What the Hell Happened to Melanie Griffith?
Melanie Griffith is the daughter of Hollywood icon, Tippi Hedren, an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner. She rose to the A-list in the 80s working with directors like Brian De Palma, Mike Nichols and Jonathan Demme. But after a promising decade, she stumbled and fell off the a-List in the 90s.
What the hell happened?
Griffith was born into show business. Her mother, Tippi Hedren, is best known for the films she made with Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds and Marnie. Hedren suffered numerous indignities at the hands of the legendary director. Griffith was a child at the time and remembers a strange gift from Hitchcock.
“It was, like, a coffin box… and I opened it up and in it was a doll of my mother from The Birds… It was, like, made by the studio. Can you imagine the psychological effect (of that)… He was a very weird guy.”
That’s for sure. Later in her career, Griffith would go on to appear in an episode of the TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, in the 80s.
Griffith’s biological father was also in “the biz” as an actor and producer. Her parents divorced when she was only four years old. Her father re-married a model/actress and her mother re-married an agent/producer. Given this upbringing, it is no surprise that Griffith started doing commercials at age 12.
At age 14, Griffith began dating her mother’s 22-year-old Harrad Experiment co-star, Don Johnson. Griffith had an uncredited cameo in the film. Griffith and Johnson were married in 1976. The marriage lasted only six moths.
In 1975, Griffith started getting her first credited film roles. She appeared in three films that year. The Drowning, co-starred Paul Newman. Smile starred Bruce Dern. Her most significant role was in the neo-noir detective drama, Night Moves which starred Gene Hackman.
Night Moves was not a success when it was released, but it has gained critical support over time. Many now consider it the last great film by director Arthur Penn. Night Moves is perhaps best known for Griffiths many nude scenes. She was reportedly only 17 when she filmed them.
At the time, Griffith was living the show biz lifestyle. Actress Tatum O’Neal has claimed that, she and Griffith had a sexual encounter in a Paris hotel room while high on opium and hashish. O’Neal was only 12 and Griffith was 18.
Throughout the late 70′s, Griffith worked on TV movies, mini-series and small roles in film. She appeared in the movie Roar with her mother in 1978.
In 1982, she married her second husband, actor Steven Bauer (best known as Manny Ribera in the Brian De Palma’s Scarface.) The couple had a son together in 1985 and divorced in 1987.
Griffith’s big break came in Brian De Palma’s 1984 thriller, Body Double.
De Palma was a “student of Hitchcock” which is sort of a polite way of saying that he ripped off the master of suspense shamelessly. Body Double borrows liberally from Hitchcock classics, Vertigo and Rear Window.
Griffith played a porn star who, you know what, I’m not going to explain the plot. It’s silly and anything I can tell you about it would constitute a spoiler. She played a porn star, okay?
Originally, De Palma intended to cast an actual porn star in the role. But you have to imagine the idea of casting Tippi Hedren’s daughter was too much for the Hitchcock-obsessed director to resist.
Body Double was mostly panned by critics. And understandably so. It’s hard not to laugh at the film’s excesses. It’s hard to tell whether or not De Palma intends this as a Hitchcock satire or an homage. While most critics dismissed the film, many singled out Griffith for praise.
The movie flopped at the box office. But it developed a cult following on video.
It is seriously ridiculous. Just watch Vertigo instead.
In 1984, Griffith starred opposite Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams for the geek-impaired) and Tom Berenger in the sexy thriller, Fear City.
Griffith played a stripper. Are we sensing a trend here?
In 1986, Griffith starred opposite Jeff Daniels in Jonathan Demme’s quirky comedy, Something Wild.
Griffith plays a variation on the manic pixie dream girl who turns Daniels’ life upside down. Daniels plays an uptight banker who Griffith catches in the midst of a dine-and-dash. Griffith’s Lulu is intrigued by this relatively mild rebellion and takes Daniels’ Charlie on a series of adventures.
The great thing about Something Wild is that it takes an unexpected dark turn in the film’s final act. Usually in these movies, the hero learns to loosen up through the irresponsible and self-destructive behavior of a beautiful stranger.
That’s true here too, but the couple’s actions have real life repercussions when Lulu’s violent ex boy friend Ray, played by a never-scarier Ray Liotta, arrives on the scene.
Something Wild is sexy, scary, romantic, dark, funny and appropriately enough wild. Critics responded to its quirky charms even if mainstream audiences didn’t know what to make of it.
Griffith, Daniels and Liotta were all nominated for Golden Globes for their performances. And Something Wild has developed a cult following.
In 1987, Griffith divorced for the second time. She later admitted that this caused her to abuse liquor and cocaine. ”What I did was drink myself to sleep at night. If I wasn’t with someone, I was an unhappy girl.”
Every “What the Hell Happened” article includes at least one “big year”. In Griffith’s case, that year was 1988 which included the direct-to-video release of the sci-fi flick Cherry 2000 in which Griffith had really, really red hair.
Cherry 2000 is about a future in which there are sex robots. Amazingly, Griffith does not play one. The movie was filmed in 1986 and released to video after Griffith became a star.
Seriously, how was she not a sex robot in this thing?
Later that year, Griffith appeared in a small role as a trophy wife in Robert Redford’s The Milagro Beanfield War.
Later that year, she appeared in Mike Figgis’ directorial debut, Stormy Monday opposite Sean Bean, Tommy Lee Jones and Sting.
Stormy Monday was yet another sexy neo noir thriller. This time, Griffith played a waitress which I suppose is a step up from the strippers and prostitutes she had been playing up to this point in her career.
Griffith’s career changed completely when she starred opposite Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver in Mike Nichols’ comedy, Working Girl.
Griffith, of course, plays a prostitute. I mean, the movie is called Working Girl and it stars an actress who has specialized in strippers and prostitutes up to this point. Wait! She isn’t a prostitute? Well, she sort of is, but not literally.
First Griffith doesn’t play a sex robot in Cherry 2000 and now she’s not a prostitute in Working Girl. My world makes no sense any more.
Griffith played Tess McGill, a Staten Island secretary who rises through the ranks of the business world by posing as her boss when she is laid up after a skiing accident. Soon, she has entered into both a business and romantic relationship with Ford’s character.
In the film’s most famous line, Griffith says, “I have a head for business and a bod for sin.” I was shocked by how often this quote was mangled on the internet. It’s “bod” people. Not “body”. What the hell!
Working Girl featured a number of actors who would go on to great success in their careers including Oliver Platt, Kevin Spacey, and Alec Baldwin. It also co-starred Joan Cusack who would score an Academy Award nomination for the film.
Reviews were mostly positive and Griffith was once again singled out for praise. She was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. The movie was a huge hit at the box office.
This was the high point. It’s all downhill from here.
During her big year, Griffith checked herself into rehab and sobered up. In 1989, she reunited with her ex-husband, Don Johnson. Which is a really bad call after sobering up. The remarried when Griffith was 5 months pregnant with their daughter, Dakota. The on-again/off-again couple separated for good in 1995.
Until we reach that point, just assume they are making up and breaking up over and over again. I’m not going to try to keep track of these two.
In 1990, Griffith starred in a not-so-sexy thriller, Pacific Heights.
Griffith co-starred with Matthew Modine as a couple that gets taken in by a psychotic tenant played by Batman (the Michael Keaton version). Griffith’s mom also has a cameo role as a wealthy woman taken in by Keaton’s con man.
Pacific Heights got mixed to negative reviews, but managed to be a modest success at the box office.
Later that year, Griffith co-starred with Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis in Brian De Palma’s comedy, Bonfire of the Vanities.
Where to start with the appropriately titled Bonfire of the Vanities? Books have literally been written about what went wrong making this movie. Most famously, Julie Salamon’s The Devils’s Candy chronicles the making of this notorious flop.
The movie was based on Tom Wolfe’s cynical satire of the same name. In the book, Sherman McCoy is a Wall Street investor who refers to himself as a “Master of the Universe. He’s built more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than Tom Hanks. He was not a sympathetic guy as is evidenced by the plot which centers around a racially charged trial over a hit-and-run in which Sherman is complicit.
It’s tricky material to adapt into a big budget Hollywood movie with a Christmas release. And yet, that is what Warner Bros decided to do.
De Palma himself would later summarize what went wrong with Bonfire:
“The initial concept of it was incorrect. If you’re going to do The Bonfire of the Vanities, you would have to make it a lot darker and more cynical, but because it was such an expensive movie we tried to humanize the Sherman McCoy character – a very unlikeable character, much like the character in The Magnificent Ambersons. We could have done that if we’d been making a low-budget movie, but this was a studio movie with Tom Hanks in it. We made a couple of choices that in retrospect were wrong.”
How screwed up were the filmmaker’s priorities? They spent $80,000 for a 10 second shot in which the setting sun lined up with the a runway at JFK air port. That’s an expensive back drop!
According to Salamon, Tom Hanks dismissed Uma Thurman’s audition for the part eventually played by Griffith as “high school”. (Maybe he’s not such a nice guy after all.) Lena Olin also auditioned for the role and told the crew she had never heard of Hanks (this was before he was a beloved Hollywood icon). And the crew bitched about how hard it was to make Griffith look attractive on film.
Perhaps as a result of comments from the crew, Griffith made a rash decision during the film’s Christmas break. Without telling anyone associated with the film, she went out and got a boob job. When she returned to continue shooting, she grabbed De Palma by the head and shoved his face in her new boobs.
Oh, also Bruce Willis is an asshole no one got along with. But I think we already knew that.
I could go on all day about Bonfire of the Vanities. But since the entire disaster has already been well-documented, I will just say that the reviews were terrible and the movie flopped in spite of Griffith’s newly enhanced rack.
Griffith was also nominated for a Golden Raspberry.
In 1991, Griffith starred opposite her first and third husbands (both of whom were Don Johnson) in the little seen country drama, Paradise. The film also features future hobbit, Elijah Wood and future What the Hell Happened subject, Thora Birch.
In 1992, Griffith returned to mainstream movies opposite Michael Douglas in the World War II drama, Shining Through.
I don’t know what they are watching in that picture, but the theater is empty and they don’t seem to be enjoying themselves. Hey! Maybe they are watching Shining Through!
Roger Ebert summarized critical reaction with this quote:
“I know it’s only a movie, and so perhaps I should be willing to suspend my disbelief, but Shining Through is such an insult to the intelligence that I wasn’t able to do that. Here is a film in which scene after scene is so implausible that the movie kept pushing me outside and making me ask how the key scenes could possibly be taken seriously.”
Reportedly, Griffith learned a little history while making Shining Through. Apparently, up until this point, Griffith had been unaware that the Nazis “did bad things” to the Jews during World War II. Griffith was outraged by this news and spoke out on it decades after the fact. This earned her the nickname “Brainiac” in Toronto-area press for years to come.
Shining Through won Worst Picture and Griffith won Worst Actress at the 1992 Razzie Awards.
Later that year, Griffith starred in A Stranger Among Us.
Griffith played an undercover cop in what I can only assume was meant to be Witness with Hasidic Jews instead of the Amish and Tess McGill instead of Harrison Ford.
A Stranger Among Us was directed by Sidney Lumet and was entered in the Cannes Film Festival. But it got terrible reviews and bombed at the box office.
Proving that Griffith did not learn from past mistakes, she made another movie with hubby, Don Johnson in 1993.
This one was Born Yesterday which co-starred John Goodman. The business comedy failed to repeat the success of Working Girl and earned Griffith another Golden Raspberry award.
In 1994, Griffith returned to prostitution (or playing prostitutes in movies anyway) for the supposed comedy, Milk Money.
Griffith plays a hooker named V who flashes a kid for money. The kid then invites V to live in his tree house and hooks her up with his dad (played by Ed Harris who should know better).
Milk Money was nominated for a Golden Raspberry for Worst Screenplay. But Griffith was passed over.
Later that year, Griffith had a small role in the comedy-drama, Nobody’s Fool which starred Paul Newman and the asshole from Bonfire of the Vanities, Bruce Willis.
Although her role was small, Griffith still found time to flash her boobs.
Nobody’s Fool was actually a good movie. Newman was nominated for an Oscar. Reviews were good and the movie was a modest hit.
In 1995, Griffith starred opposite Angelica Huston in the TV mini-series, Buffalo Girls. I mention it merely so I can offset some of those Golden Raspberries with the Golden Globe nomination Griffith received.
Later that year, Griffith appeared as part of the ensemble cast of Now and Then.
Now and Then told the story of four friends in childhood and played by different actresses in adulthood. Griffith co-starred with Demi Moore and Rosie O’Donnell as the grown-up friends. Her younger self was played by her Paradise co-star, Thora Birch.
Despite bad reviews, Now and Then was a modest hit.
Griffith capped off the year by starring in the screwball comedy, Two Much, opposite Antonio (“Too Sexy”) Banderas and Daryl Hannah.
On the subject of Two Much in What the Hell Happened to Daryl Hannah, I wrote: “I can’t possibly be expected to read the synopsis of this thing. Did it involve twins? Let’s just assume Banderas played twins, shall we?”
Friend of the Blog, Paul (of the wonderful Pfeiffer Pfilms and Meg Movies) saved me the trouble of watching Two Much by confirming my suspicion that Banderas did in fact play twins. Twins by the names of Art and Bart no less! Apparently Banderas distinguished between the characters by wearing glasses.
Thanks again, Paul!
The movie was panned by critics and bombed at the box office. Pretty much everyone involved was nominated for a Golden Raspberry. Both Griffith and Hannah won. Apparently the glasses saved Banderas.
On the upside, Griffith and Banderas started a romantic relationship. Griffith dumped long-time husband and drug addict, Don Johnson for the latin hunk. The couple was married the next year after their respective divorces were finalized. They had a daughter together and in 2002 received the Stella Adler Angel Award for their charity work.
So, at least something good came out of Two Much. Poor Daryl Hannah came away empty-handed.
In 1996, Griffith co-starred opposite Nick Nolte and Jennifer Connelly in the neo noir crime thriller, Mulholland Falls in which no one played a pair of twins. Which is a shame because Nolte would have rocked the glasses.
All kidding aside, Mulholland Falls (which was not directed by David Lynch) got mixed to negative reviews and bombed at the box office).
In 1997, Griffith starred opposite Jeremy Irons in Adrian Lyons’ ill-advised remake of Stanley Kubrick’s classic, Lolita.
The remake was controversial in the US. Not because the director of Flashdance and 9 1/2 Weeks has no business remaking Kubrick. But because Americans are a puritanical bunch who get their panties in a twist over sex in movies.
Reviews were mixed, but the movie bombed so badly that Griffith is pictured doing a face palm.
In 1998, Griffith appeared in a Woody Allen movie as every actress must. In this case, it was Allen’s dud , Celebrity which co-starred everyone in Hollywood including Winona Ryder.
She also starred opposite James Woods in Another Day in Paradise which co-starred Vincent Kartheiser who would go on to success in TV on Angel and Mad Men. Apparently, Another Day in Paradise is NOT a sequel to the farm drama Griffith made with ex-hubby Don Johnson.
In 1999, Griffith appeared in two films. The first was Crazy in Alabama which was directed by her husband, Antinio Banderas. The second was RKO 281 about the making of Citizen Kane.
Alabama got bad reviews. RKO 281 got good reviews. Neither movie was a hit. Griffith earned another Golden Raspberry nomination for Alabama.
In 2000, Griffith starred in the John Waters-directed black comedy, Cecil B. Demented.
Like Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom, starring in a campy Waters comedy is a pretty sure sign that an actress’ sex symbol days are behind her. Reviews were mixed. The movie did about what you would expect from John Waters. And Griffith got another Golden Raspberry nomination.
She also starred in Forever Lulu which costarred Patrick Swayze and Penelope Ann Miller.
Gentle readers, I tried to sit through this movie for this article. But I could not make it. What I got from it was that it was a melodrama in which Griffith plays another crazy lady and for reasons I don’t remember Swayze takes her on a road trip. I also remember the acting was horrible.
From there, Griffith more or less disappeared from the big screen. She did a voice in Stuart Little 2 in 2002. She has done some TV work including a sit-com called Twins which ran from 2005-06. Her show, Viva Laughlin was cancelled after only two episodes aired in 2007. And she has done guest spots on Nip/Tuck and Hot in Cleveland.
She checked herself into rehab in 2000 and again in 2009. She has also been treated for skin cancer.
So, what the hell happened?
Griffith’s early career was fueled by her sexuality. She made the jump to respectability with Working Girl, but failed to capitalize on it. Bonfire of the Vanities stopped her career momentum dead. And most everything she has done since has been embarrassing. When her looks faded due to drug and alcohol abuse, the roles dried up.
But, she did manage to land one of the most sought-after hunks of the 90s as her fourth husband (counting Johnson twice, third if you only count him once).
More “What the Hell Happened?”
Kim Basinger Thora Birch Matthew Broderick Nicolas Cage Chevy Chase Kevin Costner Geena Davis Bridget Fonda Brendan Fraser Mel Gibson Cuba Gooding Jr. Heather Graham Melanie Griffith Steve Guttenberg Daryl Hannah Helen Hunt Michael Keaton Nicole Kidman Val Kilmer Jude Law Jennifer Jason Leigh Penelope Ann Miller Demi Moore Rick Moranis Eddie Murphy Mike Myers Michelle Pfeiffer Molly Ringwald Meg Ryan Winona Ryder Arnold Schwarzenegger Steven Seagal Elisabeth Shue Alicia Silverstone Christian Slater Mira Sorvino Wesley Snipes Sharon Stone Mena Suvari Uma Thurman John Travolta Kathleen Turner Robin Williams Debra Winger Sean Young Renee Zellweger
Posted on January 5, 2013, in Movies, What the Hell Happened? and tagged antonio banderas, brian de palma, don jonson, melanie griffith, something wild, tippi hedren, working girl. Bookmark the permalink. 78 Comments.
DePalma obviously ‘barrowed’ from Hitchcock a bit too often, but I still have a soft spot for him because he gave us “The Untouchables” (a movie I love)
…wherein he switched from ripping of Hitchcock and ripped off Eisenstein!
THE UNTOUCHABLES really is a great movie, though. DePalma at least has good taste in the directors from which he steals.
I don’t remember the exact quote, but I believe Hitchcock himself said that if you are going to steal, steal from the best.
Funny enough, this season of American Horror Story has been ripping off DePalma something fierce.
The saddest part about this article is that Cherry 2000 is the best film mentioned. Was she really A-list?
I’ve never seen Cherry 2000, but I’d stand behind “Something Wild” as a really good flick with Griffith in a starring role. Nobody’s Fool is very good, but her role is small. Night Moves is also worth a look and if you watch each of those last two you could compare her nude scenes pre and post boob job. If you were so inclined.
Griffith was never a very good actress, but for a little while she was definitely a target starlet who played leads in major releases. Most of them were bad, but that’s a different conversation. Milk Money sure didn’t get a wide release based on Ed Harris being in it. The same is true about Born Yesterday and her costars there.
I too have never seen Cherry 2000. Our local video store had a copy as a kid and based on the cover I always assumed Griffith played a sex robot. I was genuinely shocked to discover that was not the case.
Something Wild is a great flick with Griffith at her prime. Do yourself a big favor and check it out.
I remember really enjoying Nobody’s Fool. But yes, her role is small.
If you want to see Griffith’s boobs pre and post op, you need only watch Bonfire of the Vanities. Although she remains fully clothed and the movie sucks.
I was honestly shocked how much Griffith has appeared topless on screen. It is a good thing I didn’t research this one during work hours. Finding clothed pictures for some films was sometimes a bit of a challenge.
Working Girl is formula, but decent. I never understood the accolades it or Griffith received. But it’s at least watchable.
I actually saw Stormy Monday in theaters and it’s not bad either. I have heard okay things about some of her other films like Now and Then.
Honestly, I don’t think her resume is any worse than most actresses. And I was genuinely surprised by how many awards nominations and good reviews she got leading up to Working Girl.
Once she was thrust into the spotlight, I think the luster wore off and critics realized she wasn’t a great actress.
Daffy nailed the explanation of what made Griffith A-list. The definition of A-list is that you can get movies green-lit. Griffith had that power from Working Girl through much of the 90s.
She was A-list but she did not have any big successes when she was on the A-list (sadly!).
Working Girl was the film that made her A-list. Prior to that, she had never been in a remotely successful film at the box office. Fear City and Cherry 2000 went straight to VHS, and although she got critical acclaim for Something Wild, hardly anyone saw it when it came out. Stormy Monday (which was produced overseas) only played in 49 theaters.
Michelle Pfeiffer was Fox’s choice for the role of Tess. According to Griffith, Mike Nichols had to fight to get her cast. It’s amazing how many great roles Pfeiffer turned down, what was she thinking? I think it’s foolish of her, because she made crappy movies in substitute of the great ones she turned down.
Like Sharon Stone, Griffith’s only hit film was her breakthrough film (if we exclude “Total Recall” for Stone, since it was only a small role). But at least Griffith’s breakthrough film is one she can be proud of. She really deserved the Oscar that year imo.
I think she would be forced to be working more often these days if she wasn’t sharing a bank account with Banderas.
I’ve got a soft spot for DePalma. I can’t really take him as seriously as I do lots of other directors, but almost without fail he delivers at least one complete WTF? moment in each movie that just transcends any questions about quality. Typically these scenes are shot in a way so that anybody who has seen more than one DePalma film can immediately identify that something crazy is about to happen. I wonder if anybody has compiled these scenes on YouTube?
Have you seen Night Moves? LeBlog favorite James Woods also shows up, as does one of the 12 Angry fellows, Edward Binns. Night Moves is uneven and drags in places, but it has some of those hard to believe scenes that pay off a patient viewer.
I’ve got a soft spot for De Palma too. I love Carrie. I haven’t seen Untouchables in years, but I remember liking it. I plan to rewatch it soon. Blow Out is good. Even his Hitchcock homage/spoof Body Double is pretty damn entertaining. Same with Scarface and Carlito’s Way.
I have not seen Night Moves, But I am intrigued.
I think she’s a special actress who would have (maybe) been more successful if she wasn’t so concerned with having a good time.
Most people either love Griffith or hate her, no middle ground. For me she’s always a treat to watch, and I think some of her performances were unfairly dismissed because they were in bad movies. She was very good in Milk Money but people couldn’t move beyond the silliness of the premise. Same with Crazy in Alabama, she’s so watchable in that even though the film is ridiculous.
She got lucky with Working Girl because it was a great role in a movie that was pre-packaged for success thanks to Harrison Ford being in it. Notice Ford got top billing despite only having a supporting role. The same tactic was used for What Lies Beneath.
Her best performance was in Another Day in Paradise (worthy of an Oscar nomination if you ask me) but the movie itself wasn’t that great, and did barely any box office.
‘Now and Then’ is basically a girls version of Stand by Me, which should tell you right off the bat whether or not it’s your kind of movie. I thought it was okay except for the casting of Rosie O’Donnell as the adult version of Christina Ricci. Madness.
Griffith’s mother, Tippi Hedren, is way more underrated than she is. People are finally starting to acknowledge her talent and calling her an “icon”, but what’s the point now that she’s an old lady and there aren’t any great parts for her? Hedren has spent 99% of her career doing Z-list roles when she should have been a star. Anyway, that’s another story.
For the most part I agree with you. Although I have always been kind of in the middle about Griffith. I enjoyed a few of her movies in the 80s. Not enough to call myself a fan. But I enjoyed Something Wild a lot and couldn’t wait to see what she did next.
Like a lot of actors, Griffith was good in the right role, with the right director and co-stars. Something Wild and Working Girl are examples of when the chemistry worked. No actress could have saved a lot of her later works. From Bonfire on, there were a lot of bad choices.
Her party girl persona and substance abuse sure didn’t help matters. Neither did being married to Don Johnson who most people hated after Miami Vice was off the air.
Ford and Weaver were definitely the selling points in Working Girl. There is a poster in which you can barely see Griffith standing behind them. But she did anchor the movie.
I think that movie, while good, was over-rated at the time. I think critics were fawning over it because it was directed by Mike Nichols. Griffith benefitted from that.
As for Tippi Hedren, it’s been a while but if I remember correctly Hitchcock more or less ruined her career. He was a talent director but a real prick.
I agree, that nothing good came from being married to Don Johnson. He’s trash and has a horrible reputation with women. Also, Steven Bauer got arrested again last month for driving on a suspended license with his girlfriend smoking dope in the car. She sure can pick ‘em. I read an article a few years back, I think it was about her last rehab stay, that quoted “a source” saying without Banderas in her life she would be dead.
Yeah, Banderas has definitely been a good presence in her life. I remember people being upset in the 90s when Griffith and Banderas both left their spouses and got married so soon after. But in retrospect, it has definitely worked out for Griffith.
Professionally, the problem with Johnson was that not only was she married to a deadbeat, she kept making movies with him. It was like the friend you stop hanging out with because of their reprehensible spouse. If you could just see the friend, you would. But since they always bring their lesser half around, eventually you just loose their number.
…and there was this
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ULI5kolBpAk
>shudder<
Thanks for drudging that memory out of my subconscious. See, kids. The 80s weren’t so great either.
Tippi Hedren has her own interesting “What the Hell Happened to…” story:
http://styleblazer.com/131294/shunned-by-hollywood-15-of-tinsel-towns-most-notorious-pariahs/12/
When Tippi Hedren was hired to star in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, it seemed her career was be over before it started. The actress famously rejected the sexual advances of the director, who reacted by subjecting her to real-life torment on the film’s set. Following The Birds completion Hitchcock then refused to let Hedren out of her contract and sold it to Universal. After refusing to become a television performer, the studio had her all but blacklisted from mainstream movies. The actress subsequently saw her career devolve into TV guest appearances and the occasional independent release. Hedren’s experience would be vindicated when it became the subject of a tell-all HBO original movie entitled The Girl which saw release last year.
Cherry 2000 is a ridiculous but fun romp about a guy named Sam with a sex robot that shorts out after getting wet. Sam gets Griffith to help him track down a replacement robot in post-nuclear war America.
This film and Air America are among my favorite movies from the late 80s. And both have Tim Thomerson.
When I first saw Cherry 2000, I thought Griffith was totally hot – and implants were something she definitely didn’t need. But she didn’t age well in my opinion, and her voice always grated on me.
Did you get my email about that essay, Lebeau?
I just did. Sorry, I haven’t checked my e-mail in a few days. Glad you reminded me. I’m going to read this first chance I get. Thanks!
Working Girl was so awful. Melanie Griffith’s performance is one of the worst ever to get a Best Actress Oscar nomination. It’s only worth watching if you love the song “Let the River Run” (as I do).
Nobody’s Fool and The Milagro Beanfield War are better movies, but Nobody’s Fool is the only one where Griffith actually gave an OK performance. Her role isn’t as interesting as it is in the Richard Russo novel, but her performance isn’t too bad.
I won’t say WG was awful. But it was very formulaic. Even at the time, I wondered what all the fuss was about. And I didn’t think her star making performance was nearly good enough to warrant an Oscar. Like you, I thought the song was the best part of the movie.
I’ve never seen MBW. But I agree with you on Nobody’s Fool.
TBH i find Melanie’s WTHH not really exciting as some1 like John Travolta (who has had many ups and downs / comebacks) or batshit crazy Sean Young.
Btw, i think when u make a WTHH, u should coincide it with smth like a new movie of the actor/actress etc. Like, u could save the Arnold WTHH later when his next movie cameout (btw, have u seen its trailer – so DTR it’s embarrassing). Eg; there’s a new Sean Penn gansta movie coming out and u could do a WTHH on him, but im afraid reading his WTHH wont be fun.
Travolta and Young provided a lot of juicy material. I think Griffith is one of the loonier entries, but not on the Kilmer/Young scale. Basinger and Snipes are up there too. I think part of the problem with Griffith (and one of the reasons I was reluctant to write her up) is that she has made so few memorable movies.
I actually rushed to get Arnold’s entry done BEFORE The Last Stand was released. I was worried that he would stage a comeback that would make him inelligible for WTHH treatment. In theory, the people I write about shouldn’t have a movie coming to theaters to tie into. Although that is not always the case.
I’ll give you an example. I have been contemplating writing up Catherine Zeta Jones for some time now. She’s definitely off her A-game these days. But she has 3 movies being released in 2013! So it feels premature to write her up now.
Also, from a selfish perspective, I have to do a lot fewer updates for articles about actors who are no longer working.
When chosing a subject, I usually don’t know at the outset how juicy the article will be. Sometimes, I dig in and see there really isn’t all that much there. Jennifer Jason Leigh was an example. She’s practically drama-free. With Griffith, there was actually more good material than I was expecting thanks to her subtstance abuse, multiple marriages and whatnot. Plus, she has inspired a game on the FB page.
I use the poll to get some reader feedback on who to write-up next. I used to have an “Other” category for write-ins. But nobody who voted “other” ever wrote anything in, so I got rid of it. If there is anyone you want to see featured, let me know. Historically, I have taken requests.
Why is “Working Girl” so overrated? Well personally I think it is because when “Working Girl” was released it was probabily the first film of his genre. Today movies that talk about business-women are so many and they all have the same cliches, but probabily “Working Girl” was something of a pioneer movie in his genre (comedy regarding businesswomen). If you see it today you say “nice, but it looks like many others”, but probabily in 1987 movies about business women were not so common so it looked like something new and fresh while now, 25 years later, this genre has been so abused that “Working Girl” look just like all the movies of that genre.
So , in my opinion, the reason why “Working Girl” is so over-rated is that, when it was relesead it looked like a novelty that refected the women emancipation process happened during the 70s an 80s. Now it look just like a nice comedy that has the same script and stereotypes we saw many times. This is according to me why “working Girl” is so overrated
To a large degree, I agree with you. Like Griffith, WG hasn’t aged well. That’s not so much a flaw of the movie as it is a sign of changing times.
But when I saw the movie in 87, I still thought it was over-rated. Good, but not great. And certainly not deserving of all of the Oscar noms.
In 1987 i wasn’t even born so i watched “Working Girl” on TV something like 5 years ago. I was curious because of all that Oscar nominations, which are a rare result for a comedy, and my opinion is of a nice movie but nothing that deserves a “Best picture” nomination. I think that the reason for all that nominations were because Academy appreciated a movie reflecting a social change. Academy loves to send social or political messages so maybe that’s why all that nominations.
PS and OT
By the way, speaking about Awards, check your e-mail tomorrow, you’ll understand
Well, now you’re making me feel old!
You’re probably right about the social change aspect too. There were a lot of reasons for the Academy to get swept up in WG. Big name director, positive social message, an inspiring song, supporting turns by Ford and Weaver, a star-making lead performance by Hollywood royalty.
Looking at the nominees that year, it was actually a pretty competitive year. Charles Chrichton was nominated for Best Director for A Fish Called Wanda, but the movie wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. Boo! Tom Hanks was nominated for Best Actor for Big, but the movie didn’t get a Best Picture nom. I can live with that even though I much prefer Big to WG.
There was also Married to the Mob and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I know these aren’t the kinds of movies the Academy typically nominates. But they are every bit as worthy as Working Girl. Heck, even Die Hard could have gotten that nomination.
I will try to remember to check my e-mail tonight after the kids get to sleep. It’s been a crazy busy week. But I look forward to whatever you’re sending.
Way too little attention to CECIL B. DeMENTED, Lebeau. It’s actually a movie acknowledging what you’d written up to that point.
I have to admit, I haven’t seen it. I have never been a John Waters fan. So I tend to acknowledge his movies but not comment on them very much. I’ll have to keep an eye out for it on cable.
Waters is great. The movie itself is about a gang of guerrilla filmmakers who have taken the “guerrilla” part a bit too far, and kidnap a washed-up former A-list actress to force her to star in their movie. Griffith is the actress in question, and it jabs at the sorts of movies she’d been making for a while, and what critics had been saying about her. Your article above could almost be a companion piece to it.
You have convinced me. I’ll check it out.
Star Derailing Role:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarDerailingRole
Melanie Griffith in Cecil B Demented. In the mid to late 1980s, she was on the rise with films like Body Double, Something Wild and Working Girl. Once the 1990s reached, Griffith’s career began to falter once she appeared in poorly-received box office disappointments like The Bonfire of the Vanities, Shining Through, Milk Money and Mulholland Falls. 2000′s Cecil B. Demented marked the end of her run as a leading lady, as Griffith has become known these days for being the wife of Antonio Banderas as well as some failed plastic surgeries.
Those “derailing” movies did better @the box office than the ones that put her on the rise (Working Girl exempt). She had no derailing role, a bad movie did not kill her career. She stopped getting quality roles when she started looking terrible, to the point where she couldn’t even get indie roles (which any actress with her credentials should be able to get).
Plastic surgery did not fail her. Initially, it enhanced her. Compare the way her face looked in Working Girl to how she looked in Milk Money, the improvement was because of good plastic surgery. If she had cleaned up her lifestyle THEN, she could have maintained that beauty. But she didn’t, so her looks deteriorated to the point where no surgery could restore them.
It’s hard to pick a single role that derails a career. In Griffith’s case, I think she was on the decline long before working with John Waters. I think the train started coming off the tracks with Bonfire of the Vanities and never fully recovered after that.
Would you say that she was a one-hit-wonder? Bonfire was only the 2nd movie she made after becoming a star, yet it was the beginning of her decline.
I suppose. That’s not a term I use very often with regards to actors. True, she only had one movie that was a critical and box office triumph. But she had several movies that were successful to some degree either with critics or at the box office. I’m awfully fond of Something Wild.
She doesn’t have a profile on boxofficemojo like most actors, but I found a site (the-numbers.com) that lists the box office stats for every theatrically released movie she was in: http://www.the-numbers.com/person/58610401-Melanie-Griffith
Ouch! Working Girl was by far her most successful film, but it “only” made $63 million. Her 2nd highest grossing film after that was Nobody’s Fool with $39 million, followed by Pacific Heights with $29 million and Now and Then with $27m. Everything other film was a total flop (not counting Stuart Little 2, since she was just a voiceover in it).
Some writers have also cited her 17 month absence from movie screens (between Working Girl’s closing in April 1989 and Pacific Heights’ opening in September 1990) as a detriment to her career. It’s only 17 months, but during that time, Meg did When Harry Met Sally, Demi did Ghost, and Julia Roberts did Pretty Woman—devaluing the “hot” status that Melanie had briefly gained after Working Girl.
Absoultely. You have to strike while the iron is hot and Griffith’s iron was never hotter than after WG.
10 Celebrities Who Should Have Never Attempted Plastic Surgery:
http://surgery.answers.com/cosmetic-surgery/10-celebrities-who-should-have-never-attempted-plastic-surgery
Melanie Griffith
Thank goodness, Melanie has a husband who loves and adores her; her botched plastic surgery regrettably has transformed her face over the past several years. Hollywood seems obsessed with lips. In particular, the upper lip. Melanie has always had plump luscious lips but, apparently, she felt the need to go bigger. The result was an over-plumped upper lip that looks stretched and unnatural.
Very interesting!
I was really looking forward to your Melanie Griffith article, sadly I’ve been laid low by a plethora of Winter ailments which have kept me away from the computer for most of the last week or so. As a result your other commentators have covered most of the points I would’ve raised.
Rest assured your first WTHHT of 2013 was worth waiting for, and I especially enjoyed the background regarding Tom Hanks and the other shenanigans on The Bonfire of the Vanities.
Time certainly hasn’t been kind to Melanie or her most famous film Working Girl. I was very taken with her ( and the film) at the time it was released, although I’m fairly certain I’ve never watched it since. It’s amazing to me that Working Girl is almost a quarter of a century old!
Thanks for the mention as well, as always it’s much appreciated.
Thanks, Paul. Hope you’re feeling better soon. I got sidelined by illness in the fall and it stunk.
Somebody in the comments section of Daryl Hannah’s WTHHT entry, made an interesting observation about the decline of Melanie Griffith’s status as an A-list star by the end of the ’90s: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Flebeauleblog.com%2F2012%2F09%2F23%2Fwhat-the-hell-happened-to-daryl-hannah%2F%23comment-10675&h=rAQEONBbP Reggie | October 5, 2012 at 7:58 pm
The outcome of Melanie Griffith’s career was predictable. She was the daughter of an actress, started acting as a child in the late 60s, spent years paying her dues before achieving stardom in the late 80s (Working Girl). She had a star career throughout the 90s, but none of her movies were hits.
The question that frequently comes up is:
Why has Griffith’s career been dead (and I mean REALLY dead–she makes Sharon Stone look like a superstar) since 2000? An actress doesn’t have to be a box-office draw to still get respectable roles after 40. So what’s the deal?
Griffith was never a big time beauty (she couldn’t compete with Stone, Michelle Pfeiffer, Demi Moore, Meg Ryan), but because of her free-spirited sexy personality she can’t re-invent herself as a character actress either. In addition, she has returned to rehab in 2000 and 2009 which for a woman of her age is just embarrassing, and she looks awful because all the years of drinking and drugging have taken their toll on her appearance. There aren’t any roles that would fit her.
Melanie Griffith in a way, seems like an older variation of Lindsay Lohan now when I think about it more. They both arguably got lucky in their “star making” roles (“Working Girl” and “Mean Girls” respectively) due in no small part to the talent involved (w/ “Mean Girls” it was mainly Tina Fey and Rachel McAdams). Both of their careers were part heavily derailed by their substance abuse, which ultimately took a drastic toll on their appearances.
Sad but true about Lohan. She looks 45 and is only in her 20s.
Tippi Hedren has looked better than Griffith for at least the last ten years, which is insane.
She is the poster child for what a woman looks like after decades of hard living. Lohan is still young enough that if she gets clean she could look attractive again, but I’m afraid Griffith’s appearance is unrestorable at this point.
Antonio is directing her in a new movie: http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=789502
I wonder if it will get a theatrical release.
Poor Antonio! He is doing bisquits commercials here in Italy
I’m not joking
That’s pretty common though even among A-list actors. They will do commercials in other countries that they would never do in the US to make a few extra bucks. The idea (pre-You Tube) is that their American fans would never see this stuff. But now, it’s out there for all the world to enjoy.
Yes he’s not the lone Hollywood celebrity to do commercials in other countries. Recently I remember also John Travolta and Jennifer Lopez doing commercials for italian industries. However here many mocked Banderas commercials because his acting carreer is not in his best moment.
Is anybody else in agreement that Melanie more than often, miscast in her roles (even though you can argue that she at the very least, gave heartfelt performances most of the time) like for example, “Shining Through” (where she played a spy) and “A Stranger Among Us” (as an undercover homicide detective)? It’s sort of hard to take Melanie Griffith that seriously as an actress given her distinctive, breathy little-girl voice.
Agreed. She was type cast early in her career as a prostitute, porn star, etc. And she was believeable in those roles. But once she classed up, she didn’t quite fit. Although she was cast well as a trophy wife in Bonfire. It’s not her fault that movie was awful. Almost everyone else in that movie was miscast, but she was fine.
Shining Through and A Stranger Among Us were simply bad movies. And she was difficult to cast because of her demeanor…she can’t do drama unless it’s a quirky character.
It’s actually kind of surprising that she was frequently cast in sexpot roles in her 20s, because she wasn’t looking very attractive in those years. After rehab she lost weight and had some plastic surgery on her face (just a little), which significantly improved her appearance (she looked so much better in “Milk Money” than she did a decade earlier in “Body Double”). But she continued to live an unhealthy lifestyle, which deteriorated her looks, so she tried to compensate for that by having more plastic surgery. The result is the trainwreck she looks like today. And she still smokes.
Fun fact: she claimed on Charlie Rose that she was “in serious consideration” for Helen Hunt’s Oscar-winning role in As Good As It Gets, but she was pregnant and they wouldn’t wait for her (which doesn’t makes sense because the movie came out 15 months after she’d given birth, but it’s what she claimed).
Melanie Griffith was apparently offered and turned down the role of Thelma (which later went to fellow WTHHT subject, Geena Davis) in “Thelma and Louise”.
http://styleblazer.com/100782/14-actressess-who-declined-a-leading-role-in-a-blockbuster-movie/7/
Doug “The Nostalgia Critic” Walker’s review of “Milk Money”:
Doug points out early on how creepy this movie comes across (in which a bunch of young boys want to see Melanie’s “hooker with a heart of gold” character naked) since it wants to play itself off as a whimsical, semi-family comedy.
Still an enjoyable movie. Melanie looked great in it.
Quick correction: Something Wild came out in November ’86, not 85.
Thanks for the correction. 2nd one today. Ooops.
Her voice. I cannot abide the sound of her voice! Even when she was a young, trailer trash ho playing young trailer trash ho roles, her voice gave me grand mal seizures.
As she got older her squeaky emanations sounded ever phonier, incongruous and desperate. And what she’s had done to her face over the years unfortunately only magnifies that despair.
She’s another on my long list of film creatures I detest.
Thanks.
That is a perfect rant. Bravo!
Really That Bad? – The Bonfire of the Vanities:
http://www.filmophilia.com/2011/10/13/really-that-bad-the-bonfire-of-the-vanities/
Really That Bad? is a new feature here at Filmophilia. In it writers examine a well known critical bomb and examine whether or not the film lives up to its reputation.
Brian De Palma’s film version of Tom Wolfe’s bestseller The Bonfire of the Vanities has a reputation as one of the biggest flops of the nineties, and in turn one of the biggest flops in the carriers of De Palma, Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis. It quickly turned from being Warner Bros.’s Oscar contender to a critically bashed misfire. But is this reputation the result of the high expectations and the huge media interest in the film’s production and ballooning budget and not based on the film itself?
The plot of the film is complicated to sum up in a simple manner. The vain and incredibly wealthy stock-broker Sherman McCoy is a so-called “Master of the Universe.” He has everything, wealth, a marriage to a well-liked socialite and a happy family. But like many people, nothing is ever enough for Sherman. As he’s out driving one evening with his mistress Maria, played by an underused Melanie Griffith, he takes a wrong turn and ends up in the Bronx. As he leaves the car to move debris on the road, he gets robbed by two African-American youths. He manages to escape to his car, where Maria drives off, hitting one of the robbers.
This event becomes a hot-button issue, which everyone tries to exploit for their own gains. The African-American Reverend Bacon who accuses the police and courts of disinterest in the case based on racism, district attorney Abe Weiss, who sees the case as a chance to prove himself to black voters and the media who sees the case as a surefire way to sell newspapers and ad space. Sherman McCoy becomes a pawn in this game where everyone is out to get him, and gain something in return.
The book, by Tom Wolfe had been both extremely popular and controversial. To some it was a brilliant satire, sending up everything and everyone in 1980s New York. To others the book was a negative and even racist view of the city. But it had been a bestseller and therefore had to be adapted to film. Every choice the production made, from the casting decisions to locations to the advertising campaign was scrutinized and criticized. Why was Brian De Palma, the director best known for bloody thrillers such as Dressed to Kill, Carrie and Body Double, directing this socially charged satire? Why was the likeable and charming Tom Hanks playing a selfish and unlikeable character like Sherman McCoy? Why was Bruce Willis playing the English, drunk reporter? Why was the Jewish judge now played by Morgan Freeman?
When reading Julie Salamon’s book detailing the production, The Devil’s Candy, all these choices seem so self-evident. De Palma was coming off of Casualties of War, a financially unsuccessful but critically lauded war film, and he wanted to marry his newfound critical respect with a surefire hit. The studio wanted someone the audience could engage with, and therefore Tom Hanks was seen as the best choice for the part. The film’s budget had become dangerously high, so it needed another marquee name for the part of Peter Fallow, so Bruce Willis was a far better choice than John Clesse, as originally planned. The casting of Morgan Freeman was seen as a way to balance the representation of black people in the film, now audiences would not only see the manipulative and conniving Reverend Bacon, but also the commanding and decent Judge played by another black actor. Freeman was also considerably cheaper than Walter Matthau, who was originally offered the part.
But none of these changes managed to fix the film, which suffers from a fundamental problem: It’s not funny. Of course comedy is very subjective, and what I personally find funny might fall flat for the next person. But the film has such a challenging narrative, filled with unpleasant people and incidents that everything supposedly amusing falls flat. There is also some tangible sense of desperation in the more overtly comedic set-pieces. A scene where Sherman McCoy shoots the roof of his apartment with a shotgun to kick out his guests suffers from trying far too hard for a joke that isn’t that funny to begin with. Then there are other scenes that are so underplayed that you barely register that what’s onscreen is supposed to be funny. It somehow manages to be both too manic and too subtle.
That’s not to say that the film is all bad. De Palma is a supremely capable visual filmmaker. The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, and the production design by Richard Sylbert manages to imply the heightened and extreme world in which the characters inhabit. Everything in Sherman McCoy’s domain is extravagant and grand, and when he takes a wrong turn into the Bronx, it is displayed as a dangerous war zone. The five-minute long tracking shot that opens the film is also a technical masterpiece, and one of the most impressive De Palma has ever attempted. But you can’t shake the feeling that this visual grandness might even be subtracting from the possible laughter the film supposedly is after.
It’s interesting that a film that received such a critical bashing, and attracted so much attention as being one of the worst films of the nineties has now been largely forgotten. It seems that most of the key players of the film managed to bounce back. De Palma followed it up with the madcap and crazy thriller Raising Cain, the under-appreciated Al Pacino crime film Carlito’s Way and then directed the huge hit Mission: Impossible. Tom Hanks’ next three films were A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle and Philadelphia, insuring his position as one of Hollywood’s most likeable actors. Bruce Willis also continued being Bruce Willis, balancing successful action films with more comedic roles, with irregular success.
The Bonfire of the Vanities is not a catastrophically terrible film. It’s a misjudged and ultimately boring and uninvolving film that suffers from the creative decisions made in order to make the material more palatable to audiences. But it did offer something valuable to people interested in films and film production, the book detailing the production: The Devil’s Candy. It’s an entertaining and fascinating account of a surefire hit gone terribly wrong and is highly recommended. I can’t say the same about the film.
VERDICT: Really that bad. Which is a shame, since the film offers glimpses of a great story, but somehow manages to be a vacuum of interest.
Mr. Floppy 09.14.08: Bonfire of the Vanities:
http://www.411mania.com/movies/columns/85230/Mr.-Floppy-09.14.08:-Bonfire-of-the-Vanities.htm
Melanie Griffith was cast as Sherman’s love affair Maria Ruskin. Nothing against her, she still looked considerably good at the time, but I still think a young lover of a Wall Street investor who’s making millions should have been more sexy and more, you know, young. These criticisms were also heard at the time of her casting and maybe that was also the reason why Griffith after merely three weeks of shooting went and surgically enhanced her chest, which she unapologetically stuffed right in De Palma’s face upon her return. Bonfire of the Vanities? Appropriate.
Working Girl was just on the other night, so I watched the first half (had to relinquish the screen in favor of a hockey game for the male contingent). It brought back memories of seeing it in the theater, and the buzz it created. At the time, i can’t remember another movie that captured so perfectly the 80s trend of women in business suits, trying to fit in. I thought Melanie Griffith was poised to become another Meg Ryan. Her understated delivery was just perfect for her role as Tess McGill, maybe she didn’t have the acting range but in that role and that movie, she did knock it out of the park. Of course it had to help a lot to have Sigourney Weaver and Harrison Ford to work with! IMHO it was one of the better movies that year. And TONS better than “Big.”
I was in total agreement until you compared Working Girl to Big. I’ll take Big over Working Girl any day. Maybe that’s a gender bias?
For sure, I can TOTALLY see why WG would resonate more with women, and Big for male audiences!
And, you are right, the quote is, “I have a head for business…. and a bod for sin.” Go Melanie!
I had just finished updating the Michael Keaton article around the time I wrote this one. And I was shocked by all the misinfo on the internet about Keaton. So when I saw the “bod for sin” quote misquoted repeatedly, I felt the need to rant. It’s the most famous line from the movie. If you are going to quote it, get it right!
Both were entertaining trifles, well executed. WG just seemed to think it was more than that, while Big did not.
From a male point of view, I will say that at the time the movie was released I was a little sick of characters like Baldwin’s and Spacey’s. I’m sure the women who experience creeps like these are sick of them too, but a lot of film/TV aimed at women at the time seemed to think that these guys constituted at least half of the male population. I’ve never known many guys like them, so it’s a little outside of my reality.
I’m sure many feminists got sick of being portrayed as unpleasant man-haters.
Baldwin played a similar role in Married to the Mob that same year.
In terms of the feminist view of the late 80s (feminism being a term that has many different meanings for people), the brilliance of WG was that the movie captured so well the failed promises of the business sisterhood where women look out for each other. No, they are more likely to stab other women in the back, then as well as now. Oh, trust me on this. Anyway, Melanie Griffith represented the hope of “new” feminism in the business world, when she was trying to describe her new boss to her boyfriend, explaining that having a female boss was like having a mentor instead of a leering pervert like her last boss. Signourney Weaver dashed this hope to pieces of course, but what struck me the most about her in that role was that she played it with humor, demonstrating how a backstabber can be very different on the surface. Side note, the line when the boss was telling Tess how she was expecting her fiance to be proposing shortly, and WHY he would be? “Because I am, after all, me” was one that got a big laugh at the theater, it was totally the delivery of that line.
The 50 Hottest Bad Actresses Of All Time:
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/10/50-hottest-bad-actresses-of-all-time/melanie-griffith
31. Melanie Griffith
Worst Performances: The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Milk Money (1994)
Melanie Griffith isn’t always bad. Actually, in some cases, like 1988′s Working Girl and RKO 281 11 years later, she’s been damn good. But a few strong performances unfortunately can’t totally dismiss a slew of poor ones, and overcooked turns in duds like The Bonfire of the Vanities, Milk Money, and Pacific Heights diminish her career’s overall impact.
Pacific Heights and Milk Money bad performances? Rubbish. Pacific Heights wasn’t even a bad film, and it did okay business, so it’s beyond me why they consider that film or her acting in it among the worst of her career. Her worst performances were in Bonfire of the Vanities, Shining Through, Born Yesterday and Two Much.
I’m no fan of Pacific Heights, but Griffith has so many bad movies to choose from. PH is pretty low down the list. All the examples you named are good ones.
I love this scene for some reason [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ZpzwgPj_M&w=420&h=315%5D
I loved this too, and can’t articulate a reason why.
Steve Bauer is a dirty man! (but funny) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_JugOGzmKM
He has had such a bad career, Melanie got him a small part in Forever Lulu many years after their divorce.
“Something Wild”, my recollection of that one is that it was a hit among 20 somethings and college students, so a niche audience, not huge box office. it was definitely a quirky, fun movie. Other than the basic plot I can’t recall much about it so it’s probably time to see it again.
It was a critical darling, but not a big movie at the box office. The plot is pretty formulaic. Jeff Daniels plays a straight arrow who gets caught up with a wild child played by Griffith. They go on a series of quirky rom com adventures. What separates it from most of these kinds of movies is that there is legitimate danger to Griffith’s wild side. Her jealous ex boyfriend played by Ray Liotta shows up and the movie takes a dark turn towards the end.
I rewatched it when I wrote the article on Griffith and I was surprised how well it held up. If you check it out, let me know what you think.