Huston had found a subject in the novel Prizzi's Honor, a story of mafia, hit men and questionable loyalties, by Richard Condon, who had previously written The Manchurian Candidate. He convinced Condon and screenwriter Janet Roach to do a script which would then be shopped around to the studios. As Lawrence Grobel wrote in his book, The Hustons, "By mid-March 1984 John wrote to Janet Roach in exasperation over the way the studios had received Prizzi's Honor, "The script has had the craziest reception I have ever known," he said. "There is immediate enthusiasm and it would seem that only the price had to be negotiated. [Producer John] Foreman thought he was in a position to play the studios off against one another. But then they suddenly retract. This has happened now four times. Not even Jack Nicholson, say they, could make lovable a man who would kill his wife for money. All of which serves to demonstrate to what low depths the intelligentsia of the present masters of our great industry have fallen. They all miss the point, of course, that the picture is a comedy, a fact very hard to get over. Have you ever tried explaining a joke to someone?"
Once 20th Century Fox gave Prizzi's Honor (1985) the green light, Huston found that his star Jack Nicholson had the same problem with the script as the studio heads. He didn't realize the film was a comedy. Kathleen Turner remembered their first reading of the script. "Jack took the first reading and as soon as I read my line, 'What kind of creep wouldn't catch a baby?' we're all laughing and Jack goes, 'This is funny.' And we go, 'Yeah'. John [Huston] said, 'It's a very funny story, what's wrong with you?' And Jack said, 'It's a comedy?' He never thought that until he heard it out loud."
Huston's daughter, Anjelica, was cast in the role of Maerose Prizzi. She worked hard to get her characterization of a mafia daughter right. "It was up to us to get our accents down, so Jack [Nicholson] went to the Brooklyn betting shops and I went to a Brooklyn church." During preproduction she was in the costume department trying on a black designer dress from the fifties with a frilly taffeta piece that came over the shoulder. She told the designer it would be interesting to take off the ruffle and drape it in Schiaparelli pink. "Just then my father entered the room, and said, 'Well, what do you think about making the ruffle in Schiaparelli pink?' That was the moment I knew there was no separation in how we saw the character."
Anjelica Huston and Jack Nicholson, who had lived together for several years, found that working together all day and going home to be together all night would be difficult, so they lived in different hotels while on location in Brooklyn. Said Anjelica, "I don't endorse the idea that actors should live their parts, but in spite of oneself, it sometimes does follow you home. There were elements of the hit-man in Jack at the time and I didn't want to be around him too much. Jack said that he generally dropped Charley Partanna [his character] toward dinnertime. I said that I often carried Maerose [her character] through to dessert."
Not only was Prizzi's Honor a family affair, with Huston casting his daughter, Anjelica and Jack Nicholson, but it was a reunion of sorts as well. Huston used old friends and co-workers: his former secretary, Ann Selepegno played the Don's wife; his first script girl on The Maltese Falcon (1941), Meta Wilde, was script supervisor, and Rudi Fehr, who was the editor on Key Largo (1948) came out of retirement and worked with his daughter, Kaja (now an editor on Desperate Housewives).
Prizzi's Honor was released on June 13, 1985 to universal acclaim. Film critic Pauline Kael wrote in her review, "If John Huston's name were not on Prizzi's Honor, I'd have thought a fresh, new talent had burst on the scene, and he'd certainly be the hottest new director in Hollywood." The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were in agreement: the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards: Best Picture, Director (for Huston), Actor in a Leading Role (Jack Nicholson), Actor in a Supporting Role (William Hickey), Actress in a Supporting Role (Anjelica Huston), Costume Design (Donfeld), Editing (Rudi and Kaja Fehr), and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Richard Condon and Janet Roach).
On the night of the awards, John Huston repeated what he had done nearly forty years before: he directed a family member in the film that won them a Best Supporting Oscar. In 1948 it was his father, Walter, in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. In 1986, it was his daughter, Anjelica. Hers would be the only award the film would win, but for John Huston, it must have been the most important.
Producer: John Foreman
Director: John Huston
Screenplay: Janet Roach, Richard Condon (based on his novel)
Cinematography: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Production Design: J. Dennis Washington
Music: Alex North
Film Editing: Kaja Fehr, Rudi Fehr
Cast: Jack Nicholson (Charley Partanna), Kathleen Turner (Irene Walker), Robert Loggia (Eduardo Prizzi), John Randolph (Angelo Partanna), William Hickey (Don Corrado Prizzi), Anjelica Huston (Maerose Prizzi), Lawrence Tierney (Lt. Hanley).
C-129m. Letterboxed.
by Lorraine LoBianco
SOURCES:
The Hustons by Lawrence Grobel
The Internet Movie Database
