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The Rewatchables ·

True Romance

year 1993decade 90sdirector Tony Scottgenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennessey
All 14 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 26:50

The Sicilian scene between Hopper and Walken

Five candidate scenes are set out: Clarence going back to Drexel, Hopper versus Walken, which might be the most famous scene of both careers, Gandolfini versus Alabama, the coke sale at the Beverly Ambassador when Slater shows up wired and talks Vietnam movies and Coming Home in a Body Bag, and the big three-way shootout, Tarantino's second three-way shootout in two movies.

Bill Simmons: A recap for anyone who has not seen the film in a while: Clarence falls in love with the woman his boss hires for him and they get married.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:22:06

"If there's one thing this last week has taught me, it's better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it"

Nominations: 'don't condescend me man', Drexel's crude line comparing himself to a woman's body, 'he must have thought it was white boy day', the gun line, 'she tastes like a peach'; the gun line is liked as a senior yearbook line for the high school students out there, and it is replayed with Clarence telling Richard that Lee Donowitz is not a pimp, credited to Clarence Worley, 1993.

The film

True Romance (1993)

Directed by Tony Scott · Drama

118 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Christian Slater Clarence Worley
Patricia Arquette Alabama Whitman
Dennis Hopper Clifford Worley
Val Kilmer Elvis
Gary Oldman Drexl Spivey
Brad Pitt Floyd, Dick's roommate
Christopher Walken Vincenzo Coccotti
Bronson Pinchot Elliot Blitzer
Samuel L. Jackson Don "Big Don"
Michael Rapaport Dick Ritchie
Saul Rubinek Lee Donowitz
Conchata Ferrell Mary Louise Ravencroft
Victor Argo Lenny
Paul Bates Marty
Chris Penn Detective Nicky Dimes
Tom Sizemore Detective Cody Nicholson
Gregory Sporleder burger stand customer
Frank Adonis Frankie
Michael Beach Detective Wurlitzer
Laurence Mason Floyd "D"
Ed Lauter Captain Quiggle (uncredited)

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

52:43

Casting What-Ifs

Tarantino wanted Joan Cusack as Alabama; Tony Scott wanted Drew Barrymore; Jack Black (as transcribed: 'Jack Plack') ...

Tarantino wanted Joan Cusack as Alabama; Tony Scott wanted Drew Barrymore; Jack Black (as transcribed: 'Jack Plack') was cut as a theater usher; Val Kilmer wanted Clarence; Tom Sizemore was first cast in Gandolfini's role and recommended Gandolfini

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:52:43Read transcript
  • Tarantino wanted Joan Cusack for Alabama in the late-eighties script, which one host calls genius from the man who put John Travolta in Pulp Fiction; another doubts she has the sex appeal for the character, though she is sexy in The Addams Family, reviving a sixty-episode argument over whether she could pull off a sexy role.
  • Tony Scott, misnamed Ridley at first, wanted Drew Barrymore; a year before Mad Love she could have pulled off Alabama, had career baggage from drug and alcohol trouble, and might have become a star of the A list from it, whereas the film, which only made twelve million (as transcribed: '$12 billion'), did not propel Arquette, who is iconic in it and had a host's high school girlfriend curling her hair the same way.
  • Alabama is totally fake, a creation like the manic pixie dream girls discussed a few episodes ago; on the commentary Tarantino is unembarrassed about not having a girlfriend until 25 and inventing his dream girl, one who watches kung fu movies, eats chicken, drinks beer, smokes and is funny; Arquette was the perfect actress to embody it.
  • Jack Black (as transcribed: 'Jack Plack') was cut as an usher in the kung fu theater; Val Kilmer desperately wanted Clarence, but Tarantino originally saw the role as a David Carradine type, an older loser, so a Kilmer version would have been a man approaching middle age rather than a cool guy at a Detroit comic book store.
  • Tom Sizemore was initially cast in Gandolfini's role, was not comfortable with the scene beating up Arquette, asked to play the cop instead and recommended Gandolfini because they had been in a play together, giving him his big break.
  • A riff on Sizemore's heat check against De Niro in Heat, 'for me, the action is the juice', with the long dramatic pause, an ISO Michael Mann keeps giving him, Sizemore as Michael Mann's Joe Akeem Noah (as transcribed); what does not add up is that a year later he played the disgusting warden in Natural Born Killers, so perhaps domestic violence in his past, dating Heidi Fleiss and substance abuse made the scene hit too close.
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1:07:13

Half-Assed Internet Research

Tony Scott changed the ending so Clarence lives; Elvis's estate refused any Elvis music; Drexel's eye came from the D...

Tony Scott changed the ending so Clarence lives; Elvis's estate refused any Elvis music; Drexel's eye came from the Dracula prop box; Rubinek did not know his audition was Joel Silver; the hotel deal was shot at the abandoned Ambassador Hotel; Sizemore lay with feathers in his mouth for days; Walken asked to shoot Hopper's half first; Warner Brothers wanted the title Reckless Hearts; the money exchange moved from a zoo to Six Flags; Gandolfini stayed in a dingy hotel; Slater and Arquette had an off-screen romance

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:07:13Read transcript
  • Tony Scott changed the ending because he loved the characters; originally Clarence died and Alabama got away with the money, and apparently both versions were shot; one host dislikes Clarence being shot in the eye and maimed, wanting a shoulder wound if he lives; another loves that Scott liked him too much to let him go, classic sentimental Tony.
  • A joke about a Ringer montage of characters ending up on the same perfect Mexican beach with their kids and 300,000 dollars in a suitcase: Red talking to Alabama, Shawshank, Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster from Fast 7, about two miles from Zawantaneo (as transcribed).
  • Elvis's estate would not allow any Elvis music, so Charlie Sexton's Graceland, basically Sexton doing Elvis, opens the film; the music is a 1993 mishmash, a late-period Aerosmith song feels out of sync for a Tarantino film, and one host calls the music a missed opportunity that belonged in aged worst when Pixies-type bands were available, though Soundgarden's Outshined is what Floyd would listen to; the fifties stuff, the Big Bopper on the phone with Dick Ritchie and the Burl Ives song feel Tarantino; Drexel listening to techno is odd, Wu Tang would fit, but the techno gives the scene its unsettling vibe.
  • Drexel's weird eye came from the Dracula prop box; Oldman's account is that over tea at the Four Seasons Scott could not explain the plot but described a pimp who is white but thinks he is black, and that was all he needed to hear; Rubinek's account is that at his audition Scott told him he had Joel exactly right, and he had no idea who Joel Silver was.
  • The hotel drug deal was filmed at the abandoned Ambassador Hotel where Robert Kennedy was shot, near the end of Beverly by the 101, now a dog and cat hospital with the neighborhood schools renamed RFK; a host's daughter practiced at Virgil High School next to it for half a year without his knowing; in the Maxim oral history Sizemore recounted that his death was got in one take at the start of the shootout, so he lay on the ground with feathers in his mouth for days.
  • Scott intended to shoot Walken's part first; Walken begged him to shoot Hopper first and found his character watching Hopper's half play out; Warner Brothers was going to change the title to Reckless Hearts until Arquette, Slater, Scott and Tarantino threw their bodies in front of it; the money exchange was meant for a zoo and ended at Six Flags when the location fell through; Gandolfini got into character as Virgil by staying in a dingy hotel and not showering or changing his underwear.
  • Slater and Arquette seem to have had sparks on and off the set, evident in how they connect: Scott's account that Christian was instantly attracted and Patricia fell in love with him, a true romance; Arquette on a romantic, magnetized sexual attraction; Slater on love at first sight made tricky by being in a relationship; the phone booth scene is called one of the more believable sex scenes in movie history, with Slater really going for it.
  • Earlier, during aged best, the Pineapple Express origin story is flagged as stepping on the internet research.
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1:20:59

Picking Nits

How much a theater manager would pay for a call girl; Alabama has only been a call girl for four days; whether Claren...

How much a theater manager would pay for a call girl; Alabama has only been a call girl for four days; whether Clarence and Alabama could walk out of the Beverly Ambassador past a thousand cops

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:20:59Read transcript
  • How much money does a movie theater manager have to spend on a call girl for an employee's birthday; the economics of call girls in 1993 are unclear; Alabama has only been a call girl for four days, the movie trope of the hooker who has only been one since last Thursday.
  • An LA tidbit: the movie theater is the Vista on Sunset, used for all the exteriors rather than Detroit; Tarantino tells the story of putting the Sonny Chiba triple feature on the Vista marquee so his movie nerd friends drove by and called him about it.
  • Would Slater and Arquette really get out of the Beverly Ambassador, both covered in blood, carrying a suitcase past a thousand cops without a sideways look; not according to Tarantino.
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1:24:28

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Are there really 17 tells for a lying man and 20 for a woman? Why wasn't Patricia Arquette a bigger star? What is Ala...

Are there really 17 tells for a lying man and 20 for a woman? Why wasn't Patricia Arquette a bigger star? What is Alabama doing right now? Where did Dick Ritchie and Floyd live? Did the Italians kill Floyd?

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 01:24:28Read transcript
  • Is it true there are seventeen things a guy does when he lies and a woman has twenty; googling turns up nothing but this scene, Tarantino may have been talking out of his ass, why seventeen, and listeners are asked to email the mailbag if there is truth in it.
  • Why wasn't Patricia Arquette a bigger star: she has a wholly distinctive vibe, voice and look that did not translate to Julia Roberts type movies; she was on Medium a long time, was a star of Ed Wood and Flirting with Disaster and was in Lost Highway, but never a blockbuster; summoning the spirit of Wesley Morris, she was market-corrected by Drew Barrymore with the rom-coms and Charlie's Angels, weird but not too weird for guys, while Arquette is cool, a little weird and more hard-bitten.
  • What is Alabama doing right now: working in the boatyard with Red in Mexico, Clarence definitely dead, probably from complications of poor eye surgery; a deep-web Tarantino database supposedly has her hooking up with Harvey Keitel's Reservoir Dogs character and going on the run as a professional bank robber, which was the plan when Clarence died.
  • Where exactly did Dick Ritchie and Floyd live: honestly Los Feliz, or up Beachwood in the hills since the directions say go down Beachwood, around the Beachwood Cafe, looking like the Los Feliz or Franklin Hills; a Ringer video series visiting movie locations is wished for.
  • Did the Italians kill Floyd, the most important question of the movie and maybe of a host's life: they leave the first time, Gandolfini leaves the second after asking whether they want to smoke, they cock their guns and it just ends; in the 1992 draft Floyd's last line is 'well, you go down Beachwood' with no killing; killing him would only leave a trail, so he lives, or dies of lung disease two years later; Kevin Corrigan, one of the most Irish guys of all time, plays an Italian gangster.
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