ZAMM.COM

When directors look back at movies they made decades ago, they usually have some good memories to share, but that’s not how Brian De Palma remembers WISE GUYS.

The crime comedy, which opened April 18, 1986 via MGM, was produced by Aaron Russo from a screenplay by George Gallo. Danny DeVito & Joe Piscopo starred as two small-time mobsters from Newark, NJ.

De Palma, reflecting in a 2016 interview, acknowledged that, “a movie I wish I hadn’t done was WISE GUYS. The studio changed their minds and didn’t want to make it. They just wanted us to go away. I should have just taken my money and walked instead of dealing with a studio that didn’t want to make the movie.”

That echoed some earlier comments by De Palma in a 2013 interview where he explained, “It’s not one of my favorites because nobody at the studio ever liked it. It was given a go by one administration and they left —  and then another administration came in. It was a bastard child that no one wanted anything to do with, so that was not a pleasant experience.”

GUYS was what screenwriter Gallo called a “CAA package” because “De Palma was a CAA client — and that was when CAA was like the Mafia. They would just plug their guys in. Brian said he wanted to do a comedy. Joe was CAA. Danny was CAA. Brian was CAA. And so was Aaron. And at the time, so was I.”

De Palma had directed some comedies early in his career, but GUYS was his first one since 1973. “I think it’s important to try to do more and more challenging and new things,” he’s observed. “In order to do that, you have to work a lot and be able to learn from your past experiences, the good as well as the bad ones.” This time, he added, “no one can accuse me of ripping off Hitchcock” — as happened with his thrillers DRESSED TO KILL (1980), BLOW OUT (1981) & BODY DOUBLE (1982).

De Palma’s earlier comedies included GREETINGS (1968), THE WEDDING PARTY (1969, which he co-directed), HI, MOM! (1970) & GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT (1972).

GUYS received a grim 31% Rotten Tomatoes critics score, but some top reviewers loved it. Roger Ebert gave it 3.5 stars (out of 4) and wrote, “WISE GUYS is an abundant movie, filled with ideas and gags and great characters. It never runs dry.”

Gene Siskel gave it 4 stars and promised, “Big laughs, foul language to the point of absurdity and one hilarious, screaming performance atop another combine to make WISE GUYS one of the funniest times you will have at the movies this year.”

Nonetheless, moviegoers didn’t care. GUYS, which was produced for  $13M, did just $8.5M in domestic theatres.

It didn’t take long, however, for De Palma to bounce back. His next film, THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987), was 83% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Produced for $25M, it had domestic ticket sales of $76.3M.