Crimewave (1986): Sam Raimi & Coen Brothers Early Career Film Deep Dive

[00:00:00] From Los Angeles, California, the entertainment capital of the world, it's The 80s Movie

[00:00:12] Podcast.

[00:00:13] I'm your host, Edward Havens.

[00:00:15] Thank you for listening today.

[00:00:17] On this episode, we're going to tackle a movie from the early 1980s that, if made

[00:00:21] today with the same pedigree, would cause movie geeks and cinephiles to lose their

[00:00:26] frickin' minds over.

[00:00:28] But because this was made early in their careers, most people are only tangentially aware of

[00:00:33] its existence, though, and have actually seen it.

[00:00:37] We're talking about the 1986 Sam Raimi-Cohen Brothers collaboration, Crime Wave.

[00:00:42] But as usual, let's get to the backstory first.

[00:00:46] Any film fan worth his or her salt already knows the story of the making of The

[00:00:50] Evil Dead.

[00:00:51] Hal Raimi and Bruce Campbell made a proof-of-concept short film called Within the Woods to attract

[00:00:57] investors so that they could make a full-length movie.

[00:01:00] How they had to travel from suburban Detroit to Morristown, Tennessee to make the movie

[00:01:05] because it was the closest place with the kind of setting they wanted that they could

[00:01:10] afford.

[00:01:11] And how for most of the movie, the entire cast and crew of the film had to sleep

[00:01:15] in the cabin they used to make the film.

[00:01:19] But what you might not know is that once filming was completed on The Evil Dead

[00:01:23] in January 1980, Raimi worked with a Detroit-based editor named Edna Ruth Paul to cut the film

[00:01:30] together and that her assistant editor at the time was a 25-year-old NYU film school

[00:01:35] graduate named Joel Cohen.

[00:01:38] Although Raimi's first impression of Cohen was that of a weird, long, greasy-haired

[00:01:42] guy that he thought was going to rip him off or something, the pair would become

[00:01:48] friends during the editing of The Evil Dead and Raimi would advise Cohen and

[00:01:52] his younger brother Ethan, who was at the time working as an accountant at Macy's,

[00:01:58] on how they could shoot their own proof-of-concept short film to attract potential investors

[00:02:02] for their own first movie, Blood Simple.

[00:02:06] Joel was so especially impressed with what he had seen of Raimi's footage of The

[00:02:09] Evil Dead, both what made the final film and what got left behind on the

[00:02:13] proverbial cutting room floor, that the Coens would incorporate many of the same

[00:02:18] low-budget filmmaker tricks for their own film.

[00:02:22] Fast forward to 1983.

[00:02:25] It takes The Evil Dead a couple of years to find a distributor, with New Line Cinema

[00:02:29] signing on only after Stephen King had seen the film at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival

[00:02:34] and Market.

[00:02:36] King was there with George A. Romero to promote their movie Creepshow, and

[00:02:40] King had heard about this quirky little movie and shortly after seeing the film,

[00:02:44] Creep proclaimed it to be, and I quote,

[00:02:51] Well, yeah, that would wake me up too if I was an acquisitions director at a distributor

[00:02:55] at the time.

[00:02:58] The Evil Dead was released in the theaters in mid-April 1983 and did okay for a

[00:03:02] low-budget horror film with no name actors, earning $2.4 million from American

[00:03:07] cinema goers, which isn't so bad for a movie that was released unrated due to

[00:03:12] the sheer amount of blood and gore, and never played in more than 60-something

[00:03:16] theaters in any given week.

[00:03:19] That was good enough for Raimi to be able to start taking meetings in

[00:03:21] Hollywood for his next film, and that film would be relentless.

[00:03:26] A collaboration between Raimi and the Coen brothers about a pair of crazed

[00:03:29] hitmen who kill the co-owner of a burglar alarm company, then stalk the

[00:03:34] dead man's partner who hired them, and the dead guy's wife, all while they

[00:03:39] frame a nerdy guy, the murders.

[00:03:43] Irvin Shapiro, a film representative who deserves quite a bit of praise for

[00:03:47] helping guide Raimi during the selling of The Evil Dead, liked the

[00:03:51] screenplay for relentless but hated the title.

[00:03:54] Shapiro would come up with a new title for the film, The XYZ Murders.

[00:03:58] Borrowing ideas from Samuel Z. Arkoff of creating a title for the

[00:04:02] film that would be more enticing to audiences even if it didn't have much

[00:04:06] to do with the film.

[00:04:09] Then turned Norman Lear.

[00:04:11] Lear at the time was one of the most successful television producers in

[00:04:14] the history of the medium.

[00:04:17] Between 1971 and 1986, he had a string of ratings hits and critically

[00:04:21] acclaimed shows that changed the television landscape forever.

[00:04:26] Shows like All in the Family, Different Strokes, Good Times, The

[00:04:32] Jeffersons, Mary Hurtman, Mary Hurtman, Maud, and Sanford and

[00:04:37] Son.

[00:04:38] In 1982, Lear and his partner Jerry Perenchio bought many major studio

[00:04:43] embassy pictures for $25 million.

[00:04:47] And the one thing every studio needs year in and year out is more

[00:04:50] movies to distribute.

[00:04:52] And while embassy pictures in 1982 would end up releasing 13

[00:04:57] movies, most of them were duds like Swamp Thing and Humongous.

[00:05:01] 1983 was looking pretty slim, and they had nothing on tap for

[00:05:06] 1984 yet.

[00:05:08] They needed movies, and they needed to make an impact in Hollywood.

[00:05:12] Click.

[00:05:14] Like many in Hollywood, they had seen the box office grosses and

[00:05:17] critical reviews for The Evil Dead and brought Ramey in for a

[00:05:19] meeting.

[00:05:21] Ramey pitched them the XYZ murders, an embassy committed right

[00:05:25] there and then.

[00:05:26] They'd give Ramey and his partners $3 million to make the

[00:05:29] film.

[00:05:30] But there need to be some stipulations.

[00:05:33] First, they'd need to change the name of the movie.

[00:05:36] Again.

[00:05:38] Someone in the embassy pictures marketing department came up

[00:05:40] with Crime Wave.

[00:05:42] It wasn't a bad title per se, and it did work within the

[00:05:45] context of the film.

[00:05:47] So now the movie was on its third title before even one

[00:05:50] frame of film had been exposed.

[00:05:53] And then there was Bruce Campbell.

[00:05:55] Even though he was the lead in The Evil Dead, one unnamed

[00:05:59] embassy pictures executive wanted Campbell to do a screen

[00:06:02] test for the leading role of Vic.

[00:06:05] The part Ramey and the Coens wrote for him.

[00:06:08] So Campbell would head over to a friend's photo studio and

[00:06:11] do a scene from the screenplay.

[00:06:13] And Campbell was rejected by the unnamed embassy pictures

[00:06:17] executive for the part that the Coens and Ramey had

[00:06:23] written for him.

[00:06:26] Instead, the studio insisted on Reed Bernie to play the

[00:06:28] role of Vic.

[00:06:30] You know, Reed Bernie.

[00:06:33] Now, this is nothing against Reed Bernie, who was a very

[00:06:36] good actor.

[00:06:37] A Tony award winning actor.

[00:06:39] An adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University.

[00:06:43] And he's been on a dozen of shows that you know.

[00:06:46] Like Three Different Law and Orders, Gossip Girl, The

[00:06:49] Good Wife, House of Cards, The Americans, The

[00:06:53] Handmaid's Tale, Succession, and Poker Face.

[00:06:57] But in 1984, he was a nobody.

[00:06:59] Even less known than Bruce Campbell.

[00:07:03] The cast would still have some known actors.

[00:07:06] Louise Lasser at the suggestion of Norman Lear would

[00:07:09] be cast as Helmline Trend, a wife of the late Ernest

[00:07:12] Trend whose murder would set off the main storyline.

[00:07:16] Brian James had been featured in nearly 100 movies and

[00:07:19] television shows over the previous decade.

[00:07:22] He was best known for playing Leon in Blade Runner

[00:07:25] and Kehoe in 48 Hours.

[00:07:28] Paul L. Smith was, like James, another character actor

[00:07:32] who had been featured in dozens of movies and television

[00:07:34] shows and at the time was best known for playing

[00:07:37] Bluto in Robert Altman's Popeye.

[00:07:41] And then there's Antonio Fargus, who to this day is

[00:07:44] still beloved by people my age for playing Huggie Bear

[00:07:48] on the 1970s television show Starsky and Hutch.

[00:07:52] But most of the cast would either be newcomers like

[00:07:55] or a number of inside casting.

[00:07:59] Edward R. Pressman, one of the executive producers

[00:08:01] of Crime Wave, who would go on to produce films like

[00:08:04] Wall Street, The Crow, and American Psycho

[00:08:08] would play the murder victim.

[00:08:10] Joel and Ethan Cullen would make a rare onscreen

[00:08:13] appearance as reporters at the execution.

[00:08:16] Ted Raimi, the younger brother of Sam Raimi,

[00:08:19] would play a waiter in the film.

[00:08:21] Robert Tappert, a childhood friend of Raimi's

[00:08:23] who's been working with him ever since the proof of concept

[00:08:26] short film for The Evil Dead, plays a bar patron

[00:08:29] and Frances McDormand would and none.

[00:08:33] Fun fact before they were married,

[00:08:35] Frances McDormand and Joel Cullen would share

[00:08:37] an apartment with Los Angeles with Ethan Cullen,

[00:08:40] Sam Raimi, and Scott Spiegel,

[00:08:42] yet another childhood friend of Raimi's.

[00:08:44] Spiegel and Raimi have been working together

[00:08:46] since Raimi's first directing effort,

[00:08:48] It's Murderer, was made in 1977.

[00:08:53] I guess that's two fun facts.

[00:08:56] The film would go into production in October of 1983,

[00:08:59] shooting mostly in and around Detroit,

[00:09:01] as well as in Los Angeles.

[00:09:04] And the shoot, according to a number of people involved

[00:09:06] in the making of the film, did not go well.

[00:09:13] Raimi wanted to use the Tuller Hotel in Detroit

[00:09:15] to shoot a number of scenes.

[00:09:17] In the 1920s, according to Bruce Campbell

[00:09:19] in his 2002 autobiography, If Chins Could Kill,

[00:09:24] the Tuller was the place in the city to be.

[00:09:28] In 1983, the hotel was run down

[00:09:31] and soon to become a retirement home

[00:09:32] for retired auto workers.

[00:09:35] For now, the hotel was owned by a couple

[00:09:37] of low-level local gangsters known as the Hughes Brothers.

[00:09:42] Campbell and Robert Tappert were sent to talk

[00:09:44] to the guys about renting some space in the hotel

[00:09:46] for two weeks of shooting.

[00:09:48] Campbell and Tappert thought $10,000 would be a fair price.

[00:09:52] The Hughes Brothers disagreed.

[00:09:56] So our guys doubled the offer.

[00:09:58] And the Hughes Brothers light clined.

[00:10:04] $30,000?

[00:10:06] A few weeks later in the hotel's elegant ballroom,

[00:10:08] the Hughes Brothers were having the time of their lives

[00:10:11] playing martini-drinking gentlemen in tuxedos,

[00:10:15] getting into several scenes as background players.

[00:10:19] Another scene shooting in Detroit involved the camera

[00:10:21] looking down on a car going across the Belle Isle Bridge

[00:10:24] over the Detroit River near downtown.

[00:10:27] Because it was late November

[00:10:28] and the temperatures that day had fallen to 30 below zero,

[00:10:32] the river was a sheet of ice.

[00:10:34] Since a frozen river was not a part of the story,

[00:10:39] Campbell and several teamsters started

[00:10:41] to throw whatever they could find off the bridge

[00:10:44] to break the ice and get the shot.

[00:10:46] Rocks, tires, even cinder blocks.

[00:10:51] Nothing would make anything more than a small hole in the ice.

[00:10:55] Eventually they used an explosive device

[00:10:57] called a primer cord to blow the ice up enough

[00:11:00] to get the shot.

[00:11:02] One actor tore up his hotel room in Detroit,

[00:11:06] saying the ghost of his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend

[00:11:08] was in the light fixtures

[00:11:09] so they had to remove all of them.

[00:11:12] Another actor decided to do her own makeup for one scene

[00:11:15] and arrived on set looking like a rodeo clown

[00:11:18] with snow white face and huge patch of red lipstick

[00:11:21] around her mouth, completely inappropriate for the scene.

[00:11:25] Campbell as one of the producers of the film

[00:11:28] arranged for the makeup crew to quote unquote,

[00:11:30] touch her up before the scene was shot

[00:11:33] so she didn't look like she was whacked out on blow.

[00:11:37] But the biggest problem for Ramey and the Coen brothers

[00:11:40] was that the script was too big

[00:11:42] for its nearly $3 million budget

[00:11:44] and the film quickly went over budget and over schedule

[00:11:47] as the director found himself over his head

[00:11:49] with the complicated shoot.

[00:11:52] The film would crawl its way to the finish line

[00:11:55] in early January, 1984,

[00:11:58] and Ramey, Campbell and Tappert

[00:12:00] headed into their editing bay in Detroit

[00:12:01] to start cutting the film together.

[00:12:04] Usually the first cut of a film is called an assembly cut

[00:12:08] which simply put is all the best takes

[00:12:11] of all the scenes shot put together in order

[00:12:14] so the director and the producers

[00:12:15] can see what they have and start seeing what works

[00:12:18] and doesn't work.

[00:12:20] For a 90 minute film, an assembly cut

[00:12:22] could realistically run more than three hours

[00:12:25] as you were putting in every insert,

[00:12:26] every reaction shot and every piece of second

[00:12:29] and sometimes even third unit shooting

[00:12:31] and it can take several weeks to assemble.

[00:12:35] Then the director is usually given two or three

[00:12:37] more months to create their first cut of the film

[00:12:40] to find the right timing, the right takes

[00:12:43] and in a comedy like crime wave to figure out

[00:12:45] if a specific joke might need an extra beat or two

[00:12:48] in anticipation of how an audience might react.

[00:12:52] But embassy didn't even give Ramey the courtesy

[00:12:54] of finishing his assembly cut before telling him,

[00:12:57] Campbell and Tappert to bring everything to Los Angeles

[00:13:01] so the distributor can oversee post-production.

[00:13:05] Ramey worked with two studio approved editors

[00:13:07] who had a combined one film edited between them

[00:13:11] and added a pair of bookends to the film,

[00:13:15] new scenes that would play at the start

[00:13:17] and the end of the film to explain

[00:13:18] what was about to happen and wrap things up.

[00:13:22] You know, like this.

[00:13:25] Yep, that's me.

[00:13:27] You're probably wondering how I ended up

[00:13:29] in this situation.

[00:13:32] The studio would also replace Ramey's

[00:13:34] preferred music composer with one who knew nothing

[00:13:37] about the crime wave team or their methods to their madness.

[00:13:42] And if all that wasn't bad enough,

[00:13:45] even after post-production was completed

[00:13:46] in the fall of 1984, embassy pictures sat on the film

[00:13:50] despite having only released two films in 1984.

[00:13:53] This is Spinal Tap and The Bear

[00:13:56] and only having three films on their release calendar

[00:13:59] for 1985, The Sure Thing, The Emerald Forest

[00:14:04] and the film adaptation

[00:14:05] of the smash Broadway hit A Chorus Line.

[00:14:08] And if that still wasn't bad enough,

[00:14:11] Lear sold embassy pictures to Coca-Cola,

[00:14:13] owners of Columbia Pictures at the time in June 1985.

[00:14:17] And they turned around and sold embassy pictures

[00:14:20] to Italian mega producer Dino De Laurentiis

[00:14:22] in October 1985.

[00:14:25] We've already done an episode about De Laurentiis

[00:14:27] and his eponymous studio that he would build

[00:14:29] from the ashes of embassy pictures back in 2020.

[00:14:32] So I won't get into many details here,

[00:14:35] but I will have a link to that episode

[00:14:37] at this part of the transcript

[00:14:39] to this episode on our website

[00:14:41] at the 80smoviepodcast.com.

[00:14:44] When the executives at Columbia Pictures

[00:14:47] screened crime wave for the first time

[00:14:49] in the fall of 1985, they were not impressed.

[00:14:52] But for some reason,

[00:14:53] they decided to keep the film for themselves

[00:14:55] when they sold embassy pictures to De Laurentiis

[00:14:58] who would have been desperate for completed films

[00:15:00] to get his new distribution company geared up quickly.

[00:15:04] Columbia would, according to Bruce Campbell's autobiography,

[00:15:07] book the film in San Diego for a test run

[00:15:10] with the title Broken Hearts and Noses,

[00:15:13] but I can't find a single theater anywhere

[00:15:15] in the San Diego region playing a movie

[00:15:17] called Broken Hearts and Noses in 1985 or 1986.

[00:15:22] Also in his autobiography,

[00:15:24] Campbell says that in order to fill

[00:15:26] a minimum release commitment to the HBO cable movie channel,

[00:15:30] the film was only released in Alaska and Kansas.

[00:15:34] And once again, I cannot find a single theater anywhere

[00:15:37] in Alaska or Kansas ever playing crime wave.

[00:15:41] But I was able to find five theaters

[00:15:43] that did open the movie on April 25th, 1986

[00:15:47] in Carbondale, Illinois, Paducah, Kentucky,

[00:15:51] Palm Springs, Rapid City, South Dakota,

[00:15:55] and in my beloved Santa Cruz, California

[00:15:59] at my beloved theater, the Del Mar.

[00:16:02] Although I was living in Los Angeles in April 1986

[00:16:05] and I wouldn't work at the Del Mar for another two months,

[00:16:07] I do know for a fact that the Del Mar

[00:16:10] got print number one of the film,

[00:16:12] that it played for exactly seven days,

[00:16:15] that a few of my friends went to see it

[00:16:17] that opening and closing weekend,

[00:16:19] and that the film grossed less than $900

[00:16:21] for its entire week at the Del Mar.

[00:16:24] Without any newspaper ads or pre-released trailers

[00:16:27] to let people know what the movie was about,

[00:16:30] potential audiences either like my friends

[00:16:32] had to know what the film was already,

[00:16:34] or people who were glancing at the movie directory

[00:16:37] in the Santa Cruz Sentinel that weekend

[00:16:39] and decided to skip the new Tom Cruise movie Legend,

[00:16:42] and Lucas, a teen drama comedy

[00:16:45] featuring several featured Gen X movie stars

[00:16:47] like Winona Ryder and Charlie Sheen,

[00:16:49] the new Ron Howard movie Dung Ho,

[00:16:53] or the return of Engagement of Martin Scorsese's

[00:16:55] After Hours for something called Prime Wave,

[00:17:00] and people in Santa Cruz would not be alone

[00:17:02] in ignoring the film.

[00:17:04] Between the five theaters that did play Prime Wave

[00:17:06] that weekend of April 25th, 1986,

[00:17:09] they would gross a combined $3,571,

[00:17:14] or roughly nine people per screening per day.

[00:17:20] Little doubt the film would not get a second weekend

[00:17:22] at any of those theaters.

[00:17:24] So while the failure of the film was disappointing

[00:17:28] to Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and everyone involved,

[00:17:31] it would ironically jumpstart Raimi's career.

[00:17:35] While waiting for Crime Wave to be released,

[00:17:38] Raimi and Campbell redoubled their efforts

[00:17:40] to get an Evil Dead sequel off the ground

[00:17:42] after Irvin Shapiro failed to get

[00:17:44] any international presales for the potential film

[00:17:47] when Shapiro tried to raise funds to make it

[00:17:49] at the 1984 film market under the title

[00:17:52] Evil Dead and the Army of Darkness.

[00:17:55] I'll have an image of the two page ad

[00:17:57] for that sales pitch on our website.

[00:18:00] Raimi and Tappert and Campbell were crewing up

[00:18:02] for a hopefully early 1986 start of production

[00:18:06] even without the money in place when fate intervened.

[00:18:10] One of the women they had interviewed

[00:18:12] for a prime position on the crew found herself

[00:18:14] in Wilmington, North Carolina,

[00:18:16] interviewing with Stephen King for a similar position

[00:18:18] on his then upcoming feature film directing debut,

[00:18:22] Maximum Overdrive, for Dino De Laurentiis' new company.

[00:18:27] The lady mentioned to King that they were having trouble

[00:18:29] raising money to make Evil Dead 2,

[00:18:33] and at the end of their chat,

[00:18:34] King called De Laurentiis and told Dino

[00:18:36] he needed to find the money to get Evil Dead 2 made.

[00:18:40] A couple days later, Raimi, Tappert and Campbell

[00:18:42] were at De Laurentiis' new studio lot in Wilmington

[00:18:46] talking to the producer,

[00:18:47] Chern Mogul, in his gigantic new office.

[00:18:50] 20 minutes after the meeting started,

[00:18:52] the guys had their new film fully funded

[00:18:54] to the tune of $3.5 million,

[00:18:56] and they would begin shooting that film

[00:18:58] in the spring of 1986.

[00:19:01] So once again, you have Stephen King

[00:19:03] to thank for rescuing Sam Raimi

[00:19:06] and Bruce Campbell from obscurity.

[00:19:10] As of the writing and recording

[00:19:11] of this episode in May of 2024,

[00:19:14] there are a number of ways to watch Prime Wave.

[00:19:17] If you subscribe to Amazon Prime Video,

[00:19:20] Ubo, MGM+, Night Flight or Plex,

[00:19:24] you can watch it for free.

[00:19:26] You can also rent it for $3.99 from Amazon,

[00:19:29] Apple TV, Bandango at home or the Microsoft Store.

[00:19:34] However, I would highly encourage

[00:19:36] if you've not done so already

[00:19:38] to make sure you've activated your free subscription

[00:19:40] to Canopy through your local library and watch it there.

[00:19:44] Canopy has thousands of great movies

[00:19:46] from across the world and across the decades,

[00:19:49] that's one of my favorite places to stream movies.

[00:19:52] That's Canopy with a K, check it out.

[00:19:57] Thank you for joining us.

[00:19:58] We'll talk again soon.

[00:20:00] Remember to visit this episode's page

[00:20:02] on our website, the80sMoviePodcast.com

[00:20:04] for extra materials about the movies

[00:20:06] we covered this episode.

[00:20:09] The 80s Movie Podcast has been researched, written,

[00:20:13] narrated and edited by Edward Havens

[00:20:15] for idiosyncratic entertainment.

[00:20:17] Thank you again.

[00:20:19] Good night.