The truth behind the movie cocktails

To davcar-1,

Thanks for sharing that.I agree that the first part of the movie was good especially when it focused on Bryan Brown's Dough Couglin and Tom Cruise's Brian Flanagan and their relationship with each other.When the movie shifted to the love story between Tom Cruise's Brian Flanagan and Elisabeth Shue's Jordan Mooney particularly when Brian dumps Jordan for a "rich chick" after another bar bet with Dough,then it went downhill from there.

It should have been a rags-to-riches story of a serviceman who opens another business soon but instead it got focused on a lot of unusual twist and turns (that includes Tom Cruise's hairdo which is a testament to the reversals of the script as reshoots have to be done - LOL) when Bonnie entered the picture.

I know that even Elisabeth Shue was not proud of this film.

Check her thoughts on Cocktail from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000223/bio/

On Cocktail (1988): "If I'd known that it was just going to be about these guys throwing drinks around, then I might have had some second thoughts . . ."

so they watered it down?

Q: How did you feel about the studio's requests to make the movie less gritty than the book?

A: (Long laugh) There must have been 40 drafts of the screenplay before we went into production. It was originally with Universal. They put it in turnaround because I wasn't making the character likable enough. And then Disney picked it up, and I went through the same process with them. I would fight them at every turn, and there was a huge battle over making the lead younger, which I eventually did.

I realized — and I think I knew all along — that the people who wanted me to make the changes were correct. They wanted movie characters. Characters who were upbeat and who were going to have a happy ending and a possible future in their lives. That's what you want for a big commercial Hollywood movie. So I tried to walk that thin line between giving them what they wanted and not completely betraying the whole arena of saloons in general.

I went to a meeting once, I guess I can tell this story, with Michael Eisner, who ran the studio, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was the boss, the production head. Someone mentioned that this might be a good vehicle for Tom Cruise. Eisner says, "He'll never do this, don't waste your time, he can't play this part." And then Katzenberg says, "Well, he's really interested in doing it," and without skipping a beat Eisner says, "He's perfect for it, a perfect fit!" That's the movie business: I hate him, I love him; I love him, I hate him! Guess I just buried myself with Eisner now.

Q: What did you think of the movie when it came out?

A: I was not happy with the final product. It got so savaged by the critics — and I mean, it got creamed — that I can't think of a good review. All the major people whacked it — and whacked me too, personally. I was accused of betraying my own work, which is stupid. So I was pretty devastated. I literally couldn't get out of bed for a day. The good thing about that experience is that it toughened me up. It was like basic training. This movie got killed, and then after that I was OK with getting killed — I got killed a few more times since then, but it hasn't bothered me.

I remember it was late one night in Vermont this was a couple years after the movie came out, and I was driving and there was a call-in show on the radio and some guy called in who was a bartender who said, "I loved that book — this guy's a sell-out, he's a creep, he destroyed his own book!

champagne. never gotten it. costs too much. and has no real taste. give me a good cava. 75% cheaper. and better.




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