The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including
Allen for Best Director, Allen and McGrath for Best Original Screenplay, Palminteri for Best Supporting Actor, and both Tilly and Wiest for Best Supporting Actress, with the latter winning for her performance, the second time Allen directed her to an Academy Award. Considered one of his best works, Bullets Over Broadway is the most recent film directed by Allen with a shared writing credit.
In 1928, David Shayne is an idealistic young playwright newly arrived on Broadway from Pittsburgh. Desperate to gain financing for his play, God of Our Fathers, he is convinced by producer Julian Marx to cast actress Olive Neal, the girlfriend of gangster Nick Valenti, in a minor role.
Compensating for his frustration with the demanding and talentless Olive, Shayne is thrilled to cast alcoholic faded star Helen Sinclair in the lead role, along with the dieting British thespian Warner Purcell. Rehearsals are soon thrown into chaos when Olive shows up escorted by Cheech, a mob henchman, who insists on watching rehearsals.
Eventually Cheech starts giving notes on the script to Shayne, who is initially angered by the intrusion but quickly realizes the ideas are excellent. Cheech, who barely learned to read before burning down his school, has a natural talent for playwriting, but is not interested in taking any credit. The cast members herald the revised script as genius, disparaging his initial draft as dull and pompous.
Buoyed by their imminent success, Shayne and the actors succumb to their vices. His partner, Ellen, catches him cheating on her with Helen. Warner indulges in overeating and begins an affair with Olive, which he attempts to break off when Cheech threatens his life. Growing increasingly frustrated with Olive's poor acting, Cheech tries to have her fired from the production. After Shayne reminds him he cannot get rid of Olive, Cheech murders her and dumps her body in a river.
Olive's murder is widely assumed to be part of an inter-gang conflict, but Shayne immediately senses the truth and argues with Cheech. Regretting his mistakes, Shayne is dismayed to learn that Ellen is leaving him for his hedonistic Marxist friend Sheldon Flender.
On opening night, Valenti accuses Cheech of Olive's murder, which he denies. Henchmen Rocco and Aldo chase Cheech backstage while the play is being performed, shooting him. With his dying words, Cheech gives Shayne a new final line for the play. The play is a critical and commercial success, but Shayne skips the after-party to confront Flender. He confesses his lack of talent and proposes marriage to Ellen, who accepts his newfound desire to leave high society and move back to Pittsburgh.
The film's locales include the duplex co-op on the 22nd floor of 5 Tudor City Place in Manhattan.[5]
The film's title may have been an homage to a lengthy sketch of the same title from the 1950s television show Caesar's Hour; one of Allen's first jobs in television was writing for Sid Caesar specials after the initial run of the show.[6]
The film featured the last screen appearance of Benay Venuta. Allen cast her in a cameo role as a well-wishing wealthy theatre patron.[7] She died of lung cancer in September 1995.
Bullets Over Broadway received a positive response from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 60 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "A gleefully entertaining backstage comedy, Bullets Over Broadway features some of Woody Allen's sharpest, most inspired late-period writing and direction."[8]
Janet MaslinofThe New York Times described the film as "a bright, energetic, sometimes side-splitting comedy with vital matters on its mind, precisely the kind of sharp-edged farce [Allen] has always done best."[9]Todd McCarthyofVariety similarly called it "a backstage comedy bolstered by healthy shots of prohibition gangster melodrama and romantic entanglements" and wrote, "In its mixing of showbiz and gangsters, this is a nice companion piece to Allen's Broadway Danny Rose, and about as amusing."[10]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised, "Bullets Over Broadway shares a kinship with a more serious film by Allen, Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which a man committed murder and was able, somehow, to almost justify it. Now here is the comic side of the same coin. The movie is very funny and, in the way it follows its logic wherever it leads, surprisingly tough."[11]
The film grossed $13.4 million in the United States and Canada and $24.1 million internationally for a worldwide total of $37.5 million.[2][3]
^ abKlady, Leonard (February 19, 1996). "B.O. with a vengeance: $9.1 billion worldwide". Variety. p. 1.
^Harvey, Adam (2007). The Soundtracks of Woody Allen: A Complete Guide to the Songs and Music in Every Film, 1969–2005. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 34. ISBN978-0-7864-2968-4.
^Lovell, Glenn (December 25, 1994). "The Past Picture Show the Good, the Bad and the Ugly -- a Year Worth's of Movie Memories". San Jose Mercury News (Morning Final ed.). p. 3.
^P. Means, Sean (January 1, 1995). "'Pulp and Circumstance' After the Rise of Quentin Tarantino, Hollywood Would Never Be the Same". The Salt Lake Tribune (Final ed.). p. E1.
^Denerstein, Robert (January 1, 1995). "Perhaps It Was Best to Simply Fade to Black". Rocky Mountain News (Final ed.). p. 61A.
^Webster, Dan (January 1, 1995). "In Year of Disappointments, Some Movies Still Delivered". The Spokesman-Review (Spokane ed.). p. 2.
^Ross, Bob (December 30, 1994). "1994 The Year in Entertainment". The Tampa Tribune (Final ed.). p. 18.
^King, Dennis (December 25, 1994). "SCREEN SAVERS In a Year of Faulty Epics, The Oddest Little Movies Made The Biggest Impact". Tulsa World (Final Home ed.). p. E1.
^Movshovitz, Howie (December 25, 1994). "Memorable Movies of '94 Independents, fringes filled out a lean year". The Denver Post (Rockies ed.). p. E-1.
