Four Rooms
Short description
Four Rooms is an anthology comedy set in a once-respectable Los Angeles hotel on New Year's Eve. Ted, a bellhop working his first shift alone, is summoned again and again by the occupants of four different rooms, and each visit lands him in a stranger situation than the last: a gathering of witches, a jealous husband holding his wife at gunpoint, a gangster's two unruly children left in his care, and a pair of eccentric men in the middle of a reckless wager. Ted somehow keeps his composure through it all.
The film's four segments were written and directed separately by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, with Lawrence Bender producing. For Anders it was her first directorial credit, followed by Sugar Town; for Rockwell it came between In the Soup and The Projectionist. It was the fourth of Robert Rodriguez's 24 films, after Desperado and before From Dusk Till Dawn, and the fourth of Tarantino's 16, after Pulp Fiction and before Jackie Brown. Tim Roth plays Ted, heading a cast of 28 that includes Jennifer Beals, David Proval, Ione Skye, Madonna and Antonio Banderas.
Made for 4 million USD, the film grossed about the same amount worldwide, so it barely recouped its production costs in cinemas. On IMDb it holds 6.7/10 from 117,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 5.9/10 from 2,907 votes, indicating a modest but durable following. A critics' rating of 4.1/10 from 45 reviews places it well below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The video game that Betty’s friends are playing is called “Rambo 3.” This game was released for the Sega Genesis series of consoles in 1989.
- The film was originally going to be called "Five Rooms", but one of the episodes was decided to be cut before filming began.
- The role of Ted was originally written for Steve Buscemi.
- One of the main tenets of the American Directors Guild is the following thesis: "One film - one director." Therefore, all four directors had to leave the Guild to bring the film to fruition.
- Quentin heated up the atmosphere on set so much that his episode was filmed in just two days.
- Madonna was so unhappy with how she looked in the film that she flatly refused to participate in the film's promotional activities, despite it being stipulated in her contract. That's why Madonna has red hair on the posters and album cover – she liked herself with it (unlike the platinum blonde in the film).
- In 1995, the film was released in Russia under the title "Strange Brew."
- Before the children switched to an erotic channel, they were watching Robert Rodriguez's short film "Bedhead".
- After collaborating with Quentin on "Pulp Fiction," Bruce Willis insisted on appearing in Tarantino’s segment of "Four Rooms," titled "The Man from Hollywood," without a fee. That is why Willis isn't even in the credits: according to the rules of the Screen Actors Guild, actors are not allowed to work for free.
- The story unfolding in the fourth room is based on the plot of Roald Dahl’s short story "The Man from the South," in which the main character, a gambler, is even more insane than his counterpart in the film.
- In that same fourth episode, directed by Quentin Tarantino, the word "fuck" and its derivatives are uttered exactly 193 times in 21 minutes of action.
- Rodriguez cast his sister, Patricia Vonne, as the corpse in the episode "Disturbance of the Peace".
- A 1964 Chevrolet Malibu is raffled off in the episode "The Man from Hollywood." This was the same model car owned by Quentin Tarantino (the director of this episode) and was stolen during the filming of "Pulp Fiction."
- The opening credits show Tim Roth’s character from "Reservoir Dogs" unzipping, and his character from "Four Rooms" emerging.
Similar movies
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
