Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alan Rudolph
Produced by	Robert Altman
Written by	Alan Rudolph Randy Sue Coburn
Starring	Jennifer Jason Leigh Campbell Scott Matthew Broderick Peter Gallagher Jennifer Beals Andrew McCarthy Wallace Shawn Martha Plimpton Sam Robards Lili Taylor James LeGros Gwyneth Paltrow Heather Graham Stephen Baldwin Tom McGowan Rebecca Miller
Music by	Mark Isham
Production company	Miramax Films
Distributed by	Fine Line Features
Release date	September 7, 1994 (1994-09-07)
Running time	126 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$7,000,000
Box office	$2,144,667

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle is a 1994 American film scripted by screenwriter/director Alan Rudolph and former Washington Star reporter Randy Sue Coburn. Directed by Rudolph, it starred Jennifer Jason Leigh as the writer Dorothy Parker and depicted 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.

Peter Benchley, who played editor Frank Crowninshield, was the grandson of Robert Benchley, the humorist who once worked underneath Crowninshield. Actor Wallace Shawn was the son of William Shawn, the longtime editor of The New Yorker.

Director Alan Rudolph was fascinated with the Algonquin Round Table as a child when he discovered Gluyas Williams' illustrations in a collection of Robert Benchley's essays. After making The Moderns, a film about American expatriates in 1920s Paris, Rudolph wanted to tackle a fact-based drama set in the same era. He began work on a screenplay with novelist and former Washington Star journalist Randy Sue Coburn about legendary writer Dorothy Parker. In 1992, Rudolph attended a Fourth of July party hosted by filmmaker Robert Altman who introduced him to actress Jennifer Jason Leigh. Rudolph was surprised by her physical resemblance to Parker and was impressed by her knowledge of the Jazz Age. Leigh was so committed to doing the film that she agreed to make it for "a tenth of what I normally get for a film".