Il était une fois Broadway

Hmmm, unreleased, huh. This film might be the At Long Last Love of gangster musicals. From a Guys and Dolls perspective, BLOODHOUNDS is a funny and quite lavish Damon Runyan inspired semi musical with an astonishing cast. It was not released in cinemas in Australia and it really should have been. There is nothing at all preventing this film from doing good business if it has been promoted to be exactly what it is: an all star gangster musical with a huge and famous cast. I saw it on tape promoted as "Found! The lost Madonna movie" which is an outrageous deceit, given the many other more interesting actors, all gussied up and frantically rushing about from one nightclub to the other in snowy city streets. Madonna's great duet with Jennifer Grey, fresh from Dirty Dancing would alone have been enough to propel this funny pretty pic into any number of luxury cinemas (we still had them in the 80s). But, no, it wasn't to be and this easy to love 30s farce is still rather lost. What a waste! Lets see if a DVD release (with possibly fascinating interviews and extras) sees BLOODHOUNDS OF Broadway deservedly find its delighted audience. Apparently it opened in ONE New York cinema in 1989 with a reel missing. It was reviewed that way and unknowingly played like that for several weeks. Thus damaging its survival and any further plans.

BLOODHOUNDS OF BROADWAY is for many accounts, a bad movie. It opened in very few cinemas and achieved very little at the box office, and it was televised as a presentation for AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE a year later. So why did I watch it? Because from time to time I love to see movies with a bad reputation for seeing for myself if they are really that bad. So, it's BLOODHOUNDS OF BROADWAY bad as its score of 5,2 and only 8 reviews to date would imply? Let's see.

The film hasn't a real plot to speak off. Instead, it consists of some stories. Most memorable: The Brain (Rutger Hauer) is a gangster that is accompanied by gambler Regret (Matt Dillon) and an outsider with two bloodhounds to a meal. Feet Samuels (Randy Quaid) is in love with showgirl Hortense Hathaway (Madonna) and wants to spend one wild night with her before suicide, and after a while Hortense will consider of leaving show business for moving to New Jersey and raise a family. Regret will continue to be the world's unluckiest gambler, tho Hortense's colleague Louise Lovely Lou (Jennifer Grey) will love him anyway.

So, it's BLOODHOUNDS OF BROADWAY that bad and deserving of the hate? Not really. Sure, it's not that greatly acted but entertaining. Matt Dillon plays the part of a loser so goddamn well, and the viewer feels his pity for real. Madonna actually surprised me because, she has the reputation of being such a terrible actress, but here she did a nice job other than singing. The rest of the cast is a who's who of various B-listers (Rutger Hauer, Randy Quaid, Steve Buscemi, Esai Morales and Fisher Stevens just for naming some) that are very entertaining and make the cast colorful. I kinda reflected on the joke of the waiter that sees the dogs and says 'Warthogs belong in the ringlings' because it had never been heard before, and it means 'Something that shouldn't belong in a certain place'.

If you can look past the few reviews and bad box office return, it's still a nice time passer. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you like the jargon and swagger of "Guys & Dolls," you should enjoy "Bloodhounds of Broadway," another collection of Damon Runyon stories pieces together to make an ensemble film, without quite as much music. This one unfolds much like a three-act play. The first act takes place during the day on December 31, 1928. The second rings in the New Year and the third shows our characters meeting their (mostly) happy endings the next morning. The fact that 1929 will not be universally kind to all of them adds a bittersweet note to the final frames. Madonna has a small role, and it's not her finest performance, but saddled with the clichéd "showgirl with a heart of gold" character, she does well, and her final moments with co-star Randy Quaid are charming. Quaid himself gives a marvelous performance, as does Julie Hagerty as a "society dame" who'd rather be a gun moll, and Rutger Hauer as a dying gangster in an effective and underplayed morality story.

"Bloodhounds of Broadway", which is set in 1928 New York, is actually a film ahead of its own time (1989) in some aspects; with its interlocking stories of tough guys, beautiful dames, underworld figures, bars, gambling, all taking place in a dark megacity, it reminded me of an early "Sin City"! But the filmmakers have put a lot more care in getting the "look" of the film right than in engaging us in the stories and the characters, some of whom are even difficult to keep straight in the first half. The all-star cast is not used to its full potential, although Madonna looks great with a dark bob haircut and has a brief and PG-rated but still hot "strip" number. ** out of 4.

This film is "narrated" as a New York City reporter's memories of New Year's Eve 1928, called "The last big blowout of the Jazz Age," on Broadway. There are murders, crap games, and other assorted mayhem. It begins at Mindy's "infamous" restaurant. That's where, as you may (or may not) recall, Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando contemplated the sales of cheesecake and strudel. Like Mr. Sinatra, these folks say "beautiful" in all four syllables. They get the lingo, but it never really seems like genuine Damon Runyon. And, the film has good trappings, but fails to catch anything resembling a good story.

**** Bloodhounds of Broadway (5/15/89) Howard Brookner ~ Matt Dillon, Jennifer Grey, Madonna, Randy Quaid