Mill Creek Entertainment has targeted June 7 as the street date for a double-feature Blu-ray presentation showcasing the comedy talents of Martin Short. The Martin Short Double Feature combines writer/director Armyan Bernstein’s 1987 film release of Cross My Heart with that of director Nadia Tass’ 1991 buddy film Pure Luck.
Getting a movie made is no easy task. Consider this, back in 1984, Emmy-winning writer Gail Parent (The Carol Burnett Show) pitched a story idea to film producer Alan Greisman (Fletch, Modern Problems, 'night, Mother), who liked it. Let’s do it!
The next step was to find a writer/director to flush out a script with Parent, and so he introduced her to Armyan Bernstein, who had just wrapped Greisman’s film production of Windy City, starring John Shea and Kate Capshaw.
Parent was an experienced sitcom writer and Bernstein was something of a newbie as Windy City was his first film as a director, but he had supplied scripts for both Thank God It's Friday and director Francis Ford Coppola’s One From the Heart (he would later become a major film producer … The Commitments, Air Force One, The Hurricane, etc.)
By mid-1986 — two years later — they had it ready to go with Martin Short in the lead (the Three Amigos! would open theatrically in December of that year, so the timing was spot-on). His co-star would be JoBeth Williams, who had just come from the success of Poltergeist II: The Other Side that summer, but nature called and Williams had to drop out as she had become pregnant.
Parent and Berstein had been at this for over two-and-half years and now they had to cast a new female lead and get the film finally into production. Ironically, they found the perfect replacement in Annette O’Toole. She began her career as child TV actress, had a breakout performance in Smile (1975) and then graduated to adult roles in Cat People, 48 Hrs. and Superman III and then suddenly found herself doing made-for-TV movies … landing the co-starring role in Cross My Heart was something of a come-back.
She was perfect, playing Kathy, an attractive young woman with a secret. She had been on two dates with Short’s character, David, who also had a secret. As they prepare for the big third-date, the turning point in any budding romance, the question becomes, will their secrets come out and will that be the end of it?
Kathy is a single-mom (that’s her “big” secret) and she fears that it will be a turn-off for David. David, on the other hand, has just lost his job and feels that Kathy is out of his league, and without a job it will certainly be hopeless. What to do? More secrets of course!!
Cross My Heart arrived in theatres during the Thanksgiving Holiday period of 1987 (three years from start to finish) and proved to be a winner with audiences as Kathy and David’s date-night from hell careens from one disaster to the next … but have no fear, the secrets are revealed and there is a happy romantic ending!
Teamed with Cross My Heart on this double-feature Blu-ray release from Mill Creek Entertainment on June 7 is Pure Luck, teaming Martin Short with Danny Glover, who are on a mission to find a missing heiress (played by Sheila Kelley — Mortal Passions, Passion Fish, Singles … as Gwen Taylor in the L.A. Law television series).
Glover is a seasoned private investigator, but he is having no luck finding the missing woman, who suffers from an infliction called “coincident misfortune syndrome,” which means that disaster and bad luck follow her wherever she goes.
The solution, find a stooge with the exact same “coincident misfortune syndrome” affliction and use him to “track” the target. Three guesses as to whom that might be (hint: Martin Short)!!
No comments:
Post a Comment