The Marrying Man

According to Premiere Magazine, Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin, who moved in together during the filming, made life miserable for the crew with their demands and their attitude.

First and foremost, there were Alec Baldwin's violent temper tantrums in which he threw a chair, smashed camera lenses, punched a wall and ripped a cellular phone from a Disney executive's hand. Things had already gotten off on the wrong foot when Disney Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg when first meeting Baldwin reportedly joked "We could get a gate guard to do the same job as you." Baldwin naturally, didn't take kindly to the joke.

As for Basinger, she was accused of habitual lateness (she kept production waiting on the set due to her elaborate morning routine, which included washing her hair with only Evian water and shampoo), flashing the crew, talking filthy on open walkie-talkies, refusing to shoot in sunlight, and demanding that no one look at her. Stories also included Basinger's feud with Simon over her dialogue (Basinger at one point told Neil Simon, "This isn't funny. Whoever wrote this doesn't understand comedy." Simon denied the incident. But he only visited the set one more time during filming) and a prima-donna attitude that ultimately resulted in the firing of the original director of photography because she didn't like how she looked in the test shots that he had taken. One person from the set claimed that at one point, Basinger pushed the director, Jerry Rees aside and tried to direct a musical number herself. Basinger also wouldn't settle for having her makeup touched up between close-up shots. Instead, she had to have her makeup completely removed and re-applied between takes, something that made filming take about 20x longer than it should have. In other words, retakes would take hours instead of minutes. Not only that, but Basinger wanted to shut down production so she could fly to Brazil to consult a psychic.

It was also on the set that Basinger and Baldwin began a hot, steamy on-set romance. Allegedly, the crew miked the trailers to record them having sex and they then played them back so that Basinger and Baldwin could hear. One crew-member commented, "Honest to God, if I were destitute and living on the street with no food and somebody offered me a million dollars to work with Alec and Kim, I'd pass. Their actions were vile, deplorable, despicable."

The film opens in San Francisco, 1956 and the on the wall of the nightclub (Dexter's) is an advertisement for KJAZ FM. That radio station did not sign on in San Francisco until August, 1959.

Featured in Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: The Marrying Man/Career Opportunities/The Five Heartbeats/The Object of Beauty/Daddy Nostalgia (1991)