Broadway Danny Rose
1984
1984
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(Every Byte Matters)
– One of Woody’s regular dining spots was Rao’s, a tiny Italian restaurant at 114th Street in East Harlem with home-style food and only eight tables, which was always filled week’s in advance by celebrity customers. Both he and Mia enjoyed the owner’s daughter-in-law, Anna Rao, a woman with a towering bouffant hairstyle, stiletto heels, dark glasses, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and wry sense of humor. [4]
– When one evening Mia remarked that she had always wanted to play that type of woman, Woody was happily amazed. Never would he have imagined such unusual casting. Soon, however, he was busy working on a screenplay with an Anna Rao-type character for Mia. [4]
– Woody had trouble casting the part of Lou Canova. After seeing scores of candidates and even considering well-known Italian actors, such as Robert De Niro and Danny Aiello, nobody fit the part. In desperation, his casting director searched Colony Records on Broadway for an album that looked schmaltzy. One of the them, “Can I Depend on You?,” contained original songs, one entitled “Agit’s,” written by Nick Apollo Forte. After catching one of his acts, Nick was offered the part. [3]
– According to Forte, “They just went bananas over me.” As Jack Rollins remarked to him, “It’s a great day when you meet Woody but it was a better day when he met you.” [4]
“I went in and I met with Woody and he looked at me up and down. I’m talking about 10 minutes,” Forte noted. “He says, ‘Could you do a movie with me?’ I says, ‘Yeah. No problem.’ But let me tell you something, I never saw one of his movies. As a matter of fact, I don’t really go nuts on a lot of his movies, especially the first one I really saw was a thing called Zelig. I went to the screening of it and sat back and said, ‘Oh, my God, this is like a joke.’” [5]
– Forte never acted before. Woody typically did on average four takes, but preferred two. One scene Woody did 50 takes with him. Usually Woody would have rewritten the part or simply fired the actor at that point. Forte wasn’t easily replaceable. Although hard for Woody, he pressed on. As a result, Forte received raves from critics. [4]
– His telephone didn’t stop ringing once the film came out. He was booked on The Tonight Show, got a 4 night a week gig at the Sands Hotel in Atlantic City and was offered a sitcom pilot from NBC. Unfortunately, after six months the phone stop ringing and he never got a Academy Award nomination. [4]
– Forte was originally a fisherman and Connecticut-based singer on the side. He had never seen a Woody Allen film before he was cast, and to date has not made another picture. [3]
– According to Forte he turned down a role on The Sopranos because “Every other word was F-you, F-this. I may be a proud Italian American, but I don’t use that kind of language” [5]
– Nick Apollo Forte died February 26, 2020. He was 81.
– The reason Mia Farrow wears sunglasses most of the film is that Woody Allen did not feel she could pass herself as a tough Italian “broad,” so he had her wear the sunglasses most of the film to hide her eyes, making her seem more sultry and mysterious. The only time she removes the sunglasses is when her character is supposed to be more vulnerable. [1]
– The deli owner who informs Danny Rose about the fate of one the characters in the movie was really the co-owner of the legendary Carnegie Deli where the scene was shot. He was a retired comic and actor who retained his SAG card named Leo Steiner. He was only cast after the actors Woody Allen brought to the location were inadequate. [1]
– Danny Aiello was so devastated at not getting the part, he went into a room and cried for two weeks, he said. Allen compensated by giving him plum parts in The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and Radio Days (1987). [3]
– Finally, one can’t overlook the part played by the Carnegie Deli as the central location for the movie. The owner, Leo Steiner, played himself in the deli scenes, and although the place had to be closed for two entire days to accommodate filming, Steiner didn’t complain; in fact, he said after the film’s release, business was better than ever. [3]
– In the movie, Danny has a sandwich named after him at the deli - cream cheese on bagel with marinara sauce (a play on the merged worlds of guilty Jew Danny and brash Italian Tina). Later, Steiner created his own Danny Rose specialty for the menu - corned beef, pastrami and coleslaw with a customized doggy bag. Although many celebrities have had sandwiches named for them at the Carnegie Deli, Danny Rose and Dagwood (from the “Blondie” comic strip) are the only fictional characters with that distinction. [3]
– Broadway Danny Rose was Allen’s second movie to debut at the prestigious Cannes film festival (after Manhattan). His next four films would also end up debuting there. [2]
– Woody Allen got two more Academy Award nominations for this movie — Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (his first nominations since 1979’s Manhattan). He also won the best screenplay awards from the British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA) and the Writer’s Guild of America. [2]
– Time Out wrote: “The jokes are firmly embedded in plot and characterisation, and the film, shot by Gordon Willis in harsh black-and-white, looks terrific; but what makes it work so well is the unsentimental warmth pervading every frame.
– Roger Ebert wrote: “Allen makes Danny Rose into a caricature, and then, working from that base, turns him back into a human being: By the end of the film, we see the person beneath the mannerisms. It all works.”
– Danielle Fox for The Huffington Post wrote: “It’s no secret that Woody Allen plays himself in every film he acts in, but Danny Rose might be one of Allen’s best renditions of himself onscreen. Allen’s character is always whiny and neurotic, but there’s just something about a mob-driven goose chase that makes Danny’s persona that much funnier.”
– Daidiv Krauss for High-Def Digest wrote: “Despite the hijinks that characterize most of the plot, ‘Broadway Danny Rose’ seems like one of Allen’s most personal, intimate films, brilliantly mixing comedy, romance, and a little drama. It’s laugh-out-loud funny one moment and supremely touching the next. And the beauty of it all is that it’s so deceptively simple. But that’s the genius of Woody Allen, who somehow manages to encapsulate the human experience into wonderfully composed cinematic packages that, whenever opened, yield unexpected rewards.”
– “Broadway Danny Rose” is ultimately a nice, fun movie. It thoroughly earns its PG rating — there is no sex, no questionable language, and despite a subplot about the mafia trying to kill someone, no violence that ventures outside the realm of cartoonishness. It’s also incredibly well-crafted. The action moves fluidly and entertainingly from scene to scene, and the corners of the film are filled with easy-to-overlook gems (Lou’s singing, for example, is the perfect mix of impressive and cheesy, and the storytellers furnish their anecdotes with a sharp eye for authentic details). However, sandwiched amidst some of the best movies ever made, Broadway Danny Rose, like its title character, is likely doomed to be a perpetual underdog. [2]
– Broadway Danny Rose has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating as of 2021.
