Wolf **** (1994, Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, Kate Nelligan, Christopher Plummer, Richard Jenkins) – Classic Movie Review 4,390

Mike Nichols’s thrilling, lovingly made 1994 modern-day werewolf movie Wolf stars Jack Nicholson as publisher Will Randall, who becomes a werewolf and has to fight to keep his job.

Director Mike Nichols’s thrilling, lovingly made 1994 modern-day werewolf movie Wolf boasts a beautifully crafted and witty screenplay by Jim Harrison and Wesley Strick that is tailor made for its star Jack Nicholson. It also stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Plummer, James Spader, and Kate Nelligan.

Nicholson plays an aging Manhattan book editor-in-chief/ publisher called Will Randall, who is bitten by a black wolf that he accidentally runs down while driving home in New England. Mild Jack becomes wild Jack as both his job and his marriage to Charlotte (Kate Nelligan) are threatened by his younger co-worker Stewart Swinton (James Spader), an ambitious oily yuppie. Summoned for the chop to the home of tycoon publisher Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer), who has taken over his publishing house, he meets the man’s beautiful, wayward daughter Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer).

This really is Nicholson at around his best form, sometimes quiet and urbane, sometimes feisty and menacing, but always a figure of magnetic authority and power. He manages with effortless ease the gradual transformation as his senses become more acute, and this time it seems like real acting not a Jack Show turn. Pfeiffer supports loyally, alluringly and well, Nelligan and Plummer add touches of class, and the admirable Spader grabs his chance to give as good as he gets from Nicholson. Nelligan, Plummer and Spader light up totally unforgiving roles, playing sleazy characters with no redeeming features.

The surprise is how director Nichols keeps relentlessly pushing the accelerator as he drives along this purring Rolls-Royce of a fantasy film that is by turns chilling, funny and touching.

The movie is technically superb thanks to Ennio Morricone’s slick music score, Giuseppe Rotunno’s sleek and superb cinematography and sharp film editing by Sam O’Steen, though the sparing (if expert) use of Rick Baker’s special effects makeup will probably disappoint fans of An American Werewolf in London.

Future Friends star David Schwimmer has a three-line walk-on role as a Central Park cop. Indian cooking expert Madhur Jaffrey appears as a party guest. Allison Janney plays blink and your miss her Party Guest 2.

Also in the sleek cast are Richard Jenkins as investigating police Detective Sgt Carl Bridger, David Hyde Pierce as Randall’s loyal colleague Roy MacAllister, Om Puri as Dr Vijav Alezais who gives Randall an amulet to protect him from turning completely into a wolf, Eileen Atkins as Randall’s loyal secretary Mary, Ron Rifkin as Randall’s doctor Ralph, and Prunella Scales as author Maude Waggins.

It was costly movie, at $70 million, that didn’t quite make its money back in the US and Canada (grossing $65 million) for a $131 million take worldwide. But everything about it says class.

It is a huge credit to Nicholson, who had been trying to get the film made with his friend, screenwriter and associate producer Jim Harrison for 12 years.

The screenplay won a Saturn Award for Best Writing.

Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jenkins all previously appeared in The Witches of Eastwick.

American poet, novelist, and essayist Jim Harrison  (December 11, 1937 – March 26, 2016) quit the film after creative differences with Mike Nichols. Harrison said: ‘I wanted Dionysian, but he wanted Apollonian. He took my wolf and made it into a Chihuahua. I cracked up for 10 minutes and then went out into the country and stood in front of a wolf den and apologised while my dog hid under the truck.’ Harrison also quit the movies after this film.

Well respected screenwriter and script doctor Wesley Strick was then hired. Later, Nichols called on his old partner, Elaine May, for uncredited work on the screenplay.

The Apollonian and the Dionysian are philosophical and literary concepts represented by a duality between Apollo and Dionysus from Greek mythology. Apollo is the god of the sun, art, music, of rational thinking and order. Dionysus is the god of wine, dance and pleasure, of irrationality and chaos.

Released: 17 June 1994.

Duration: 125 minutes.

Country: US.

Production: Columbia Pictures.

Mia Farrow was signed as Charlotte Randall but had to bow out through scheduling conflicts (and Kate Nelligan took over), while Sharon Stone turned down the role of Laura Alden (and Michelle Pfeiffer took over).

The Bradbury Building in Blade Runner.

Filming took place in New York City, Long Island, and Los Angeles. Raymond Alden’s country mansion exteriors are shot at Old Westbury Gardens in Nassau County, New York. Will Randall’s publishing offices are shot in the Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles. Most notably, the Bradbury Building is a setting for Blade Runner, and it also notably appeared in the noir films Double Indemnity (1944), The Unfaithful (1947), Shockproof (1949), DOA (1950), I, The Jury (1953), and M (1951),

Despite these real-life settings, the film has a carefully concocted old-time studio production atmosphere, with obvious backdrops, sets and back projections, possibly as a homage to old-time werewolf movies. Whatever, it works, and looks rather lovely. The production is beautiful.

The film was shot over four months from early April 1993 to late July 1993, but the ending was poorly received by test audiences and the release was delayed by over six months for reshoots. The new ending is a slight problem. The film becomes the Michelle Show instead of the Jack Show as Nicholson’s character is sidelined and Pfeiffer’s character battles James Spader’s and then there is a quick romantic fantasy wrap-up. It does work, quite nicely and even quite satisfyingly, but maybe it is not absolutely ideal.

Workers at Thousand Oaks, California’s Animal Actors of Hollywood and Palmdale, California’s Performing Animal Troupe trained the wolves.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4,390

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