Tough Guys Don't Dance (film)
| Tough Guys Don't Dance | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Norman Mailer |
| Produced by |
Menahem Golan Yoram Globus |
| Screenplay by | Norman Mailer Robert Towne (Rewrites) |
| Based on |
Tough Guys Don't Dance by Norman Mailer |
| Starring |
Ryan O'Neal Isabella Rossellini Debra Sandlund Wings Hauser |
| Music by | Angelo Badalamenti |
| Cinematography |
Mike Moyer John Bailey |
| Edited by | Debra McDermott |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | The Cannon Group |
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Release date
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Running time
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109 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5 million |
| Box office | $858,250 |
Tough Guys Don't Dance is a 1987 crime mystery comedy-drama film written and directed by Norman Mailer based on his novel of the same name. It is a murder mystery/film noir piece that was scorned by audiences and critics alike. It was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
The script had revisions done by Chinatown and Last Woman on Earth scribe/script doctor Robert Towne. The title comes from an anecdote told to Norman Mailer by a prizefighter named Roger Donahue: Frank Costello, the Murder, Inc. honcho, and his gorgeous girlfriend greet three champion boxers in the Stork Club. Costello demands that each, in turn, dance with the woman, and each nervously complies. The last, Willie Pep, suggests that Mr. Costello dance. Costello replied, "Tough guys don't dance."
On the twenty-fourth morning after the decampment of his wife, Patty Lareine (Debra Sandlund), Tim Madden (Ryan O'Neal), a former bartender and ex-con who was imprisoned for dealing cocaine, currently struggling to make a living as a writer and who is prone to blackouts, awakens from a two-week bender to discover a tattoo reading "Madeline" on his arm, and a bloodbath in his car. He shortly finds a woman's severed head in his marijuana stash in the woods, and the new Provincetown police chief Luther Regency (Wings Hauser) shacked up with his former girlfriend Madeleine (Isabella Rossellini).
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Wikipedia