In 1990, the dawn of a new decade did not offer a cautionary tale of the century to come, but it did give time to reflect on a decade of excess. Writer-reporter Julie Salamon had a unique, front-row seat to truly examine a time of Reaganomics, rapid gentrification, and great political and racial divide in America (sometimes it feels like not much has changed).
Salamon got the opportunity when Brian De Palma invited her to a front-row seat of the making of The Bonfire of the Vanities (the adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s incredibly successful book that many said was impossible to adapt). Salamon chronicled the journey intimately and later published her book The Devil’s Candy, which is often taught in both business and film school.
Now, 30 years later, after Salamon stumbled upon hours of taped interviews with De Palma, the book has become a beyond entertaining podcast in conjunction with TCM and Campside Media and hosted by Salamon and Ben Mankiewicz. In a recent Town & Country article, Salamon mused that while the times may not have changed that much, Hollywood has and if Bonfire were made today it may have succeeded instead of becoming notoriously known as one insane flop.
As its second season debuts, Salamon and Mankiewicz gathered to chat about the podcast of intrigue, Hollywood politics, and a time capsule of the making of an impossible movie. Salamon began by looking back on the story itself — perhaps the heart of its lack of success — and its difficulty in finding the medium of the big screen.
"I think it was hard to adapt for a lot of reasons," she said.
"There are many, many plots and characters and subplots and Sherman McCoy is an awful, elite guy who does a horrible thing with a mistress that does a horrible thing. Also, if you think about it, most people are not necessarily appealing. There is also just more content now with unappealing people at the center of the story, like Billions and Succession. Often that works better in television. It’s really hard where everyone in the film is really disgusting. It’s really hard to turn that into a movie."
Mankiewicz continued on, saying there is absolutely no Save-the-Cat moment in Bonfire, which makes sense since that was yet to hit the vernacular. Additionally, “unlikeable” characters rarely made it to screen.
"Hollywood hadn’t caught up yet to what Tony Soprano brought them. Hollywood hadn’t fully embraced the flaws of the lead," he said.
"Also, with television there are seven seasons to care about him and 91 hours to play with that ... now storytellers lean into the problems, whereas with Bonfire they leaned out of some of the most challenging parts, turning Tom Wolfe’s edges into rounded curves. I think had it been made 10 years later, it would've been different; there would’ve been more trust in De Palma to handle it right and ultimately, as Julie has stated, it might have been made into six to 10 seasons of great television."
Both Salamon and Mankiewicz mentioned that the studio suspected there was trouble early on in the process.
"The studio knew pretty early on that they bought a book that was impossible to make into a movie. Also, when Peter Guber left the movie and left the studio because he became head of Sony, there was no producer to take the lead on the budget and the moving parts of the day to day. De Palma ended up being the director and producer on a very complicated movie," Salamon said.
The opening episode of this season’s podcast reveals a lot of juicy casting information. A teenage Uma Thurman was up for Melanie Griffith’s role as Maria Ruskin at one point, and Tom Hanks, as the film’s lead, subtly fought for Griffith to remain as one of the leads.
Salamon got a front-row seat to a chemistry read between Hanks and Thurman.
"I think some of it is chemistry," she said as she looked back at experiencing a piece of Hollywood history.
"Even at the audition he was awkward. She had her lines perfectly memorized, whereas Hanks was already cast so he was using a script. He of course worked very hard during the making of the film. It may be that he just liked Melanie Griffith. She was already signed to do the movie and he always spoke very highly of her. It was also Brian’s idea to bring Thurman in and do the best he could for the movie."
Salamon and Mankiewicz also conjectured that Hanks was already married to Rita Wilson, who was very close with Griffith.
"Tom Hanks is just that kinda guy," Mankiewicz said.
"He’s nonconfrontational and wasn’t then more aware of his power ... it just strikes me that that is how Tom Hanks would handle that. He’s just so full of damned decency."
The undeniable "damned decency" of Hanks made him a strange choice for the role of Sherman McCoy in general. McCoy was full of cynicism (an intentional move by original author Wolfe, who aimed to take down the disdainful institutions of New York City with the satire of the book). But still, the studio was stuck on likability and went with Hanks.
Despite the notoriety that Bonfire gained (when Salamon’s book came out after the film’s release Newsweek wrote, "De Palma’s misfortune is Salamon’s gain"), De Palma’s career did rebound.
"It did not do well at the box office, but he made a lot of successful films artistically and financially afterwards, including Carlito’s Way and Mission Impossible and he could’ve kept on doing that kind of thing, but Brian is an artist who wants to make things that interest him. He has his own unique vision of the world," Salamon said.
Mankiewicz stressed as much as Bonfire sometimes became a punchline, De Palma clearly did not let the piece define him.
"It’s not going on his tombstone. He’s had too many successes before and after it, but part of what makes the story so interesting is to have such a public failure and succeed again. It’s like if you missed a shot in a big game but come back the next day and score 44 points. I really don’t think it defined him in any way."
Nonetheless, Salamon’s work with The Devil’s Candy is a fascinating study for anyone out there making movies.
"It will make you fall in love with filmmaking and filmmakers," Mankiewicz said.
"It’s incredibly interesting. There’s no possible way that you won’t be interested in the story. Every time something else goes off the rails, the story just gets more fascinating and there’s something else to learn."
The podcast feels very much like the book brought to life, deeply enriched with hours of tape from Salamon and De Palma’s casual chats in his office, where he muses on everything from how to handle a studio executive to what to order for lunch to remain in good shape for directing. The story of this film’s rise and fall almost felt tailor-made for Salamon to tell. De Palma actually came to her hospital room after she gave birth, inviting her to come to the set and chronicle the process.
The only other completely embedded book Salamon has done was when she was holed up in a hospital — a place she finds very similar to a film set; "the chaos seems to create a family," she so accurately put it.
Salamon credits De Palma for continuing to speak to her as things went south (the studio didn’t even know about her presence until five months into the process). When Salamon started asking hard questions of people on set, De Palma told his crew members to "tell her everything."
For Salamon, the whole process was life changing. When she saw how much people love their craft through being on set day in and day out, she took a different path and stopped working as a film critic.
She maintains that De Palma had a lot to say with Bonfire and that maybe "we just didn’t listen closely enough at the time."