Ishtar * (1987, Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Adjani) – Classic Movie Review 7218

Warren Beatty defends the 1987 mega-flop Ishtar as ‘a very good, not very big, comedy, made by a brilliant woman. And I think it’s funny.’

Disaster struck writer-director Elaine May’s daft little 1987 comedy Ishtar because producer Warren Beatty somehow let it cost $55 million on its production budget, with another $20 million spent on prints and marketing costs. Yet it grossed only $14.3 million at the North American box office and is estimated to have lost $40 million. So it is listed as one of the most expensive box office flops of all time. The film ran over budget by $30 million because of unexpected problems with filming in the desert, leading to numerous reshoots.

It also has a reputation as the unfunniest, worst comedy of all time, though this is slightly undeserved, and there are many other, possibly better, candidates for the title. Ace cinematographer Vittorio Storaro shot it on location in Morocco and New York City, and it does look smart.

Ishtar was made and released in a blaze of publicity and advertising that worked against it, though soon most of the publicity was adverse publicity. The media were onto it before release for substantial cost overruns beyond its lavish budget, and alleging clashes between May, Beatty and Storaro.

Audience expectations were way too high and results were way too low. Had Ishtar taken audiences unawares, people just about might have quite liked May’s amiable enough tale of two Bob Hope and Bing Crosby-style untalented songster- entertainers (Dustin Hoffman and Beatty) muddled up in an international incident in the Middle East. The rotten lounge singers are booked to play a gig at the Ishtar Hilton, after a mix-up, and an endless chain of calamities ensues, as they get caught in a Cold War stand-off between the CIA, the Emir of Ishtar and rebels trying to overthrow him.

But then again, no. For all the top talent involved (including co-stars Isabelle Adjani, Charles Grodin, Jack Weston, Tess Harper, Carol Kane, David Margulies and Aharon Ipalé, Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography, Paul Sylbert’s production designs, Dave Grusin’s score, Paul Williams’s funny songs), it still does come unstuck because of the lack of a really funny script and of lively handling by director May.

The stars sued Columbia Pictures because they alleged the film had not been properly marketed.

Beatty defends it: ‘Ishtar is a very good, not very big, comedy, made by a brilliant woman. And I think it’s funny.’ Likewise Hoffman: ‘I liked that film. Just about everyone I’ve ever met that makes a face when the name is brought up has not seen it. I would do it again in a second.’ May concludes: ‘If all of the people who hate Ishtar had seen it, I would be a rich woman today.’

It was May’s fourth and last feature as director, after A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid and Mikey and Nicky. You have to sympathise with her. It stopped a bright career dead in the water.

Ishtar was nominated for Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay in the 8th Golden Raspberry Awards, winning one for Worst Director.

Beatty later cast Hoffman in his more successful Dick Tracy (1990).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7218

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