The Boys (1991 film)
| The Boys | |
|---|---|
UK VHS cover of "The Guys"
|
|
| Genre | Drama Black Comedy |
| Written by | William Link |
| Directed by | Glenn Jordan |
| Starring |
James Woods John Lithgow |
| Theme music composer | David Shire |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | James G. Hirsch William Link Robert A. Papazian |
| Producer(s) | Glenn Jordan |
| Cinematography | Steve Yaconelli |
| Editor(s) | Eric Sears |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment International William Link Productions |
| Distributor | ABC |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Original release | April 15, 1991 |
The Boys (aka The Guys) is a drama/black comedy television film starring James Woods and John Lithgow. It was directed by Glenn Jordan, who had previously worked with Woods on the 1986 TV movie Promise and would later work with Woods again in 1994 for the TV drama film Jane's House. The film first aired on September 15, 1991 on the ABC Network.
The film stars James Woods as Walter Farmer and John Lithgow as Artie Margulies. Others in the film include Joanna Gleason as Marie, Eve Gordon as Amanda, Alan Rosenberg as the Psychiatrist and Rosemary Dunsmore as Helene.
Today, the film remains out-of-print in America, having never received a VHS or DVD release. In the UK, where the film was re-titled The Guys, the movie was released on VHS via CIC Video, where it has remained out-of-print ever since.
The film's tagline reads "Artie has a nasty habit... ...Walter can't live with it. A story of love, life & cigarettes."
The Boys was created by production companies Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment International and William Link Productions.
The film was largely inspired by the lives of the film's writer William Link and his writing partner, Richard Levinson, and Levinson's death. However, the key plot point of the story didn't happen in reality. In real-life, Richard Levinson was the smoker.
A day before the original broadcast on the ABC Network, an article with the Los Angeles Times was based on the film, under the headline "'Til Death Do They Part". The article stated that writer Link used to say his relationship with long-time writing partner Levinson was like marriage without the sex. The story was written by Link as a sort of private therapy to get over Levinson's death. In the article, it is mentioned that neither Woods or Lithgow worry about taking time out of their film careers to do a TV film. "Each of us looks for good material. And a lot of good material today is written for television," said Lithgow, whilst Woods stated "There's always been great material on television".
In the article, it is stated that the film was the first TV movie to deal directly with the issue of secondary smoke, although both leading actors insisted that "The Boys" was not a network disease-of-the-week movie. "The secondary smoke is certainly an important aspect of the story," Lithgow said. "One man is dying because the other man smokes. It's an important little turn of the plot, but it's sort of the last thing I think about. This is not an advocacy film, in my mind, at all." "But (secondary smoke) is the motor of the story," Woods said. "It's the deus ex machina, if you will, that propels the story. It causes this almost repressed friendship to finally blossom. It's that terrible reality in life that sometimes we only are able to express our love to people when we're losing them or have lost them." It was also stated that in a short time, Lithgow and Woods said they developed the kind of comic rapport and unspoken bond that Levinson and Link shared. The repartee is evident as they tell how Lithgow was chosen for "The Boys."
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