No matter how many times you've seen "Pretty Woman," there's still plenty about the Richard Gere/Julia Roberts film you don't know.
For instance, when Roberts first appears onscreen as the down-on-her-luck hooker Vivian, she's wearing a coat the movie's production team bought off a theater usher. A young Hank Azaria ("Tuesdays with Morrie," "Godzilla") plays the detective lurking around outside her Hollywood Boulevard apartment. And if you look carefully during a breakfast scene, you can watch a pancake in Julia's hand turn into a croissant and then back into a pancake again.
These and scores of other behind-the-scenes secrets are revealed in director Garry Marshall's commentary on the "Pretty Woman - 10th Anniversary Edition" DVD (Buena Vista Home Entertainment). In addition to Marshall's often funny observations about the impact of the enormously successful romantic comedy -- "tourists to this day still come to the Regent Beverly Wilshire looking for Julia Roberts or Vivian or ladies of the night; they're not there," Marshall says with a sigh - the DVD adds an extra six minutes worth of scenes left out of the theatrical release, some candid video of Gere and Roberts horsing around on location, the original trailer for the film, and a music video for Natalie Cole's "Wild Women Do."
What are most intriguing, however, are the bits of gossip and trivia Marshall dredges up. He's willing to identify the brief shots in which a body double was employed for Roberts and quick to point out every editing gaffe, noting in his defense that he'd rather make his actors look good than worry about whether his heroine is holding a pancake or a croissant in her hand.
In case you've forgotten, Roberts and Gere both look very good indeed in "Pretty Woman," the movie which single-handedly elevated her from ingenue to A-list star and revived his career, which had slumped badly since the steamy days of "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Breathless."
Despite their different approaches to acting ("Richard liked to rehearse; Julia liked to wing it," according to Marshall), the stars proved to be electrifying together, a feat they repeated in last year's "Runaway Bride." "Pretty Woman" certainly has its share of clever lines and seductive moments, but it was ultimately the combined magic of Gere and Roberts that propelled this modestly budgeted film to a worldwide gross of $438 million.
"A nicer couple you rarely find," Marshall says of his stars. Audiences obviously agreed. James Sanford
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews