Miracle Mile
Short description
Miracle Mile is set in the Los Angeles neighborhood of the same name, where Harry Washello, a musician, has just met Julie Peters, a waitress he believes is the woman he has been looking for. Their plans for a first date go wrong when Harry misses their meeting, and while trying to reach her he answers a ringing public telephone. The caller, a panicked soldier, warns that a nuclear attack is under way and that missiles will reach the city within about an hour. Convinced the danger is real, Harry sets out through the night to find Julie and get them both out, encountering a series of unusual characters as word of the coming strike spreads.
Steve De Jarnatt wrote and directed the film, his third feature after Tarzana and Cherry 2000. Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham lead the cast, with John Agar, Lou Hancock, Mykelti Williamson and Kurt Fuller among the supporting players. It was made for about 4 million dollars and took roughly 1 million at the worldwide box office.
On IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 from around 15,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.9 out of 10 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 6.9 out of 10 from 32 reviews places it close to the audience scores. The film blends action, comedy, drama, romance, science fiction and thriller elements across its 88-minute running time.
What's left behind the scenes
- Miracle Mile is a district of Los Angeles where almost all of the film's action takes place.
- The role of Fred, which was eventually played by Robert Ducay (1934-2008), was initially offered to Jack Nance (1943-1996), who had worked with David Lynch in the horror film 'Eraserhead' (1977), but he had already left acting for a career as a security guard and declined the role.
- It took the screenwriter and director Steve De Jarnatt eight years to work on the film.
- Johnie's Coffee Shop in Los Angeles closed down in the late 1990s. However, the building was not demolished and was used for filming many more movies. On November 27, 2013, the building was designated a historical landmark.
- Even before the film 'The Green Mile' was made, it had already, in a sense, achieved legendary status. In 1983, American Film magazine named it among the ten best screenplays that had never been filmed. Steve De Jarnatt approached Warner Brothers with the script, offering to direct it himself, but they didn't want to work with De Jarnatt, who hadn't directed anything at that point. Then De Jarnatt revised the script, and the studio offered him $400,000 for it, but De Jarnatt refused to sell. He tried to pitch the script to other film companies, but no one wanted to deal with a mixture of a love story and the theme of nuclear war, especially with a sad ending. Before Anthony Edwards was cast in the lead role, the film was planned to star Nicolas Cage and Kurt Russell. Hemdale Films allocated $3.7 million to De Jarnatt for filming.
- The film is mentioned in William Gibson's science fiction novel “Virtual Light” – one of the characters, obsessed with 20th-century films, talks about it.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
