INTERVIEW: TCM’s podcast returns with deep dive into ‘Bonfire’
Photo: Melanie Griffith and Tom Hanks star in The Bonfire of the Vanities. Photo courtesy of TCM / Provided by the network with permission.
When Julie Salamon, an acclaimed author and movie critic, was invited onto the set of The Bonfire of the Vanities in the late 1980s, both she and the film’s director, Brian De Palma, likely had no idea how the production would turn out. In some ways, the movie, which was eventually released in 1990, had the markings of a mega hit. It was based on a successful Tom Wolfe book, a tome that some believe to be a modern classic, and its cast featured Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith and Bruce Willis.
What could go wrong?
Well, the resulting picture was lacking and deemed a failure, both critically and at the box office. But Salamon was not a PR agent; she was there to be a journalist and write a book about Bonfire’s production, and De Palma gave her access to everyone and everything. Her literary efforts produced The Devil’s Candy, a fascinating investigation of the struggles of filmmaking and the series of events that ultimately doomed the project. Salamon’s book, in many ways, has outlasted the film, serving as an educational lesson, a Hollywood fable and a cautionary tale.
TCM recently jumped on The Devil’s Candy bandwagon and decided to adapt the book for the second season of its successful podcast series, The Plot Thickens. The first and second episodes launched Tuesday, June 29, with Salamon and host Ben Mankiewicz dissecting De Palma’s film and how it became a “fiasco for the ages.”
Accompanying the podcast is a specially curated evening of De Palma films on TCM. On Monday, July 5, audiences can tune in and watch The Bonfire of the Vanities, Obsession, Sisters, Blow Out and Body Double, reliving the highs and lows of the celebrated director’s career.
Recently Salamon and Mankiewicz met the press to talk about The Devil’s Candy, The Bonfire of the Vanities and the new season of The Plot Thickens. Answers have been edited for style and brevity.
On how Salamon got invited to the set …
JULIE SALAMON: I was working as a film critic back then. [Brian De Palma and I] met. We’d meet from time to time when he was in New York to talk about movies, and I had told him that I was interested in doing this kind of a book, similar to what Lillian Ross had done with Picture many years before in the ‘50s, following John Huston around. And when he signed on to do Bonfire, he thought that might be a good movie to do it on, and you know he was a little bit of a bomb thrower. He kind of like to rustle feathers in Hollywood, and I guess he thought I would be the person to do it. You know, obviously I think he might have thought differently if he would have known how the movie was going to end up, but without him, it wouldn’t have happened.
On what Salamon’s access ultimately inspired …
BEN MANKIEWICZ: She didn’t just have access. It’s what she did with the access. Like, other people have had access and bungled it or created something ordinary, so I mean part of the reason that we talk about this movie is because of what Julie did with it. And I’m not just trying… She already likes me, I think.
SALAMON: It’s true.
MANKIEWICZ: But I think that’s really critically important. … If [all] Hollywood directors and producers take away from The Devil’s Candy is that, oh, we can’t grant access like that, they’re missing the point. Then this would just be a blockbuster movie that disappointed. Now there’s an interesting story around it. … I think the lesson ought to be that it ought to happen more. …
SALAMON: Obviously there are gossipy elements to it, but for me I love seeing how things work and the organism. And making a movie is just such a huge, complicated enterprise — and to have access to all of it. And the truth is I was as interested in the sound guy that used coconuts to make the sound of horses’ hooves going as the movie stars. It was just riveting for me.
On whether Bonfire could ever be adapted into a successful movie …
SALAMON: Tom Wolfe said it right from the get-go. He always described his books as this series of slices of life, and interestingly enough, I’m sure that if somebody had been wanting to adapt it today, they would have done it as a limited series for television, which it’s probably more suited to because then you can really delve into all those individual characters. … I was actually on some kind of panel a few weeks ago, a podcast, where they were talking about The Bonfire of the Vanities, and that book itself has become a hot potato in a different way now because of all of the racial stuff in it that just today would be much harder to adapt for all kinds of sensitivities. Even though I think Tom Wolfe was doing a satire, I think it would be extremely difficult to adapt today for probably the same reasons that it was difficult to adapt 30 years ago, but with a 2021 variation on it. So, yeah, I think the book itself was really tough. On the other hand, I think it would make a terrific miniseries with all these great character actors playing those roles.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Plot Thickens, season two, features TCM host Ben Mankiewicz and author Julie Salamon. Click here for more information.
