded that a distraught Bruce Robinson discovered that the audience was comprised entirely of non-English speaking German tourists who were all staying at a hotel nearby.(Courtesy of the IMDB)
* When director Bruce Robinson was appearing in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Julia (1968), the gay director tried constantly to seduce him. Robinson incorporated many of Zeffirelli's chat-up lines into Uncle Monty's dialog as he pursues Marwood.
* Daniel Day-Lewis was offered but declined the role of Withnail. Among the other actors who tested for it were Kenneth Branagh and Edward Tudor-Pole.
* It was this film that prompted the family of Jimi Hendrix to take back full control over the use of his songs. They had grown dismayed by the association of Hendrix with drug culture in general.
* Handmade Films kept back £30,000 of Bruce Robinson's fee to pay for the scenes when Withnail and Marwood are driving through the rainstorm to get to Uncle Monty's cottage. The producers didn't believe these scenes were needed, but the director considered them essential. He was never reimbursed his money after the film's success.
* Film debuts of Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann.
Members: @europe1 @MusterX @Scott Parker 27 @the muntjac @Cubo de Sangre @sickc0d3r @FrontNakedChoke @AndersonsFoot @Tufts @Yotsuya @jei @LHWBelt @moreorless87 @ArtemV @Bullitt68 @GSPSAKU @HenryFlower @Nailgun @Rimbaud82 @Deus Ex Machina @BeardotheWeirdo