On this episode, we deep dive into Susan Seidelman’s 1987 film Making Mr. Right. We analyze tone, themes, and behind‑the‑scenes context as Seidelman's follow-up to Desperately Seeking Susan, and unpack performances by John Malkovich and Ann Magnuson. Concrete takeaways on the film’s place in Seidelman’s 1980s work and why it matters to fans of 80s cinema and film analysis.
[00:00:08] From Los Angeles, California, the entertainment capital of the world, it's The 80s Movie Podcast. I'm your host Edward Havens, thank you for listening today. On this episode we're going to return to our series on the 1980 movies of filmmaker Susan Seidelman. But before we begin, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of James Foley, a brilliant filmmaker best known for directing the screen adaptation of David Mamet's play,
[00:00:32] Glen Gary Glen Ross, who got his start in the 80s with two still unfairly underrated films, 1984's Reckless with Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah, and 1986's neo-noir crime drama At Close Range with Sean Penn, Mary Stewart Masterson, and Christopher Walken in one of his most effective and creepy roles. I spoke a bit about At Close Range during our Orion Pictures miniseries several years ago,
[00:00:58] and we'll be tackling both of those films and his unfortunate major studio debut, 1987's Madonna bomb Who's That Girl, sometime in the future. All right, back to Making Mr. Right. When we last left her, Susan Seidelman's second feature film, Desperately Seeking Susan, had become a surprise hit film in the spring of 1985, and she would have a little bit of clout in Hollywood, or at least with many major Orion Pictures where she had signed a three-picture deal,
[00:01:26] to make whatever she wanted, and to this effect she would choose a strange little romantic comedy called Making Mr. Right. Making Mr. Right began its life in early 1984, when screenwriters Floyd Byers and Laurie Frank decided to write their own modern take on the classic Frankenstein story. The completion of their script would coincide with the release of Desperately Seeking Susan, and shortly thereafter,
[00:01:51] Susan Seidelman would receive a copy of the script. Many of the elements from the final film would be retained from that first draft, but the director felt the film might work better as a Pygmalion-like romantic comedy. She would spend the next year working with the writers to get the screenplay to where she wanted it, and because she wanted to make a grounded film without a wild mass of special effects, the film would get a quick green light from Orion Pictures with a $9 million budget.
[00:02:19] The film introduces us to Frankie Stone, a Miami-based public relations person who had just ended a relationship with one of her clients, a womanizing congressional candidate. When she arrives at work the next morning, she finds herself in a meeting with a group of scientists and executives from a robotics company that is on the verge of losing its funding for its most ambitious project, Ulysses, a humanistic android built to withstand the isolation of deep space exploration.
[00:02:47] At the lab a few days later, Frankie meets both Dr. Jeff Peters, the lead scientist on the Ulysses project, and Ulysses the android himself who looks and almost sounds exactly like Dr. Peters. Ulysses, having never seen a woman before, is fascinated by Frankie, much to the chagrin of Dr. Peters who hates people because of their intellectual inferiority. Frankie takes on the task of quote-unquote humanizing Ulysses, especially to women,
[00:03:15] so that the project does not lose its funding in Congress. Ulysses sneaks off the lab grounds by hiding himself in the back of Frankie's convertible Chevy Corbett and starts to experience humanity firsthand at that most excellent center of 80s consumerism, the local shopping mall. He buys a tuxedo, goes out on a date with a woman who thinks Ulysses as Dr. Peters, and ends up losing his head when he meets Frankie's best friend Trish,
[00:03:41] who has left New York City and her soap opera actor husband, and has taken refuge in Frankie's apartment. General wackiness ensues. Ulysses crashes the wedding of Frankie's sister, as does Trish's husband. A fight ensues, Ulysses falls into a pool in short circuits, and Frankie loses her job after the fight is filmed and shown on local television. And all the while, Frankie starts to develop feelings for
[00:04:08] Ulysses, begins a begrudging friendship with Dr. Peters, and the film ends with several of the main characters getting, well, if not exactly what they'd wanted, at least some kind of happy ending. Anne Magnuson, a friend of Sidelman's from their time in the 1970s early punk scene in Soho, who played the sassy cigarette girl in Desperately Seeking Susan, would get her first feature lead role as Frankie. Laurie Metcalf, who played Roberta's sister-in-law in the same movie, would play the
[00:04:36] woman who goes out on a date with Ulysses, thinking it's Dr. Peters, and this would lead to the unusual casting of John Malkovich in his first comedy, let alone first romantic comedy, in the dual roles of Ulysses and Dr. Peters. Metcalf and Malkovich were friends from their time as students at Illinois State University in the mid-70s, before going on to found the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago alongside Gary Sinise. Glenn Headley, Malkovich's wife at the time, would be added to the cast as
[00:05:06] Frankie's best friend Trish, and the remainder of the cast would include a collection of industry veterans like Polly Bergen, up-and-comers like future diehard co-star Hart Bochner and future 30-something star Polly Draper, and Susan Berman, the star of Seidelman's first film, Smithereens, who also had a feature role in Desperately Seeking Susan. This would be Seidelman's first experience working with an actor like Malkovich, who had already won an Emmy and been nominated for an Academy Award
[00:05:34] in just the previous two years. But she would quickly gain the prickly Malkovich's respect by being easy to work with, and just trusting enough with actors to give them the space to explore their characters in a safe environment. The movie would shoot in Miami between April and July of 1986, with Edward Lachman as the cinematographer, just as he had been with Desperately Seeking Susan. And once filming was completed, Seidelman and her editor, Edrud Monshin, another veteran of Desperately
[00:06:02] Seeking Susan, would get the film ready for a planned March 1987 release. But as these things can and will happen, the movie market became unexpectedly crowded for early spring. When Orion finally released making Mr. Wright into 296 theaters nationwide on April 10th, cinemas nationwide were still busy with the likes of Lethal Weapon, Mannequin, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Police Academy 4, Raising Arizona,
[00:06:29] Disney's re-release of The Aristocats, and Platoon, which had won four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director less than two weeks earlier. The film would open in 19th place with less than $445,000 in ticket sales. The only new release that week that it would beat was Paramount Pictures' completely forgotten male objectivity comedy Campus Man, which would only gross $319,000 in 307 theaters.
[00:06:57] In its second week, Making Mr. Wright would lose only one theater, but 30% of its opening weekend audience. And after 10 days, Making Mr. Wright had grossed barely $1 million. To Orion's credit, they didn't just give up on the film quite yet, since it hadn't opened in Chicago, the third largest movie market in America, and several other major markets. Despite losing more than half of its second week play
[00:07:23] dates, the film would expand to 368 screens in its third weekend. But the die had already been cast. The film would gross less than $175,000 that weekend, and Orion would wave the white flag on the film with a final reported gross of $1.34 million. It did not help that the reviews were not very good. Most critics didn't feel the material was up to Malkovich's usual standards,
[00:07:48] even though Making Mr. Wright would only be his fifth movie. A number were dismissive of Magnussen as an actress, perhaps distracted by her previous incarnation as a performance artist of some note in downtown New York and, of all places, Japan. But much of the blame would fall on Seidelman. David Denby, reviewing the film for New York Magazine, would end his review of the film with a shiv aimed straight for the director's
[00:08:13] film. Until Seidelman ends her reliance on dopey, pseudo-feminist griping and mechanical farce, she'll never make a good movie. Ouch. I remember watching the film the night before we opened it at the 41st Avenue Playhouse in Santa Cruz. I found the film to be enjoyable enough. Not as good as Desperately Seeking Susan, but certainly not bad. The two films share what could be now called a certain Seidelman-esque pacing, hitting certain
[00:08:43] beats exactly the same even if they happen at different parts of each film. And unlike most moviegoers, I knew who Ann Magnussen was by 1987, and as much as I enjoyed her performance, I could see where people would think she couldn't carry the film, but they'd be wrong. I re-watched the film for the first time in 38 years as I was working on this episode, and the film does hold up surprisingly well. In fact, it might even be more timely in 2025 than it was in 1987 as one cannot help but see a certain
[00:09:12] current world figure in the awkward, socially inept, space-obsessed scientist who wants nothing more than to head out into deep space. It's also fun to see Malkovich still in the early days of his career to go all in on slapstick-style comedy. It's fun and at 99 minutes a relatively short diversion, one that can be found on Amazon Prime, Fubo, MGM+, or free with ads on Pluto TV as of May 2025.
[00:09:43] Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon. Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, the80smoviepodcast.com, for extra materials about making Mr. Right. The 80s Movie Podcast has been researched, written, narrated, and edited by Edward Havens for idiosyncratic entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.