Glengarry Glen Ross

One of the dangers in adapting a stage play into a film is that you won’t be able to break out of the theatricality inherent with so many plays. Fortunately, film director James Foley seemed to be acutely aware of this when he decided to take on Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), an adaptation of David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name with the screenplay written by the man himself. Right from the start, Foley keeps things visually interesting by bathing the film in Giallo-esque lighting that would make Dario Argento proud. Cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchia photographs two salesmen talking in adjoining telephone booths, bathing them in white and blue light respectively with contrasting red in the background. Not only are these colors of the American flag and thereby making a subtle allusion to the notion that this story is a damning indictment of Capitalism, one of the principles that made the United States what it is today. The two men bitch and gripe to each other about the potential clients they have to cold call and then turn on the charm once they get them on the phone. Welcome to Mamet’s cutthroat world of real estate sales populated by desperate, often cruel men that are driven to make as much money as they can, consequences be damned.


One night, an office of down-on-their-luck salesmen are given the pep talk from hell by a ruthless man named Blake (Alec Baldwin), an executive sent by their bosses Mitch and Murray, on a “mission of mercy” as he sarcastically puts it. He starts off by telling them that they’re all fired. They have a week to get their jobs back by selling as much property as they can. He gives them an additional incentive: first prize is a new Cadillac El Dorado, second prize is a set of steak knives and third prize is, as he puts it, “you’re fired.” If the salesmen do well they will get the new Glengarry leads and the promise of better clients and good money.

Blake delivers an absolutely punishing speech as he belittles them (“You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?”), is downright insulting (“You can’t close shit, you are shit! Hit the bricks, pal and beat it because you are going out!”), and demoralizing by even questioning their manhood. He throws in all sorts of “encouraging” words, like “Get them to sign on the line which is dotted,” and “Always be closing.” Alec Baldwin delivers a blistering performance as Blake. His character was not in the original stage play, Mamet wrote him specifically for the film. In his brief amount of screen time, Baldwin dominates the screen against the likes of Ed Harris and Jack Lemmon as he delivers a devastating monologue with ferocious intensity. At one point, Dave Moss (Ed Harris) asks him, “What's your name?” to which Blake replies, “Fuck you! That's my name. You know why, mister? 'Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight. I drove an $80,000 BMW. That's my name.” Blake is an icy motivational speaker that only motivates the salesmen out of fear of being unemployed, making this scene eerily relevant to our times as that is also the prime motivator for most people trying to hold down a job in our current economic climate.

If there was ever a film that deserved an Academy Award for best ensemble cast then this is it. Glengarry Glen Ross features a dream collection of acting heavyweights: Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, and Alan Arkin. Pacino plays the slickest salesman of the bunch – Ricky Roma, a smooth-talking, well-dressed bullshit artist of the highest order. This is evident in the scenes where Roma spins an incredibly long and convoluted story, seducing a mild-mannered middle-aged man named James Lingk (Jonathan Pryce). It’s a marvel of acting as we watch Pacino do a spectacular verbal tap dance around the actual pitch until the last possible moment when he’s got the guy’s complete and utter confidence – even then he presents the land he’s pushing as an opportunity as opposed to a purchase, preying on Lingk’s insecurity. It’s a brilliant bit of acting as Pacino commands the scene with his mesmerizing presence. Jonathan Pryce is also excellent as he portrays a weak-willed man susceptible to Roma’s polished charms.

Harris plays Moss as an angry man pissed off at the lousy leads (i.e. clients) and is plotting to defect to a rival, Jerry Graff. George Aaronow (Alan Arkin) is a nervous guy unable to close a sit (pitching a client in person) and seems keen on Moss’ plan to steal the new Glengarry leads and sell them to the competition. John Williamson (Kevin Spacey) is the office manager, a pencil pusher that shows little remorse in what happens to his staff. He’s a smug son-of-a-bitch who takes a particular interest in Shelley "The Machine" Levene’s (Jack Lemmon) plight. Levene is an older salesman trying to make enough money to pay off mounting medical bills for his sick daughter, which colors everything he does.

Levene is a pathetic character desperate to keep his job and still capable of a slick sales pitch (in a nice touch, he often refers to an imaginary secretary named Grace while calling a potential client on the phone), it’s just his judgment that’s off as he finds out with devastating consequences later on in the film. Jack Lemmon somehow manages to make him sympathetic. We see both sides of Levene in a scene where he tries to sell property to a man (Bruce Altman) in his home. The man is not interested and despite Levene's desperate attempts, asks him to leave. It is an increasingly uncomfortable scene that is hard to watch as the man finally and firmly rebuffs Levene. Your heart really goes out to Lemmon's character as he dejectedly walks back out into the pouring rain, looking very much like a drowned rat. It is to Lemmon’s incredible skill as an actor that he makes you care about such a pitiful man

Director Foley successfully transfers Mamet's play to the big screen by creating atmospheric visuals. There is a somber mood that permeates almost every scene. The first half of the film takes place at night during an oppressive rainstorm. Anchia's rich, textured cinematography is the key ingredient in giving Mamet's play a cinematic look. He relied on low lighting and shadows with blues, greens and reds for the first part of the film. The second part adhered to a monochromatic blue-grey color scheme. All the locations are given their own distinctive color scheme, in particular, the hellish red/navy blue of the Chinese restaurant that the salesmen frequent. The overall atmosphere is dark, like that of a film noir.

And then there is Mamet's trademark hard-boiled dialogue or “Mamet speak” as it is known. It has a sharp, staccato quality to it that cuts right to the point with characters often interrupting each other or their dialogue overlapping as evident in the scene where Moss tells Aaronow of his plans to rob their office. One thing that is evident in Glengarry Glen Ross is just how good Mamet is at writing amusing dialogue. For example, at one point, Williamson asks where Roma is to which Moss replies, “Well, I'm not a leash so I don't know, do I?” Mamet’s characters talk like they are thinking about what they are going to say next as they are saying it — much like in real life.

David Mamet’s play was first performed in 1983 at the National Theater of London and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. That same year it made its United States debut in the playwright’s hometown of Chicago before moving to Broadway. Shortly thereafter, producer Jerry Tokofsky (Dreamscape) read the play on a trip to New York City in 1985 at the suggestion of director Irvin Kershner who wanted to make it into a film. Tokofsky then saw it on Broadway and contacted Mamet. The playwright wanted $500,000 for the film rights and another $500,000 to write the screenplay to which the producer agreed. Washington, D.C.-based B-movie producer Stanley R. Zupnik was looking for A-list material and co-produced two previous Tokofsky films. Zupnik had seen Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway and found the plot confusing. He also knew of its reputation in Hollywood as being a commercially difficult project but figured that he and Tokofsky could cut a deal with a cable company.

During this time, Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin became interested in Glengarry Glen Ross but without any concrete financing both Kershner and the actors dropped out for various reasons. Pacino had originally wanted to do the play on Broadway but was doing another Mamet production, American Buffalo, in London at the time. Director James Foley read the script in early 1991 and was hired to direct only to leave the project soon afterwards. By March 1991, Tokofsky contacted Baldwin and practically begged him to reconsider doing the film. The producer remembers, “Alec said: ‘I’ve read 25 scripts and nothing is as good as this. O.K. If you make it, I’ll do it.’” This prompted Foley and Pacino to get back on board with Jack Lemmon agreeing to do it as well. Foley and Pacino arranged an informal reading with Lemmon in Los Angeles. From this point, Foley and Pacino had subsequent readings with several other actors. Lemmon remembers, “Some of the best damn actors you’re ever going to see came in and read and I’m talking about names.” Alan Arkin originally wasn’t interested in doing the film because he didn’t like the character he was asked to portray but fortunately his wife, manager and agent pushed him to do it. Tokofsky’s lawyer called a meeting at the Creative Artists’ Agency, who represented many of the actors involved, and asked for their help. CAA showed little interest but two of their clients – Ed Harris and Kevin Spacey – soon joined the cast.

Due to the uncompromising subject matter and abrasive language, no major studio wanted to finance Glengarry Glen Ross even with actors like Pacino and Lemmon attached. Financing ended up coming from cable and video companies, a German television station, an Australian movie theater chain, several banks, and, finally, New Line Cinema over the course of four years. Because of the film’s modest budget of $12.5 million, many of the actors took significant pay cuts do it. For example, Pacino cut his per-movie price from $6 million to $1.5 million. This didn’t stop other actors, like Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis, Joe Mantegna, and Richard Gere from expressing an interest in the film.

Once the cast was assembled, they spent three weeks in rehearsals. The budget was set at $12.5 million with filming beginning in August 1991 at the Kaufman Astoria soundstage in Queens, New York and on location in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn over 39 days. Ed Harris remembers, “There were five and six-page scenes we would shoot all at once. It was more like doing a play at times [when] you’d get the continuity going.” Arkin said of the script, “What made it [challenging] was the language and the rhythms, which are enormously difficult to absorb.” During principal photography, Tokofsky and his producing partner Zupnik had a falling out over credit for the film. Upon the film’s release, Tokofsky sued to strip Zupnik of his producer’s credit and share of the producer’s fee. Zupnik claimed that he personally put up $2 million of the film’s budget and countersued, claiming that Tokofsky was fired for embezzlement, which seems rather ironic considering the subject matter of the film. To date neither one of them has gone on to produce another film with the lone exception of The Grass Harp in 1995 by Tokofsky.

Glengarry Glen Ross received very positive reviews from most mainstream critics. Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and wrote, “There is a duet between Harris and Arkin that is one of the best things Mamet has written. They speculate about the near-legendary ‘good leads’ that Spacey allegedly has locked in his office. What if someone broke into the office and stole the leads? Harris and Arkin discuss it, neither one quite saying out loud what's on his mind.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, “Mr. Mamet has the vision of a moralist outside of time. He never nudges the audience toward what it's supposed to think. He also has an evil angel's gift for a spoken language that sounds realistic, but is a kind of shorthand for psychic desperation.” Time magazine’s Richard Corliss wrote, “A peerless ensemble of actors fills Glengarry Glen Ross with audible glares and shudders. The play was a zippy black comedy about predators in twilight; the film is a photo-essay, shot in morgue closeup, about the difficulty most people have convincing themselves that what they do matters.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film an “A” rating and Owen Gleiberman praised Lemmon’s performance: “And Jack Lemmon, an actor I've seldom been able to watch without squirming myself, is a revelation. Lemmon hasn't abandoned his familiar mannerisms — the hammy, ingratiating whine, the tugging-at-the-collar nervousness. This time, though, he trots out his stale actor's gimmicks knowingly, making them a satirical extension of the character's own weariness.” Newsweek magazine’s David Ansen wrote, “Glengarry is a compelling look at one of the closed-out items in the catalog of American dreams.”

In his review for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum praised Foley’s direction: “Foley's mise en scene is so energetic and purposeful (he's especially adept in using semicircular pans) that the unexpected use of a 'Scope format seems fully justified, even in a drama where lives are resurrected and destroyed according to the value of offscreen pieces of paper.” However, in his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe was not thrilled with Foley’s contributions: “But director James Foley's attempts to ‘open up’ the play to the outside world are dismal. The play takes place in the salesmen's office and a Chinese restaurant. Foley doesn't add much more than the street between. If his intention is to create a sense of claustrophobia, he also creates the (presumably) unwanted effect of a soundstage. There is no evidence of life outside the immediate world of the movie.”

It takes a certain kind of personality to sell something that people don't need but convincing them that they do. There is a whiff of pathetic desperation to Mamet’s salesmen. It seems like their best days are behind them. It’s a vicious circle of sorts – they can’t get access to new, potentially good clients unless they close some of their old ones and they are all deadbeats. These salesmen will say and do anything to keep their job, which begs the question: is that what it takes to be a good salesperson? Ed Harris believes that the film is “about the evils of the free enterprise system. You’ve got these guys selling bogus real estate and they’re upset because they can’t sell it.” The film is a rather timely one as it addresses tough economic times, something that we are experiencing now. One of the reasons Mamet’s characters have such a hard time selling these properties is because nobody has any money and what they do have they’re holding onto it. First performed on stage in the “Greed is good” 1980s, Glengarry Glen Ross was a scathing indictment of the free enterprise system. The film was made in the early 1990s when the economy was doing well and now it has become relevant once again in the lean and mean post-9/11 New Millennium.

Reckless

For a film that wasn’t well-received commercially and critically when it came out in 1984, Reckless featured several prominent actors early on in their careers, chief among them Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah. They portray young adults living in a dead-end town that has been gutted by the rapid decline of its primary industry. Seen as something of A Rebel Without A Cause (1955) for the 1980s, Reckless features a rebellious protagonist desperate to get out of a town that he feels has nothing left to offer him. Like the similarly themed All the Right Moves (1983), Reckless was the gritty flipside to John Hughes’ wish fulfillment films. While most people think of the ‘80s as a prosperous time in America, films like this one and All the Right Moves remind us of the small towns devastated by the loss of their primary industry (and source of income) and having its workforce depleted through painful attrition. If Reckless is remembered at all, it’s for the breakout performances of Quinn and Hannah, or the fantastic soundtrack of New Wave gems by the likes of INXS and Romeo Void.

The opening shot is of smoke billowing out of a factory that pretty much sets the bleak tone for the film. Johnny Rourke (Aidan Quinn) and Tracey Prescott (Daryl Hannah) meet when they play a game of chicken on a deserted stretch of road – him on a motorcycle, she in a car with her boyfriend (Adam Baldwin) and girlfriends (among them is a young Jennifer Grey in her feature film debut). Her smile as they swerve out of each other’s ways hints at her attraction to this risk-taker. The factory is omnipresent, always lurking in the background. It’s visible in the window next to Rourke’s seat in a class he shares with Tracey at school. Later on, there’s a great shot of Rourke driving past the factory and it dwarfs him, looming large while he looks like an insignificant insect in comparison.

Rourke’s father (Kenneth McMillan) is an abusive drunk and his mother now married to his dad’s supervisor (Dan Hedaya) at the factory. Rourke’s home life is a mess and a pretty strong motivator for getting out of town. On the flip side, Tracey’s parents give her everything she wants so that she never wants to leave but ultimately realizes that this is not enough. Not anymore. She has the most to lose and her decision of whether to stay or go is the toughest one for anyone in the film to make.

Can I just say how cool the dance sequence is in Reckless? Fed up with the tepid elevator music playing at the school dance, Rourke puts in “Never Say Never” by Romeo Void and he and Tracey dance together with delirious wild abandon. As soon as that opening guitar riff starts up and then the drums kick in a few second later, I get goosebumps every time. The camera swirls around Rourke and Tracey, trying to keep up with their bodies, adding to the intoxicating nature of this scene. In some respects, Reckless was the east coast New Wave answer to Valley’s (1983) west coast vibe. There were only a few good New Wave songs to come out of the early ‘80s and this film seems to have most of them.

While the dance sequence features dizzying camera movements, director James Foley keeps the rest of the film pretty simple, refusing to draw attention to the camera, focusing instead on the characters. His direction enhances the story. The dialogue has a very authentic feel to it. These teenagers talk like people their age actually do and what I realized is that it’s not just that this dialogue sounds so real but that teen films nowadays don’t. They’re missing the frankness of Reckless, All the Right Moves and even Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). It’s even more astonishing to learn that Steven Spielberg protégée and future Harry Potter director Chris Columbus wrote the screenplay! What the hell happened to him after such an auspicious start?

Foley has had a frustratingly uneven career, starting off strong with this film and following it up with the much underrated drama At Close Range (1986) with Sean Penn and Christopher Walken. However, he’s also helmed clunkers like Who’s That Girl? (1987) and Fear (1996). Regardless, he will get a free pass for life from me for Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). Foley is one of those directors that are only as good as the material he’s given to work with and fortunately, in the case of Reckless, he had an excellent script as a foundation. Producers Edgar Scherick and Scott Rudin asked Foley to direct Reckless a year after meeting him on another project.

Principal photography began in November, 1982 in Weirton, West Virginia, the primary location for Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978). The production shot for 35 days in order to finish filming before the harsh winter weather was to set in. However, the cast and crew still experienced snow on the ground and cold temperatures right from the first day of shooting. For the visual look of the film, Foley and his cinematographer Michael Ballhaus were inspired by the paintings of Edvard Munch because they felt that his style symbolized the emotional turmoil of Rourke.

Another good musical cue is “Kids in America” by Kim Wilde, used when Rourke and Tracey break into their high school. The song kicks in as he tosses various student records in the air while dancing through the halls and then smashes the trophy case with a fire extinguisher. This leads to the film’s rather steamy seduction scene between Rourke and Tracey in the school pool, culminating in a scorching sex scene in the boiler room that raised a few eyebrows back in the day and still generates heat (no pun intended) today.

According to Quinn, Hannah had a difficult time with the sex scenes, claiming at the time that they weren’t in the script. Foley disagreed and he and the actress argued. The actor remembered that he and Hannah had a mercurial relationship and that they “really liked each other and were supportive of each other, and then we really, like, got under each other’s skin and couldn’t stand each other.” In other words, their off-camera relationship often mirrored their on-screen one.

Rourke has all the trappings of a rebel. He’s got the leather jacket, the motorcycle and the disdain for authority. Early on, Tracey’s boyfriend asks him, “Whatever happened to you, Rourke? You used to be normal,” to which he replies, “I grew out of it,” which sums up his rebellious nature rather nicely and echoes that famous exchange in The Wild One (1953): “What are you rebelling against?” “Whaddya got?” Aidan Quinn has the brooding charisma thing down cold and brings an intensity to the role that is ideal for his angry-at-the-world character. That, coupled with his good looks, makes Rourke pretty irresistible to Tracey. Quinn conveys a lot of pain and angst in his character but manages to do so in a way that doesn’t come off as clichéd or forced.

A casting agent friend of Foley’s gave him a Polaroid of Quinn and immediately the director knew that the actor was perfect for the role of Rourke. Within 48 hours, the filmmakers managed to locate Quinn and flew him to Los Angeles for a screen test. The actor was so tired and nervous that when he read the first scene, he started laughing and couldn’t stop. Foley reviewed the footage the next day and realized that “even though he had given an excellent reading, the sequence of Aidan laughing revealed more about his personality and screen potential than anything we could have asked him to do.” After getting the role, Quinn was scared because he did not have any experience making films. As a result, he didn’t sleep for three weeks. He did enjoy making the film but was disappointed by the outcome of it and recalled being “naive enough to be somewhat public about it.” He even warned MGM not to send him out to do publicity because he “wasn’t too keen about it.”

All of Rourke’s rebellious qualities are very attractive to Tracey, a beautiful girl bored with her predictable life and relationship with an overbearing jock boyfriend. Compared to him, Rourke is dangerous and exciting. She’s a cheerleader dating the quarterback of the football team – could her life be any more of a cliché? It’s no wonder she finds herself drawn to Rourke – he represents an exciting break from her predictable life. There’s a nice scene where Tracey takes stock of her “perfect” life and it freaks her out. She’s sick of it, sick of doing what’s expected. She sees Rourke as a way to mix things up a little but doesn’t anticipate just how much her life will change as a result of their relationship. Daryl Hannah is quite good here as she conveys Tracey’s epiphany of sorts.

I have a feeling that a lot of crushes on Hannah were cultivated with this film thanks in large part to her lovely locks of flowing blond hair in a modified Farrah, full lips and gorgeous facial features. Hannah had a good run of films in ‘80s, starting with Blade Runner (1982), Splash (1984), which launched her into the mainstream, The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), and Wall Street (1987). High profile roles for her dried up in the 1990s with the occasional interesting supporting role in something like Robert Altman’s The Gingerbread Man (1998) or an independent film like Hi-Life (1998), and later a memorable turn in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films.

Reckless really captures what it feels like to be a teenager with an intimacy in the way it deals with their problems. The film honestly examines the theme of how much does one let another person in? How much do you trust them? These are questions that teens universally wrestle with and are rarely addressed as honestly as this film does. While Rourke openly expresses how he feels at any given moment, Tracey is much more guarded with her true feelings and the film’s climactic moment comes when she finally realizes what she wants. It’s really a shame that Reckless was R rated because more teens should have had access to it but at least there is always home video (and a new DVD release thanks to the Warner Brothers Archives) as a way for people to rediscover this underappreciated film.

Also take a look at Ned Merrill's excellent post on this film over at his blog, Obscure One-Sheet and a fantastic post over at The Moviezzz Blog.