Bette Midler: Scenes From A Mall – Facts And Trivia
Apparently, before filming for this movie began, Woody Allen had never ever set foot in a mall.
Most of the film’s mall scenes were filmed at the Kaufman Astoria Studio sound stages in Queens, New York. The mall set was a huge two-story replica nearly a quarter mile long with over 150 fully stocked stores. Mall scenes with elevators and escalators were filmed at the Stamford Town Center in Stamford, Connecticut where shooting was conducted for around two weeks. Mall exteriors were filmed at the actual Beverly Center on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, the mall where most of the picture is set.
Woody Allen and Bette Midler both share the same birthday date of 1st December. Moreover, their birthdays are exactly ten years apart, with Woody being born in 1935 a decade before Bette in 1945.
The film’s “Scenes from a Mall” title is a play on the title of the Ingmar Bergman film “Scenes From a Marriage” (Scenes from a Marriage (1973)) which had been made and released about eighteen years earlier. Bergman has been a major influence on Woody Allen with his work inspiring many of his films. Both movies deal with a couple who cheat on each other.
Woody Allen appeared in the movie without writing or directing.
Second and final of two writing collaborations of screen-writer Roger L. Simon and writer-director Paul Mazursky. Their first was Enemies: A Love Story (1989) about two years earlier.
One of the DVD / home video sleeve covers features Woody Allen and Bette Midler physically fighting and attempting to strangle each other inside an elevator. However, no such scene appears in the actual movie.
During the scene in the movie theater which features Salaam Bombay! (1988), while Woody is standing and blocking people’s view of the screen, the movie’s subtitle reads, “Get out of my way…”
One of two 1991 films that Woody Allen and Bette Midler each starred in. Their other films that year were Shadows and Fog (1991) and For the Boys (1991) respectively.
The fourteenth feature film directed by Paul Mazursky.
Final film of co-producer, art director and production designer Pato Guzman.
Twelfth and final collaboration of writer-director Paul Mazursky and co-producer, art director / production designer Pato Guzman.
The film is dedicated to co-producer, art director / production designer Pato Guzman. The film’s dedication in the closing credits states “For Pats”.
Star Billing: Bette Midler was top billed first whilst Woody Allen received second billing.
The picture is the only instance of a Woody Allen-starring romantic-comedy where Allen, as one of the two love-interest leads, is billed second to the actress (Bette Midler) in the name-above-the-title star-teaming.
First California set picture which Woody Allen had starred in since Play It Again, Sam (1972) around nineteen years earlier.
Set in LA, and mainly in a Beverly Hills mall, the picture was the second of two Beverly Hills comedies directed by Paul Mazursky. The first had been Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986) made and released about five years earlier.
The number of years that Deborah (Bette Midler) and Nick (Woody Allen) had been married for was sixteen though according to Deborah it was seventeen years the pair had been together if one counts the year they dated.
The photograph of Woody Allen in one of the film’s main movie posters actually has him resembling English actor-comedian Eric Idle.
Debut credited appearance in a major motion picture of male model Fabio.
The movie was filmed during June, July and August 1990.
For the period of the 1960s through to the early 1990s, the picture was a rare instance of a Woody Allen-starring romantic-comedy where Allen, as one of the two love-interest leads, co-starred with an actress (Bette Midler) in the name-above-the-title star-teaming, who was not a current or former partner of Allen’s, such as Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton or Mia Farrow. Stardust Memories (1980) is another (but even Lasser cameoed in that film).
Seen intermittently throughout the film is a miming character without any personal name played by Bill Irwin who is billed as “The Mime” and whose performance not surprisingly was entirely mute.
The name of the book that Deborah Feingold-Fifer PhD (Bette Midler) wrote was “I Do! I Do! I Do!”. It’s promotional slogan was “Renew Your Marriage!”.
Showbusiness trade paper ‘Variety’ reported that the movie featured “2600 New York extras” who “were fitted out in LA garb”.
As this is not a Woody Allen written and directed movie, the film’s opening and closing titles are not in the traditional format of a usual regular Woody Allen film with the ole’ time music tracks played alongside the white-on-black old fashioned title cards.
The make and model of Nick (Woody Allen) and Deborah (Bette Midler)’s luxury car was a red 1990 SAAB 900 Cabrio Gen.1 convertible.
According to Time Out, the picture was Woody Allen’s first dramatic outing since The Front (1976)”.
First known for her singing before she became an actress, Bette Midler often still sings a song for a movie’s soundtrack when the film is not a musical. In this picture it was “You Do Something To Me”, the track being played during the film’s closing credits.
Second of two films [to date, August 2013] that actress Bette Midler has made with director Paul Mazursky. The first was Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986) which was made and released about five years earlier. That movie also had Beverly Hills as its setting, with Scenes from a Mall (1991) predominantly featuring the Beverly Center shopping mall on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, California
Woody Allen sports a hip pony-tail hairdo in this picture.
Cameo
Fabio: As a handsome man, billed as Fabio Lanzoni.
Director Cameo
Paul Mazursky: As Dr. Hans Clava promoting Deborah Fifer (Bette Midler)’s book on TV. He is also the person she is said to have had an affair with.
