Film Fanfare
Outrageous Fortune (1987) Fanfare, Trivia, & Quotes
By Staff
January 2, 2024
Classically trained and aspiring actress Lauren Ames is thrilled when she gets a chance to study with the great theatre professor Stanislav Korzenowski. Sandy Brozinsky is fresh off a role in a movie entitled Ninja Vixens, happens to hear about the class, and decides on the spot to also study with Korzenowski. Some weeks into the course and considerable mutual irritation later, the two women discover that they’ve been dating the same man, a elementary teacher named Michael, and agree that they’ll follow him across the country to force him to choose between them, only to find that Michael was not who he said he was and that they in turn have both the CIA and some Russian assassins on their trail.
Background Information
Outrageous Fortune was one of a mid-late 1980s mini-cycle of movie comedies which starred Bette Midler that were all produced by the new adult Walt Disney subsidiary production house of Touchstone Pictures. The films include Big Business (1988), Ruthless People (1986), Outrageous Fortune (1987) and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986).
Both Shelley Long and Bette Midler were promised top billing when they signed to do the film. Neither one wanted to give up top billing to the other. So west of the Mississippi River, Long got top billing and Midler got top billing east of the Mississippi. This agreement extended through the original LaserDisc and VHS release of the title, with discs shipped to retailers in the west featuring Shelley Long and retailers on the east receiving discs featuring Bette Midler.
The picture is considered to be a female version of a male buddy movie. Halliwells said that the film was “a traditional male buddy film that has substituted women” whilst Movies on TV & Videocassette said that the movie was a “variant on the male buddy-buddy movie”. Moreover, Allmovie states that this buddy movie has its “leads essayed by women”.
The film received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 58% of 26 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.3/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 55 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating “mixed or average” reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore were more positive, giving the film an average grade of “A?” on a scale of A+ to F.
Roger Ebert gave the film 2 stars out of 4, saying that the movie is “painstakingly crafted as a product,” and focused on assembling “standard cliches” and expensive stunts rather than exploring the humanity of its characters. Gene Siskel gave it 2 and a half stars, praising Bette Midler for providing “big laughs” but saying she “is the only reason to watch this uneven comedy.” Janet Maslin of The New York Times described the two leads as “hilarious,” saying Shelley Long does her role “to perfection” and Bette Midler “has flawless phrasing and timing.” She said the film “has a light tone, a steady pace and an enjoyable professionalism that help take the edge off the material’s occasional lapses.”
Midler won a 1988 American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture (Leading Role) and was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy/Musical for her role in this film.
Outrageous Fortune was financially successful, debuting at number 2 at the US box office with a gross of $6.4 million in its opening weekend, a record for Disney at the time. It went on to gross $52.9 million in the US and Canada.
Trivia
Both Midler and Long have acknowledged they did not get along well on set, but both have also said they would be willing to work together again.
Bette Midler was three months pregnant when filming began and six months pregnant when it wrapped. Midler wore a very large orange sweater throughout much of the movie to disguise the fact that she was pregnant. Reportedly, Bette Midler wanted to do all of her own stunts, which meant falling over and jumping around cliffs during the film’s climax, something which was of concern to the production, for both Midler and her baby’s health and safety.
According to the ’80s Movie Rewind, when Bette Midler fell in front of a truck in the movie, it was not part of the script. Midler had winged it during the shot because she thought it would look good in the film. Shelley Long and the crew were worried about the prat-fall with Long quickly rushing to her aid and pulling Midler to the curbside. The scene was kept in the picture.
Principal photography on this picture commenced around April-May, 1986 with production completed around August, 1986. The setting of the cliffhanger finale, at the Four Fingers on the Mesa Azul Cliffs, was both a fictional name and fictional location, the place being apparently just a matte painting. Any real life photography associated with the sequence was done in New Mexico.
The first name of the character of the Russian drama coach, Stanislav Korzenowski, played by Robert Prosky, referenced Konstantin Stanislavski, who was famous for developing the Stanislavski System of Acting.
The “Outrageous Fortune” title is taken from Act 3, Scene 1, Line 58 of William Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”. It’s from the start of the famous “To be or not to be” speech, which states: “To be, or not to be, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles. And by opposing, end them”. In the movie, Shelley Long’s character confesses at the beginning of the movie that she someday hopes to play Hamlet. At the end of the film, Long does, with Bette Midler also in the cast.
Final film of Mike Henry, who retired from acting in 1988 after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.
Suzanne Somers was originally offered the Bette Midler role.
As the credits roll over the freezeframe of the curtain call, Long and Midler can be heard bickering about Long’s performance in the play.
Quotes
Lauren: [after spending the night with Michael, comes into class with a dreamy smile on her face]
Sandy: Oh, my! That kind of evening, huh?
Lauren: Well, not the kind you’re used to. No money changed hands!
Sandy & Lauren: [peer at their supposed lover’s body in the morgue after accidentally uncovering it]
Sandy: Well, what the hell?
Lauren: Well, that’s not his?
Sandy: No way! Look at that!
Lauren: It’s too small.
Sandy: It’s a fuckin’ pencil!
Lauren: Where are we? We’ve been going for miles and I haven’t seen a single white person on the street.
Sandy: There’s one.
Lauren: [looks out of taxi cab window]
Sandy: Oops. They got ’em.
Lauren: That’s not funny.
Lauren: Are you out of your mind? We don’t have two hundred dollars!
Sandy: Aw, chill out, wouldja?
Lauren: Oh, my God, he’s going to hurt us.
Sandy: He’s not going to hurt us.
Lauren: Oh? Why not? [They get out of the taxi and are in front of an old, dirty apartment building in an awful part of town]
Sandy: ‘Cause we’re gonna be raped and murdered in this building.
Lauren: Excuse, please. I vas hoping you were to… how do I to say?
Ticket Agent: You say it quickly. I’m off in three minutes.
Ticket Agent: [after Lauren and Sandy put on an act to try to convince her to give them the information they want] That was the single biggest crock I’ve ever heard in my 20 years with this airline. [Pauses.] I think that deserves something.
Sandy: Look, Frank. We’re not just jerking you around. Some guys are after us because one of them stole a virus that’s gonna kill and destroy all the plants and all the trees all the way around. We stole it back, so now they’re gonna kill us. You get it?
Frank: Jesus. The sixties sure were good to you, weren’t they?
Lauren Ames: Frank, that’s right. Think back to the sixties. People did things for each other.
Frank: They were wasted.
Lauren: How dare you defraud the legitimate theater community of New York City!
Sandy: She’s got a great mad scene. No, really, it’s great. I just saw it.
Lauren: Oh, Mother told me about men like this. I hate it when she’s right.
Lauren: [after Michael has fallen from one of the Four Fingers after trying to repeat a leap Lauren made with a grand jété] Nine years of ballet, asshole!
They didn’t mention George Carlin is in it, did they? Oh well…
They probably didn’t know who he was lol