Tough Guys Don't Dance

Tough Guys Don't Dance centres on Tim Madden, a writer living in Provincetown, Massachusetts, whose life unravels after a night he cannot fully remember. He wakes to find a tattoo he does not recall getting, blood in his car, and a severed head hidden among his marijuana plants, while his wife has taken up with the local police captain. Suspected of murder and convinced he is being framed, Tim sets out to reconstruct the missing hours and uncover who is behind the killings, a search that pulls him into the town's drug trade and corruption. His girlfriend Madeleine tries to help him while those around him, including the police, work against him. The film is based on Norman Mailer's novel of the same name.

Mailer directed and wrote the screenplay, and the film was produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus for Cannon Group with American Zoetrope. It was Mailer's second film as director, arriving sixteen years after Maidstone. Ryan O'Neal plays Tim, with Isabella Rossellini as Madeleine, Debra Stipe as Patty Lareine, Wings Hauser as Captain Alvin Luther Regency and Lawrence Tierney as Tim's father Dougy. Made for about five million dollars, it drew little attention from audiences: on IMDb it holds 5 out of 10 from around 2,100 votes, and on TMDB 4.7 out of 10 from a much smaller group of 55 voters.