February 23, 2009
Favorite Movies: Local Hero
Local Hero is perhaps my favorite film, a movie that features nary an angry word nor a single gunshot or car chase, but rather interesting characters, beautiful scenery, a fantastic soundtrack (by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame), and Burt Lancaster, lighting up the screen with his offbeat portrayal of an oil tycoon who wants to buy an entire picturesque Scottish village, to make way for a refinery.
Released in 1983, it's gathered something of a cult following over the years, myriad viewers taken with its quiet charm.
I mentioned the soundtrack; it was one of the first CDs I bought, a rare import at the time, but one I've nearly worn the pits off of. According to IMDB, more copies of the soundtrack have been sold than the film itself, but that's no knock on the movie, just a testament to how great the score is.
It's a character-driven film, each part perfectly cast, with Peter Riegert as Mac, sent from Houston, Texas, by Lancaster to negotiate with the locals for their village. Mac is a fish out of water, a brash Brooklyn-born businessman, intent on getting in, making the deal, and jetting back to his bachelor pad in the big city.
But soon enough, Mac -- and the viewer -- is seduced by the beauty of the Scottish coast, the sound of the surf and gulls, the Northern Lights, and the people who welcome him into their community.
It's also an example of a filmmaker with the integrity to tell the studio executives that he'd rather kill the project than screw it up to satisfy their misguided notions of what's "wrong" with the idea.
In this case, writer/director Bill Forsyth dug in his heels when the studio said that Peter Riegert, best know at the time for his role in Animal House wasn't hot enough to star. The executives wanted -- I kid you not -- Henry Winkler, "The Fonz," to play Mac.
According to the The Press and Journal (Aberdeen, Scotland):
Warner Bros thought having sitcom star Winkler as central character MacIntyre would cement box-office success in the US.
Glasgow-born director Bill Forsyth told executives that he would pull the plug on the film if the Fonz was cast, however. He demanded that actor Peter Riegert get the part instead.
In a new BBC documentary about the making of the film, Bronx-born Riegert, whose most successful film appearance before Local Hero was Boon in Animal House, said that Forsyth threatened to walk if he was not in the film.
Riegert said: “I said, ‘Look, Bill, I understand that you want me to do this, but I also understand the politics of Hollywood and the fact that you want me means a lot to me, but I’ll understand if something terrible happens’.
“He said something along the lines of, ‘Look, I wrote it and I'm directing it. If you’re not in it, there’s no movie’.”
In the Movie Connections documentary, to be shown next week, Local Hero producer Lord David Puttnam agrees that Winkler was not right for the part.
Lord Puttnam said: “My impression was that Henry at one point was extremely keen.
“I remember a meeting in the office with everybody sucking their teeth and thinking that, on the one hand he secures the movie, on the other is it right actually, tonally what we want for the film.”
He added: “We are talking about a film which is a classic movie because it has got absolute integrity.”
I can't imagine anyone but Peter Riegert as Mac; thank goodness Bill Forsyth felt the same way.
Posted by Mike Lief at February 23, 2009 10:21 PM
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