There’s some twitter thing out there, which asks you to list topics on which you could talk for thirty minutes without notes. One of my mine (I’ve got a few, probably more than is mentally healthy, but I am Gen X) would be William Goldman, the legendary screenwriter/novelist/playwright/essayist – legendary because of his credits, which were many and varied but also because of his excellent screenwriting memoirs, Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell?, in which he would routinely poke fun at the egos of stars, directors and execs, thus turning him into a patron saint of movie scribes.

I know an awful lot about Goldman – the divorce, the references to Jean Simmons and Irwin Shaw, his Broadway career (as good as Adventures in the Screen Trade is, his book on theatre, The Season, is better) and have done pieces on him for FilmInk here and here.

Today, I’d like to discuss a film he authored, about which I know very little: Heat.

Goldman isn’t usually shy about his adventures in the screen trade – he’s written a lot about the hits that were a joy (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Misery, Princess Bride), hits that were a nightmare (All the President’s Men), films that he felt were underrated (The Great Waldo Pepper, Hearts in Atlantis), scripts that never happened (The Sea Kings, a version of his novel The Thing of It Is, his version of The Right Stuff), but he’s very coy on Heat. He does refer to it in Which Lie Did I Tell?, explaining that “the reason you will not learn more about this baby in these pages is simple: to my knowledge, lawsuits are still flying.”

So, Heat has always intrigued me – especially as it was such a Goldman project. It was based on his script, adapted from his novel, and is very Goldman-y. Or, I should say, late period Goldman.

Early in the author’s life, he concentrated more on autobiographical, angsty male-focused character dramas – books like Temple of Gold, Your Turn to Curtsey My Turn to Bow, Boys and Girls Together (forgotten now, but a big best-seller in its day), The Thing of It is, and Father’s Day. Later on, he shifted into the genre space with tomes such as Marathon Man, Magic, Tinsel and Heat. Goldman said this owed a lot to the 1973 death of his beloved editor Hiram Haydn, who was uncomfortable with such material and would likely, the author felt, have discouraged Goldman from moving in this more obviously commercial direction.

Anyway, Heat, first published in 1985, was one of five novels Goldman wrote during what he described as a “leper period” in the early ‘80s, when he was not in demand as a screenwriter. Out of interest, the others were Control (1982), a thriller; The Silent Gondoliers (1983), a children’s book; The Colour of Light (1984), a return to autobiographical angsty character stuff; and Brothers (1986), a sequel to Marathon Man which everyone forgets exists – he also wrote Adventures in the Screen Trade (1982). (Goldman said that what brought him back to Hollywood was changing agents to CAA and being hired to adapt Memoirs of an Invisible Man. After Brothers, he never wrote another published novel, focusing on screenplays and non-fiction until his death in 2018.)

Heat was a character drama mixed with thriller. It was set in Las Vegas, a town Goldman had gotten to know while researching a proposed musical remake of Grand Hotel for director Norman Jewison that never happened. The novel focused on Nick Escalante, a “chaperone” or hired muscle (he’s a Vietnam vet), who did various jobs around town. Escalante is asked by Holly, a prostitute and former lover of Escalante’s, to avenge a beating she took at the hands of a mafioso type, which Escalante does, unleashing no end of trouble. He also helps teach a young tech millionaire Cyrus how to be brave.

In synopsis, this sounds like the premise of countless action films, but while there are short, sharp violent scenes, it’s not really an action story but more a character study of Escalante, a gambling addict unable to leave Vegas, mixed in with a look at life in that city, with its various croupiers, crime lords, and other colourful characters.

So, Heat is late period Goldman, as in, it’s genre-y, with tough guys, Mafia, golden-hearted hookers and wacky characters, but it also has some of the melancholic-white-man-who-can’t-get-it-together vibes familiar from his early novels.

Film rights to the novel were bought by producer Elliott Kastner, who had made Harper (1966), based on an early Goldman script. Goldman did the screenplay himself, a copy of which I have read, though I’m not sure what draft, it’s undated (I got it from Script City).

It follows the novel quite closely, not surprisingly, detailing Escalante’s adventures over a thirty-hour period. There are long scenes of bright dialogue, some of it romantic (his relationship with Holly), others funny, other tense (encounters with the mafia), some sad (Escalante gambling). The action is short and sharp – not as vividly described as in the book but you can see it – though it is not an action film, but a character study with action in it.

The story all takes place just before Christmas, which is a wonderful conceit – Christmas in Vegas. Goldman describes it as “the most desperate time. The whole place feels different… as empty as it ever gets…. It’s dangerous these pre-Christmas days, and that sense of foreboding should be felt constantly. This is not any city we have quite looked at before.”

There are plenty of bright support roles, but the standout character is Escalante – funny, honourable, doomed, addicted, but still the toughest guy on the block, and strong actor bait for a star. Kastner signed Burt Reynolds, who had been the biggest box-office attraction from 1978-82, but then going through a career slump (Cannonball Run 2, Stoker Ace, Man Who had Power Over Women, City Heat, Stick) that would prove terminal (in 1984 he was number six at the box office, in 1985 number 23, and he would never get back in the top 25).

Reynolds later wrote in his memoirs that when Kastner called “nobody in Hollywood had wanted to offer me a job. I was damaged goods, yesterday’s headlines, and though the town loves comebacks and gives awards to survivors, it loathes fire sales.”

Reynolds was ideal to play Escalante – he had charisma, physicality, charm, a melancholic air, and could act when he tried. Indeed, Goldman had just praised Reynolds’ seriousness in Adventures in the Screen Trade, noting his tendency to alternate Hal Needham car films with different types of movies like The End (1978).

The material however wasn’t director proof. There wasn’t enough action or story, it needed careful handling to bring out the atmosphere and characters.

Reading the script today, and considering who was available at the time, one candidate leaps to mind – Robert Altman. He knew the gambling milieu (California Split), was wonderful with actors (everything he did), and most importantly, could do slow burn character tales that would burst into violence (McCabe and Mrs Miller, The Long Goodbye).

Altman had worked with Kastner before (The Long Goodbye), and was going through his own career slump at the time, not having made a studio movie since Popeye (1980) (though he never stopped being productive), so presumably he’d be cheap.

And here’s the thing – Altman was cheap AND available AND was hired. Reynolds was delighted, having wanted to work with Altman for years (he had turned down an offer to appear in M*A*S*H* – the Tom Skerritt part, I believe – to make Skullduggery, which seems silly now, but in fairness, Skullduggery gave him the lead and no one knew M*A*S*H* would turn out to be, well, M*A*S*H*).

But Altman left the project. According to Patrick McGilligan’s biography of the director, Altman wanted changes to Goldman’s script (he “detested” its “commerciality”), but the writer refused. (In earlier interviews, Goldman had praised Altman’s ability when working from a strong script, like M*A*S*H*, but disliked the director’s more organic flights of fancy like Three Women, an attitude which may have come through during their meetings and couldn’t have helped their relationship.) McGilligan says Altman used a technicality to get out of making the movie – his desired cinematographer, Pierre Mignot, could not obtain the necessary permits to work on the film, so Altman withdrew.

According to Reynolds’ memoirs, Altman left because he “didn’t trust” Goldman and wanted to improvise – which Reynolds said was “a clash of styles, not anything personal, but unfortunately this difference surfaced pretty late in the game”. Reynolds says two days before filming was to start, Altman had a meeting with Kastner which ended with the director hitting the producer with a beer bottle and leaving the project.

Well, these things happen, or did back in the day (as we shall see), but Heat needed a new director. In hindsight, what Kastner should have done is sought out another one of those ‘70s auteur guys – a Hal Ashby, Peter Bogdanovich, or Bob Rafaelson… someone strong on mood, atmosphere and tales of tortured men. And maybe he did. But the job wound up with Dick Richards [below].

No one remembers Richards much today, but he had a vogue in the ‘70s with films like The Culpepper Cattle Company (1972), Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (1974), March or Die (1977) and most of all, Farewell My Lovely (1975), a popular redo of the Raymond Chandler novel with Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe.

Richards had made Farewell My Lovely for Kastner, along with Death Valley (1982) and Man, Woman and Child (1983), so he was a logical short-notice replacement. But the thing is, Heat didn’t need that, it required a real auteur-y type director to rise to the material. Reynolds said Culpepper was one of his favourite Westerns but “knew that Hal Needham had directed 75 percent of the picture”.

Nonetheless, filming proceeded. It was a difficult shoot. Reynolds and Richards did not get along, to put it mildly – on 13 March 1986 the star actually punched Richards. Like, in the face. Reynolds had a temper at the time – in his memoirs, he says before filming he’d blown the chance to direct Whoopi Goldberg in Jumping Jack Flash by physically manhandling producer Joel Silver, after Silver brought up a rumour about Reynolds (he doesn’t say what, but he was touchy about rumours because in the mid ‘80s it was gossiped that Reynolds had AIDS due to the fact he lost weight after an accident making City Heat). “By the time Heat came along, I was a powder keg of anger” Reynolds later admitted.

In his memoir, the star argues that other people punched Richards on the sets of the director’s movies, notably Culpepper, Farewell My Lovely (Mitchum, according to Reynolds) and March or Die (Gene Hackman and Catherine Deneuve, apparently), and he claims Richards was an on-set bully. I’ve never heard this argument for hitting a director before, i.e. “other people did it”. Reynolds says the punch happened when they were filming a scene where he holds a dying Peter McNicol (who played Cyrus) in his arms. Reynolds and Richards disagreed, the director poked Reynolds in the chest, and the star punched him, knocking him out. Reynolds claims he tried to apologise but Richards insisted on being given a yellow Jaguar car with a ribbon around it in front of the crew, which was done. But Richards still quit the film. Richards sued Reynolds for $25 million, and ended up with $500,000, which the star called “the costliest one punch fight in my history” adding “I was suddenly perceived as a crazy, moody mental case.”

Richards left Heat and was replaced by Jerry Jameson, best known for his TV work. Richards did take sole director credit, but as ‘R.M. Richards’, declaring later “I should have taken my name off it entirely”. A Directors’ Guild of America arbitration ruled that Richards was responsible for 41% of the finished film and Jerry Jameson 31%. Richards does include the film on his website though. Apparently, other directors worked on Heat – Goldman says there were six all up, Richards puts it at five – but the only ones I am sure of are Richards, Jameson and Altman. Richards never directed another feature.

Heat was released to fairly uniform bad reviews and tepid box office results. Because it came out when video was in its stride, there were always copies of Heat in stores but no one seems to like it much.

I don’t like it much. I like the novel and the screenplay. The film tries to capture the screenplay, but it makes constant changes – cutting down some scenes, shuffling others around, trying to pick up the pace. But that doesn’t work for Heat.

Nothing seems to click – the pacing, the blocking, the atmosphere, the tone. For instance, Goldman’s script makes a point of the Christmas in Las Vegas setting but while there are some fairy lights in the background, it never feels like Christmas. The actors are clearly competent, but too many of them don’t convey the essence of their roles. Karen Young is sweet but too young as Reynolds’ ex, Neill Barry too callow. There are glimpses of what the film could have been – a close-up on Reynolds before he’s about to thump some hoods and his heart starts beating, the sequence where Reynolds can’t stop gambling, some scenes between the star and Peter MacNicol (very good) – but they are just glimpses. It’s frustrating because the Altman version of Heat could’ve been terrific.

Jason Statham got hold of Goldman’s script decades later and it became a bit of a passion project for that actor to get it remade (one of the reasons Statham’s had such a long career, I feel, is he’s always willing to take chances – a small part in Collateral, a comedy role in Spy). He almost got up the film with Brian de Palma directing, which would’ve been interesting (though apparently Goldman’s dislike of de Palma’s style got that director kicked off 1975’s The Stepford Wives). Eventually, the project emerged as Wild Card, directed by Simon West (Con Air). It was a faithful-ish rendering of the story with a stronger support cast (including Stanley Tucci, Hope Davis, Anne Heche, and Sofia Vergara) but seemed again to struggle under its expectations to be an action film. There’s not enough action in the story for it to be a proper action film, it needs to be a character study, and director Simon West wasn’t suited for it either. It has no feeling for time and place – I think it was shot in Louisiana, and there is definitely a lack of Vegas flavour. The Christmas songs and decorations are there but not the sense of sadness and depression.

The 2015 version is worth watching for its cast – who are all, without exception, superb – but there are places that it’s even inferior to the 1986 movie: the relationship between Escalante and Cyrus is stronger in the ’86 version, with a more noble climactic gesture from Cyrus (he gets shot, while in the Statham version he just distracts them by singing). And the 2015 movie has a random fight scene put in that’s not consistent with the others. West shot the script, but he didn’t direct it – he didn’t get it.

Maybe William Goldman’s script for Heat was insurmountable, but I don’t think that’s the case. It just wasn’t director proof. I don’t know – read it, (or the book) and see what you think.

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