Tough Guys Don't Dance (film)
Tough Guys Don't Dance is a 1987 crime mystery comedy-drama film written and directed by Norman Mailer based on his novel of the same name. It is a murder mystery/film noir piece that was scorned by audiences and critics alike. It was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
The script had revisions done by Chinatown and Last Woman on Earth scribe/script doctor Robert Towne. The title comes from an anecdote told to Norman Mailer by a prizefighter named Roger Donahue: Frank Costello, the Murder Inc. honcho, and his gorgeous girlfriend greet three champion boxers in the Stork Club. Costello demands that each, in turn, dance with the woman, and each nervously complies. The last, Willie Pep, suggests that Mr. Costello dance. Costello replied, "Tough guys don't dance."
Read more about Tough Guys Don't Dance (film): Plot, Cast, Reception, Awards
Famous quotes containing the words tough, guys and/or dance:
“They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,—how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He doesn’t want you for friends, that’s why he did it. You see, when guys have been in the line as long as we have, you find out it’s no good to make friends, ‘cause when a friend gets it—well, it’s rough on you. The buddies that come with you you’re stuck with, but you don’t make no new ones. It’s the dyin’ truth.”
—Gil Doud, U.S. screenwriter, and Jessie Hibbs. Johnson (Marshall Thompson)
“No imperfection in budded mountain,
Valleys breathe, heaven and earth move together,
daisies push inches of yellow air, vegetables tremble,
green atoms shimmer in grassy mandalas,
sheep speckle the mountainside, revolving their jaws with empty eyes,
horses dance in the warm rain,”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)