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Bullets Over Broadway

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For the Broadway musical based on the film, see Bullets Over Broadway (musical).

Bullets Over Broadway
Theatrical release poster
Directed byWoody Allen
Written by
Produced byRobert Greenhut
Starring
CinematographyCarlo DiPalma
Edited bySusan E. Morse
Production
company
Sweetland Films
Distributed byMiramax Films
Release dates
  • September 4, 1994 (1994-09-04) (Venice)
  • October 14, 1994 (1994-10-14) (United States)
Running time
98 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$20 million[1]
Box office$37.5 million[2][3]

Bullets Over Broadway is a 1994 American black comedy crime film directed by Woody Allen, written by Allen and Douglas McGrath, and starring an ensemble cast including John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly. Set in 1920s New York City, the film centers around a struggling playwright who is urged to cast the talentless girlfriend of a notorious mobster in his newest play in order to get it produced.

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Allen for Best Director, Allen and McGrath for Best Original Screenplay, Palminteri for Best Supporting Actor, and both Tilly and Wiest for Best Supporting Actress, with the latter winning for her performance, the second time Allen directed her to an Academy Award. Considered one of his best works, Bullets Over Broadway is the most recent film directed by Allen with a shared writing credit.

Plot

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In 1928, David Shayne is an idealistic young playwright newly arrived on Broadway from Pittsburgh. Desperate to gain financing for his play, God of Our Fathers, he is convinced by producer Julian Marx to cast actress Olive Neal, the girlfriend of gangster Nick Valenti, in a minor role.

Compensating for his frustration with the demanding and talentless Olive, David is thrilled to cast alcoholic faded star Helen Sinclair in the lead role, along with the dieting British thespian Warner Purcell. Rehearsals are soon thrown into chaos when Olive shows up escorted by Cheech, a mob henchman, who insists on watching rehearsals.

Eventually Cheech starts giving notes on the script to David, who is initially angered by the intrusion but quickly realizes the ideas are excellent. Cheech, who barely learned to read before burning down his school, has a natural talent for playwriting, but is not interested in taking any credit. The cast members herald the revised script as genius, disparaging his initial draft as dull and pompous.

Buoyed by their imminent success, David and the actors succumb to their vices. His partner, Ellen, catches him cheating on her with Helen. Warner indulges in overeating and begins an affair with Olive, which he attempts to break off when Cheech threatens his life. Growing increasingly frustrated with Olive's poor acting, Cheech tries to have her fired from the production. After David reminds him he cannot get rid of Olive, Cheech murders her and dumps her body in a river.

Olive's murder is widely assumed to be part of an inter-gang conflict, but David immediately senses the truth and argues with Cheech. Regretting his mistakes, David is dismayed to learn that Ellen is leaving him for his hedonistic Marxist friend Sheldon Flender.

On opening night, Valenti accuses Cheech of Olive's murder, which he denies. Henchmen Rocco and Aldo chase Cheech backstage while the play is being performed, shooting him. With his dying words, Cheech gives David a new final line for the play. The play is a critical and commercial success, but David skips the after-party to confront Flender. He confesses his lack of talent and proposes marriage to Ellen, who accepts his newfound desire to leave high society and move back to Pittsburgh.

Cast

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Soundtrack

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Production

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The film's locales include the duplex co-op on the 22nd floor of 5 Tudor City Place in Manhattan.[5]

The film's title may have been an homage to a lengthy sketch of the same title from the 1950s television show Caesar's Hour; one of Allen's first jobs in television was writing for Sid Caesar specials after the initial run of the show.[6]

The film featured the last screen appearance of Benay Venuta. Allen cast her in a cameo role as a well-wishing wealthy theatre patron.[7] She died of lung cancer in September 1995.

Reception

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Critical response

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Bullets Over Broadway received a positive response from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 60 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "A gleefully entertaining backstage comedy, Bullets Over Broadway features some of Woody Allen's sharpest, most inspired late-period writing and direction."[8]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times described the film as "a bright, energetic, sometimes side-splitting comedy with vital matters on its mind, precisely the kind of sharp-edged farce [Allen] has always done best."[9] Todd McCarthy of Variety similarly called it "a backstage comedy bolstered by healthy shots of prohibition gangster melodrama and romantic entanglements" and wrote, "In its mixing of showbiz and gangsters, this is a nice companion piece to Allen's Broadway Danny Rose, and about as amusing."[10] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised, "Bullets Over Broadway shares a kinship with a more serious film by Allen, Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which a man committed murder and was able, somehow, to almost justify it. Now here is the comic side of the same coin. The movie is very funny and, in the way it follows its logic wherever it leads, surprisingly tough."[11]

The film grossed $13.4 million in the United States and Canada and $24.1 million internationally for a worldwide total of $37.5 million.[2][3]

Awards and nominations

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Award Category Nominee(s) Result Ref.
Academy Awards Best Director Woody Allen Nominated [12]
Best Supporting Actor Chazz Palminteri Nominated
Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Tilly Nominated
Dianne Wiest Won
Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath Nominated
Best Art Direction Art Direction: Santo Loquasto;
Set Decoration: Susan Bode 		Nominated
Best Costume Design Jeffrey Kurland Nominated
American Comedy Awards Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture Chazz Palminteri Nominated
Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Jennifer Tilly Nominated
Tracey Ullman Nominated
Dianne Wiest Won
Artios Awards Outstanding Achievement in Feature Film Casting – Comedy Juliet Taylor Won [13]
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards Best Supporting Actress Tracey Ullman 3rd Place [14]
Dianne Wiest 2nd Place
British Academy Film Awards Best Screenplay – Original Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath Nominated [15]
British Comedy Awards Best Comedy Film Won [16]
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards Best Supporting Actor Chazz Palminteri Nominated [17]
Best Supporting Actress Dianne Wiest Won
Chlotrudis Awards Best Movie Nominated [18]
Best Supporting Actress Dianne Wiest Won
Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards Best Supporting Actress Won
Golden Globe Awards Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Dianne Wiest Won [19]
Guldbagge Awards Best Foreign Film Woody Allen Nominated
Independent Spirit Awards Best Feature Nominated [20]
Best Supporting Male Chazz Palminteri Won
Best Supporting Female Dianne Wiest Won
Best Screenplay Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath Nominated
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards Best Supporting Actress Dianne Wiest Won [21]
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards Best Supporting Actress Won [22]
National Board of Review Awards Top Ten Films 4th Place [23]
National Society of Film Critics Awards Best Supporting Actress Dianne Wiest Won [24]
New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Supporting Actress Won [25]
Sant Jordi Awards Best Foreign Actor Chazz Palminteri (also for A Bronx Tale and The Usual Suspects) Won
Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role Chazz Palminteri Nominated [26]
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role Dianne Wiest Won
Society of Texas Film Critics Awards Best Supporting Actress Won
Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards Best Supporting Actress Won [27]
Writers Guild of America Awards Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath Nominated [28]

Year-end lists

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Stage musical

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Allen adapted the film as a stage jukebox musical, titled Bullets Over Broadway the Musical. The musical is directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, produced by Julian Schlossberg and Allen's younger sister Letty Aronson, with a score from the American songbook using songs from the 1920s and 1930s.[47] The new musical premiered on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on April 10, 2014.[48] A staged reading was held in June 2013.[49] The cast features Zach Braff as David Shayne, Brooks Ashmanskas, Betsy Wolfe, Lenny Wolpe, and Vincent Pastore.[50] Marin Mazzie stars as Helen Sinclair,[51] and Karen Ziemba appears as Eden Brent.[52] Musical supervisor Glen Kelly has adapted and written additional lyrics for songs including "Tain't Nobody's Bus'ness", "Running Wild", "Let's Misbehave", and "I Found a New Baby".[48] The musical closed on August 24, 2014, after 156 performances and 33 previews.[53]

References

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  1. ^ "Bullets Over Broadway (1994) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved May 14, 2023.
  2. ^ a b "Bullets Over Broadway". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 23, 2023.
  3. ^ a b Klady, Leonard (February 19, 1996). "B.O. with a vengeance: $9.1 billion worldwide". Variety. p. 1.
  4. ^ Harvey, Adam (2007). The Soundtracks of Woody Allen: A Complete Guide to the Songs and Music in Every Film, 1969–2005. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-7864-2968-4.
  5. ^ Barbanel, Josh (March 18, 2012). "Selling a Tudor City Treasure". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on July 9, 2017.
  6. ^ "Sid Caesar 1922-2014 + Woody Allen Response". The Woody Allen Pages. February 13, 2014. Retrieved May 14, 2023.
  7. ^ Gelder, Lawrence Van (September 2, 1995). "Benay Venuta, 84, an Actress, Singer, Dancer and Sculptor". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 14, 2023.
  8. ^ "Bullets Over Broadway". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved November 25, 2024.
  9. ^ Maslin, Janet (September 30, 1994). "Film Festival Review; Allen's Ode to Theater and, as Always, New York". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 29, 2018. Retrieved September 20, 2015.
  10. ^ McCarthy, Todd (September 6, 1994). "Review: 'Bullets Over Broadway'". Variety. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved September 20, 2015.
  11. ^ Ebert, Roger (October 28, 1994). "Bullets Over Broadway". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on December 8, 2017. Retrieved September 20, 2015 – via RogerEbert.com.
  12. ^ "The 67th Academy Awards (1995) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on November 9, 2014. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  13. ^ "1995 Artios Awards". Casting Society of America. Archived from the original on August 16, 2018. Retrieved January 6, 2019.
  14. ^ "BSFC Winners: 1990s". Boston Society of Film Critics. July 27, 2018. Archived from the original on July 17, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  15. ^ "BAFTA Awards: Film in 1996". BAFTA. 1996. Archived from the original on June 12, 2019. Retrieved September 16, 2016.
  16. ^ "Past Winners 1995". British Comedy Awards. Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved September 11, 2021.
  17. ^ "1988-2013 Award Winner Archives". Chicago Film Critics Association. January 2013. Archived from the original on April 10, 2021. Retrieved August 24, 2021.
  18. ^ "1st Annual Chlotrudis Awards". Chlotrudis Awards. Retrieved February 7, 2024.
  19. ^ "Bullets Over Broadway". Golden Globe Awards. Archived from the original on September 11, 2021. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  20. ^ "36 Years of Nominees and Winners" (PDF). Independent Spirit Awards. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 13, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  21. ^ "KCFCC Award Winners – 1990-99". Kansas City Film Critics Circle. December 14, 2013. Archived from the original on October 21, 2020. Retrieved May 15, 2021.
  22. ^ "The Annual 20th Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards". Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Archived from the original on October 6, 2021. Retrieved August 24, 2021.
  23. ^ "1994 Award Winners". National Board of Review. Archived from the original on October 3, 2021. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  24. ^ "Past Awards". National Society of Film Critics. December 19, 2009. Archived from the original on October 17, 2015. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  25. ^ "1994 New York Film Critics Circle Awards". Mubi. Archived from the original on September 11, 2021. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  26. ^ "The 1st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards". Screen Actors Guild Awards. Archived from the original on July 27, 2011. Retrieved May 21, 2016.
  27. ^ "1994 SEFA Awards". Southeastern Film Critics Association. Archived from the original on December 6, 2019. Retrieved May 15, 2021.
  28. ^ "Awards Winners". Writers Guild of America. Archived from the original on December 5, 2012. Retrieved June 6, 2010.
  29. ^ "Awards for 1994". National Board of Review. Archived from the original on November 25, 2010. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  30. ^ Lovell, Glenn (December 25, 1994). "The Past Picture Show the Good, the Bad and the Ugly -- a Year Worth's of Movie Memories". San Jose Mercury News (Morning Final ed.). p. 3.
  31. ^ P. Means, Sean (January 1, 1995). "'Pulp and Circumstance' After the Rise of Quentin Tarantino, Hollywood Would Never Be the Same". The Salt Lake Tribune (Final ed.). p. E1.
  32. ^ Denerstein, Robert (January 1, 1995). "Perhaps It Was Best to Simply Fade to Black". Rocky Mountain News (Final ed.). p. 61A.
  33. ^ Travers, Peter (December 29, 1994). "The Best and Worst Movies of 1994". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on January 25, 2021. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  34. ^ Turan, Kenneth (December 25, 1994). "1994: YEAR IN REVIEW : No Weddings, No Lions, No Gumps". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March 19, 2021. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  35. ^ Hurley, John (December 30, 1994). "Movie Industry Hit Highs and Lows in '94". Staten Island Advance. p. D11.
  36. ^ Strauss, Bob (December 30, 1994). "At the Movies: Quantity Over Quality". Los Angeles Daily News (Valley ed.). p. L6.
  37. ^ Maslin, Janet (December 27, 1994). "CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; The Good, Bad and In-Between In a Year of Surprises on Film". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 19, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  38. ^ Webster, Dan (January 1, 1995). "In Year of Disappointments, Some Movies Still Delivered". The Spokesman-Review (Spokane ed.). p. 2.
  39. ^ Ross, Bob (December 30, 1994). "1994 The Year in Entertainment". The Tampa Tribune (Final ed.). p. 18.
  40. ^ King, Dennis (December 25, 1994). "SCREEN SAVERS In a Year of Faulty Epics, The Oddest Little Movies Made The Biggest Impact". Tulsa World (Final Home ed.). p. E1.
  41. ^ Movshovitz, Howie (December 25, 1994). "Memorable Movies of '94 Independents, fringes filled out a lean year". The Denver Post (Rockies ed.). p. E-1.
  42. ^ Schuldt, Scott (January 1, 1995). "Oklahoman Movie Critics Rank Their Favorites for the Year Without a Doubt, Blue Ribbon Goes to "Pulp Fiction," Scott Says". The Oklahoman. Archived from the original on July 20, 2020. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  43. ^ Clark, Mike (December 28, 1994). "Scoring with true life, 'True Lies' and 'Fiction.'". USA Today (Final ed.). p. 5D.
  44. ^ Dudek, Duane (December 30, 1994). "1994 was a year of slim pickings". Milwaukee Sentinel. p. 3.
  45. ^ MacCambridge, Michael (December 22, 1994). "it's a LOVE-HATE thing". Austin American-Statesman (Final ed.). p. 38.
  46. ^ Armstrong, Douglas (January 1, 1995). "End-of-year slump is not a happy ending". The Milwaukee Journal. p. 2.
  47. ^ Rooney, David (June 14, 2012). "Susan Stroman to Shepherd Woody Allen's 'Bullets Over Broadway' to Stage". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on June 18, 2012. Retrieved August 14, 2012.
  48. ^ a b Hetrick, Adam (April 10, 2014). "The Verdict: Critics Review Woody Allen Musical Bullets Over Broadway". Playbill. Archived from the original on June 23, 2014.
  49. ^ Hetrick, Adam (June 12, 2013). "With Reading Underway, Woody Allen Musical Bullets Over Broadway Will Test Legs in Fall Lab". Playbill. Archived from the original on September 6, 2013.
  50. ^ Hetrick, Adam (June 27, 2013). "Zach Braff, Brooks Ashmanskas, Betsy Wolfe, Vincent Pastore Set for Bullets Over Broadway, Opening in April 2014". Playbill. Archived from the original on September 5, 2013.
  51. ^ Hetrick, Adam (December 5, 2013). "Marin Mazzie Lands Coveted Leading Role in Woody Allen Musical Bullets Over Broadway". Playbill. Archived from the original on January 10, 2014.
  52. ^ Hetrick, Adam (January 9, 2014). "Karen Ziemba Joins Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway; Casting Now Complete". Playbill. Archived from the original on January 10, 2014.
  53. ^ Hetrick, Adam; Gans, Andrew (August 24, 2014). "Curtain Comes Down on Woody Allen Musical Bullets Over Broadway". Playbill. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014.
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