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The Bonfire of the Vanities
Promotional poster for The Bonfire of the Vanities
Directed by	Brian De Palma
Produced by	Brian De Palma
Written by	Tom Wolfe (novel) Michael Cristofer (screenplay)
Starring	Tom Hanks Bruce Willis Melanie Griffith Kim Cattrall Saul Rubinek Morgan Freeman F. Murray Abraham
Music by	Dave Grusin
Cinematography	Vilmos Zsigmond
Editing by	Beth Jochem Besterveld Bill Pankow David Ray
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	December 21, 1990 (USA)
Running time	125 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$47,000,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue	$15,691,192 (USA)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1990 film adaptation of a novel by Tom Wolfe, also called The Bonfire of the Vanities. The film was directed by Brian De Palma and stars Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy, Bruce Willis as Peter Fallow, Melanie Griffith as Maria Ruskin, and Kim Cattrall as Judy McCoy, Sherman's wife. The screenplay was written by Michael Cristofer, and the original music score was composed by Dave Grusin. The film was marketed with the tagline "An outrageous story of greed, lust and vanity in America."

Sherman McCoy is a Wall Street investor who makes millions while enjoying the good life and the sexual favors of Maria Ruskin, a Southern belle gold digger. Sherman and Maria are driving back to Maria's apartment from the airport when Maria takes a wrong turn on the expressway and the two find themselves in the South Bronx. She sees a black youth approaching Sherman's car and Maria, frightened, guns the engine, running over the teenager and killing him. The two drive away and decide not to report the accident to the police.

Meanwhile, indigent alcoholic journalist Peter Fallow, anxious for a story to make good with his editor, comes upon the hit-and-run case as a rallying point for the black community, while district attorney Abe Weiss recognizes the press coverage inherent in prosecuting the callow Sherman. As Sherman is brought to his knees, the New York community fragments into different factions who use the case to suit their own cynical purposes. Finally, Sherman is left without any allies to support him except for the sympathetic Judge Leonard White and the remorseful Fallow.

The film was plagued by controversy: the role of Peter Fallow was offered to both Jack Nicholson and John Cleese (Fallow was English in the novel) by Brian De Palma, but both turned down the role. When De Palma was unable to deliver an actor, the studio forced the director to cast Bruce Willis (who had starred in the successful 1988 film Die Hard) as Fallow instead. Walter Matthau was initially offered the role of the judge, but demanded a fee of US$1 million. The producers balked at meeting his price and signed Alan Arkin instead for a modest $150,000. Arkin was replaced by Morgan Freeman when the studio decided to change the judge's ethnicity from Jewish to African-American in order to moderate criticism of the film's racial politics, and dialogue was added to have the judge give the final denouncement towards the manipulative actions of the main characters. Lastly, F. Murray Abraham, who has a significant part in the film, chose to not be credited over a contract dispute.^[1]

Also, the studio took liberties with the source material, making Sherman McCoy more sympathetic and adding a subplot involving a minor character, Judge Leonard White. The controversies surrounding the film would be detailed in a book called The Devil's Candy, written by Julie Salamon. This book is very colorful and illustrative in that it shows in great detail all the drama that led to one of the most expensive bombs from the 1990s. The book offers a unique insight into the pre-production, production and post-production stages of the movie, while it also provides juicy details about the relationship between director Brian de Palma and his A-list cast. For instance, the book shows that Brian de Palma had a difficult relationship with then-rising-star Bruce Willis who, in words of Julie Salamon, "was largely disliked by most of the cast and crew [due to his ego]." In one notorious instance, during the filming of one scene in which Willis was with Alan King (the scene in which the character played by King-dies), Willis challenged the crew to make the whole scene move along faster, allegedly because it was very hot on the set. Even though Willis was called out of the set by de Palma to discuss this incident, this particular scene ended up being considerably shorter and simpler than originally intended.

In one notable visual scene Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith) arrives in New York on an Air France Concorde. The film's Second Unit Director, Eric Schwab, calculated the time and day when a runway at JFK would line up exactly with the setting sun, to serve as a backdrop, and managed to film in the single 30 second time period when this occurs in any given year, while winning a bet that he could make the scene an essential part of the movie.^[2] Several of the sets parodied the home decorated by Robert Denning and Vincent Fourcade for Carolyne Roehm and Henry Kravis.

The cover of Peter Fallow's book in the film is a reproduction of the original first edition of Tom Wolfe's novel from 1987.

The film itself was a critical and commercial flop when it was first released. The film cost an estimated US$47 million to make, but initially grossed just over US$15 million at the U.S. box office.

Many critics complained about the casting, especially the casting of Hanks and Willis as McCoy and Fallow. Others complained that despite opening with a well-executed tracking shot, the first two acts of the film were horribly paced and that too much time was spent making Sherman McCoy a likable character rather than advancing the plot of the story.

1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099165/trivia
2. ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20070202/ai_n17205796

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The Bonfire of the Vanities

• The Bonfire of the Vanities at the Internet Movie Database
• The Bonfire of the Vanities at All Movie Guide
• The Bonfire of the Vanities at Rotten Tomatoes