Shadows and Fog
Short description
Shadows and Fog is set in a foggy Central European city between the wars, where a strangler is killing residents and a nervous bookkeeper named Kleinman is roused from bed to join a vigilante patrol. He never quite learns what his part in the hunt is meant to be, and once his neighbours disappear into the night he wanders the deserted streets alone, afraid of meeting the killer. His path crosses that of Irmy, a circus sword swallower who has walked out on her partner, a clown, and the two drift through the night together.
Woody Allen directed and wrote the film, the nineteenth of the forty-eight he has directed in chronological order, following Alice and preceding Husbands and Wives. Allen plays Kleinman, with Mia Farrow as Irmy and John Malkovich as the clown. John Cusack, Madonna and Kathy Bates appear among a credited cast of fifty. Robert Greenhut produced the film for Orion Pictures and Jack Rollins and Charles H. Joffe Productions.
The production had a budget of fourteen million dollars and returned about three million at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds 6.7 out of 10 from roughly nineteen thousand votes, and on TMDB 6.7 out of 10 from just over four hundred. A critics' rating of 6 out of 10 from twenty-six reviews places it close to the two audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- With a budget of $19 million at the time, it was Woody Allen's most expensive film.
- This is the last film by Woody Allen released by the now-defunct Orion Pictures studio, most of whose founders were, in one way or another, connected to Woody Allen's films since his collaboration with United Artists.
- Considering the cost of building the sets, which was to make this project more expensive than the usual films of director and screenwriter Woody Allen, the film company "Orion Pictures" demanded that Allen himself appear on screen.
- Although Fred Gwynne's name is listed on the poster, he only speaks one line in the film. The same is true of Kate Nelligan, who appears in only one scene, shouting from an upstairs window, but is also credited on the poster.
- The large sets were quite expensive, so most of them were used multiple times, disguised in scenes with thick fog.
- The film is based on a one-act comedy play called “Death,” published in Woody Allen’s collection of stories, “Without Feathers” (1972). Both the play and the film are a stylization of the works of Franz Kafka, and in particular his novel “The Trial”.
- The film was shot at the 8,000 square meter Kaufman-Astoria Studios, which is the largest studio built in New York.
- According to Donald Pleasence, no one from the creative team saw the film's script, and Woody Allen only gave him the pages containing his character. When Pleasence asked Allen questions like “Who is Schultz?”, he invariably replied that it didn’t matter and there was no need to know.
- Jodie Foster, who plays a prostitute, also played a prostitute in *Taxi Driver* (1976). Victor Argo also appeared in both films and played similar characters.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
