Oscar
Short description
Oscar is a comedy set in 1930s New York, where gangster Angelo "Snaps" Provolone promises his dying father that he will abandon crime and go straight. Turning his bootlegging operation into a legitimate business proves harder than expected, as a suspicious police lieutenant, an accountant who cheats him and his daughter's romantic entanglement with that same accountant create complications at home and in his dealings.
John Landis directed the film, the thirteenth of the eighteen features he has made in chronological order, following Coming to America and preceding Innocent Blood. Sylvester Stallone leads the cast as Snaps, with Marisa Tomei, Vincent Spano, Ornella Muti, Tim Curry and Peter Riegert among the main players. The screenplay, credited to Claude Magnier, Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland, adapts Magnier's 1958 play, which had previously been brought to the screen in France. The production had a budget of 35 million dollars and took about 24 million dollars worldwide, and 42 cast members and 51 crew members are credited.
Audience response has been modest: on IMDb the film holds 6.5 out of 10 from around 37,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.4 from roughly 597 votes. A critics' rating of 3.9 out of 10 from 17 reviews is markedly lower than those viewer scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Filming took place from September 10th to November 1990.
- In the early 1980s, the idea arose to film this movie with John Landis as director and John Belushi in the lead role. Belushi passed away, and the project was almost abandoned until it was revived nearly a decade later with Sylvester Stallone as the main character.
- Once, after the filming period ended, a fire broke out on the set, destroying many sets, actors' trailers – including Tim Curry's personal trailer – all the costumes, and 21 priceless vintage cars. It was later discovered that a security guard hired to watch over the cars had set the props on fire.
- The horse that one of the main character's associates bet on was nicknamed High Hat. The same nickname was given to Harpo Marx's horse in Sam Wood's sports comedy 'A Day at the Races' (1937).
- The film poster featuring Sylvester Stallone and the clock are references to the legendary scene from Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor's comedy 'Safety Last!' (1923).
- Sylvester Stallone always wanted to act alongside Kirk Douglas. Once, his dream almost came true in Ted Kotcheff's action film 'First Blood' (1982), but Douglas left the project shortly before filming began, and Richard Crenna was cast instead. Now, when Stallone was approached with an offer to work with John Landis, he agreed on the condition that Douglas would be one of his co-stars.
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