Six Days Seven Nights ** (1998, Harrison Ford, Anne Heche, David Schwimmer) – Movie Review 2102

Harrison Ford is especially amusing in director Ivan Reitman’s very acceptable 1998 mix of romance and adventure in the old style, though Six Days Seven Nights is looking to be another African Queen and of course inevitably failing, or least falling way short.

Ford plays a gruff charter-plane helicopter pilot called Quinn Harris, who is forced down by a crash-landing on a deserted South Seas island with Manhattan magazine editor Robin Monroe (Anne Heche) soon to be wed to Frank Martin (David Schwimmer). Their squabbling turns to something like love before a week of multiple mishaps and an attack by ruthless smugglers is through.

Heche became a subject of widespread media interest while dating comedian Ellen DeGeneres. When news of Heche’s lesbianism swept the world just as the movie was about to open in the States, there were studio jitters. But Ford stayed steadfast and said: ‘I just thought it would be plain wrong to recast.’

Heche and Ellen DeGeneres started dating in 1997 but they broke up in August 2000. Heche said all her other romantic relationships were with men. On September 1, 2001, she married cameraman Coleman ‘Coley’ Laffoon and they had a son in March 2002, but they divorced on March 4, 2009. Heche left him for her TV series Men in Trees (2006–08) co-star James Tupper and they had a son in March 2009, but they separated in 2018.

Six Days Seven Nights cost $65 million – $70 million and grossed $74.3 million in the US and Canada, and $90.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $164.8 million, so it was a moderate box-office success. It was released on 12 June 1998.

The screenplay is by Michael Browning. It was filmed on location in the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

The effects were produced by aircraft stunt work without any CGI. The de Havilland Beaver crash scene was performed with a Huey helicopter suspending the unmanned aircraft with a 200ft cable with the engine running. Certified pilot Harrison Ford was able to fulfill the insurance company’s training requirements and did his own flying.

The cast are Harrison Ford as Quinn Harris, Anne Heche as Robin Monroe, David Schwimmer as Frank Martin, Jacqueline Obradors as Angelica, Temuera Morrison as Jager, Allison Janney as Marjorie, Douglas Weston as Philippe Sinclair, Cliff Curtis as Kip, Danny Trejo as Pierce, Ben Bodé as Tom Marlowe, Derek Basco as Ricky, Amy Sedaris as Robin’s secretary, and Kerry Rossall as Yacht Owner.

After directing 20 films in 45 years, Ghostbusters (1984) is still Ivan Reitman’s most popular movie. But in 2014 Reitman handed over the Ghostbusters 3 director’s chair to Paul Feig because he says it needs ‘a fresher approach’. He will remain involved in Ghostbusters as a producer, as well as the in-development Twins (1988) sequel Triplets with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito and Eddie Murphy.

Paul Feig’s female-led Ghostbusters (2016) reboot stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Chris Hemsworth. It was a box office bomb with losses of over $70 million and Columbia dumped plans for a sequel, opting to continue the original film series with Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021).

Ivan Reitman (October 27, 1946 – February 12, 2022) died in his sleep at his home in Montecito, California, at the age of 75.

Anne Heche was involved in a fatal sequence of two car crashes in the Mar Vista neighbourhood of Los Angeles on August 5, 2022.

Anne Heche (May 25, 1969 – August 12, 2022) starred in Wild Side (1995), Donnie Brasco (1997), Volcano (1997), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), Return to Paradise (1998), the remake Psycho (1998), Birth (2004), Spread (2009), Cedar Rapids (2011), Rampart (2011), and Catfight (2016).

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2102

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