The American Friend

Der amerikanische Freund (1977)

Timing: 2:5 (125 min)

7.2/10
348

All about film

Video 1

Photo 17

Actors and characters

Release date

1977-06-24

Country

Germany, France

Production

WDR, Bavaria Film, Road Movies, Wim Wenders Stiftung, Les Films du Losange, Filmverlag der Autoren, Wim Wenders Productions

Genre

Drama, Thriller

Budget

$2 147 483 647

Revenue

$0

Website

Director

Wim Wenders

Actors

Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Lisa Kreuzer, Gérard Blain, Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller, Peter Lilienthal, Daniel Schmid, Sandy Whitelaw, Jean Eustache
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Wim Wenders, Joachim von Mengershausen, Renée Gundelach

Operator

Robby Müller

Composer

Jürgen Knieper

Artist

Audition

Editing

Peter Przygodda
All team (53)

• The film is based on Patricia Highsmith's novel «Ripley's Game» (1974).
• Wim Wenders initially really wanted John Cassavetes to play the role of the main character, Tom Ripley – rumors have it that the screenwriter was strongly impressed by his performance in Roman Polanski's «Rosemary's Baby».
• Wenders tried to acquire the rights to several of Highsmith's novels at once, but learned that all the rights already belonged to other directors. When the writer found out about this, she offered the director «Ripley's Game», which had not been published at that time.
• Patricia Highsmith disliked the production from the very beginning, as she felt it distorted the image of Ripley. Only after seeing the film in a cinema did she admit that "The American Friend" was magnificent.
• Wim Wenders planned to give the roles of all the foreigners in the film to established directors. Directors such as Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller, and Gérard Blain tried their hand at acting.
• Dennis Hopper, who replaced John Cassavetes in the role of Tom Ripley, brought a number of new ideas to the filming process, in particular, he came up with the title "The American Friend" instead of the working title "Framed".