Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Film Review: RHINESTONE (1984, Bob Clark)


Stars: 2 of 5.
Running Time: 111 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Sylvester Stallone, Dolly Parton, Richard Farnsworth, Ron Leibman
Tag-line: "Dolly Parton stakes her career and her body on a New York cabbie! " AND "She's bet everything, and we mean EVERYTHING, that she can turn this New York cabbie into an overnight sensation. He has other things in mind. But he's never had a trainer like this one!"
Best one-liner(s): "Budweiser you created a monster / and they call him Drinkenstein / And the tavern down the street is the labba-tor-eye-ee / where he makes the transformation all the time / And a stein of Dr. Buuuud is a pint of monster blood / and it does affect me different every time / Budweiser you created a monster / and they call me Drinkenstein / And they call me Drinkenstein / I'm Drinkenstein! / I'm Drinkenstein!"
Special Irony: Stallone turned down the Michael Douglas role in ROMANCING THE STONE and the Eddie Murphy role in BEVERLY HILLS COP to be in RHINESTONE.

Historical excerpt from a 1983 20th Century-fox pitch meeting:

"No-no-no. Okay, let me clarify it for you. MY FAIR LADY. Except instead of Audrey Hepburn... we have Sylvester Stallone. The Italian Stallion himself. Yeah, how ya like that? What did she ever bring to the table, anyway? Some 'happy face' nonsense with Gregory Peck and some Capote-scripted crap about brunch in New York. We loved Stallone as ROCKY, we loved him as RAMBO, and now I feel like there's a thirst out there amongst the viewing public to see him do over-the-top slapstick comedy. I just got this feeling like he'd be REALLY GOOD at it.

So let's give the people what they want! Alright, now you might want to sit down for this next part, cause it's gonna floor you. You sitting down? Okay. Instead of Rex Harrison...Dolly Parton. Are you still with me? Yeah, plus she's got two working eyes. No glass eyes amongst this cast. What? Yeah, that's right! OUR Henry Higgins has got double-D's! Yeah, we'll keep that in mind for the tagline campaign. Alright, then we substitute British high society with country western music, and the flower girl with a New York cabbie. Except we up the stakes. Instead of free speech lessons, the stakes involve a sleazy music producer getting to have sex with Dolly. The kids are gonna go bananas over that one. Oh, tagline! Just came to me. "She bet everything, and we mean EVERYTHING!" That's a good one. Perfect. That's all we need. Greenlight this sonofabitch."

-Sean Gill

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