The Hot Spot
Encyclopedia
The Hot Spot is a 1990 American
drama film directed by Dennis Hopper
and based on the 1952 book Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams
. It stars Don Johnson
, Virginia Madsen
, and Jennifer Connelly
, and features a score by Jack Nitzsche
played by John Lee Hooker
, Miles Davis
, Taj Mahal
and Roy Rogers
.
Gloria Harper is a young, innocent-seeming woman with a secret. It somehow involves a sleazy local man named Frank Sutton who appears to have some hold on her.
Dolly Harshaw is a seductive, anything-goes femme fatale
married to George Harshaw, the car dealer. She keeps a gun handy and likes to have sex in unusual, dangerous ways.
Harry carries on with both while looking for an opportunity to rob the local bank.
It ultimately is revealed that Sutton has nude photographs of Gloria, taken from a distance at a remote lakeside setting. Harry lies in wait for Sutton one night and viciously beats him.
Dolly begins to see Harry as her ticket to better things. When she coaxes her husband into bed, it is only to bring George's weak heart to a fatal end.
A sheriff arrests Harry, suspecting him in the bank job, but can't prove it. Harry decides to leave town with Gloria by his side, but Dolly puts an end to that by revealing to Gloria everything else Harry has been doing in town, including her.
. Many years later, Dennis Hopper found the script and updated it. The director described the film as "Last Tango in Texas. Real hot, steamy stuff". A bedroom scene originally called for Madsen to appear naked, but she decided to put on a negligee because she felt that, "Not only was the nudity weak storywise, but it didn't let the audience undress her". Hopper later admitted that Madsen was right. The director gave his impressions of working with Johnson: "He wasn't that bad. He has a lot of people with him. He came on to this film with two bodyguards, a cook, a trainer, ah let's see, a helicopter pilot he comes to and from the set in a helicopter, very glamorous let's see, two drivers, a secretary, and, oh yes, his own hair person, his own make-up person, his own wardrobe person. So when he walks to the set he has five people with him". Johnson found Hopper's approach to filmmaking "a little disappointing, I gotta tell you". Hopper shot the film in Texas during what he described as the "hottest, steamiest weather you could imagine". The swimming scenes were filmed at the Hamilton Pool Preserve
.
with Mickey Rourke
. Of Madsen, Hopper claimed that she "was very embarrassed" by the amount of her on-screen nudity. The film was released on October 12, 1990, in 23 theaters, grossing USD $112,188 in its opening weekend. The film grossed only $1.2 million in the North America, far less than the cost of its production.
The Hot Spot received generally mixed reviews from critics and currently has a 67 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes
. Roger Ebert
gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "Only movie lovers who have marinated their imaginations in the great B movies from RKO and Republic will recognize The Hot Spot as a superior work in an old tradition." In her review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin
wrote, "Mr. Hopper's direction is tough and stylish, in effective contrast with the sunny look of Ueli Steiger's cinematography." USA Today
gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "In other words, Hopper's direction isn't any great shakes, and the wrap-up is somewhat confusing, but this film does make you want to go skinny-dipping with someone else's mate." In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, "Hot Spot will never go down as timeless, neoclassic noir
. But, with its Hopperlike moments, over-the-top performances and infectious music, it carries you along for a spell." Entertainment Weekly
gave the film a "B" rating and Owen Gleiberman
wrote, "Hopper still hasn't learned how to pace a movie, but working from Charles Williams' 1952 novel Hell Hath No Fury he comes up with a reasonably diverting hothouse yarn."
and features an original collaboration between John Lee Hooker
, Miles Davis
, Taj Mahal
and Roy Rogers
. Allmusic describes the soundtrack album as "marvelous music ... something listeners should be thankful for, particularly fans of either Miles Davis or John Lee Hooker".
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
drama film directed by Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
and based on the 1952 book Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams
Charles Williams (U.S. author)
Charles Williams was an American writer of hardboiled crime fiction. He is regarded by critics as one of the finest suspense novelists of the 1950s and 1960s. His 1951 debut, the pulp paperback novel Hill Girl, sold over a million copies...
. It stars Don Johnson
Don Johnson
Donnie Wayne "Don" Johnson is an American actor known for his work in television and film. He played the lead role of James "Sonny" Crockett in the 1980s TV cop series, Miami Vice, which led him to huge success. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges...
, Virginia Madsen
Virginia Madsen
Virginia Madsen is an American actress and documentary film producer. She came to fame during the 1980s, having appeared in several films aimed at a teenage audience...
, and Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
, and features a score by Jack Nitzsche
Jack Nitzsche
Bernard Alfred "Jack" Nitzsche was an arranger, producer, songwriter, and film score composer. He first came to prominence in the late 1950s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector, and went on to work with the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and others...
played by John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal (musician)
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...
and Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers (guitarist)
Roy Rogers is an American blues rock slide guitarist and record producer. He was named after the singing cowboy, Roy Rogers...
.
Plot
Drifter Harry Madox takes a job as a used car salesman in a small Texas town. In the summer heat, he develops an interest in a couple of hot women, one who works at the car dealership and another who is married to its owner.Gloria Harper is a young, innocent-seeming woman with a secret. It somehow involves a sleazy local man named Frank Sutton who appears to have some hold on her.
Dolly Harshaw is a seductive, anything-goes femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
married to George Harshaw, the car dealer. She keeps a gun handy and likes to have sex in unusual, dangerous ways.
Harry carries on with both while looking for an opportunity to rob the local bank.
It ultimately is revealed that Sutton has nude photographs of Gloria, taken from a distance at a remote lakeside setting. Harry lies in wait for Sutton one night and viciously beats him.
Dolly begins to see Harry as her ticket to better things. When she coaxes her husband into bed, it is only to bring George's weak heart to a fatal end.
A sheriff arrests Harry, suspecting him in the bank job, but can't prove it. Harry decides to leave town with Gloria by his side, but Dolly puts an end to that by revealing to Gloria everything else Harry has been doing in town, including her.
Cast
- Don JohnsonDon JohnsonDonnie Wayne "Don" Johnson is an American actor known for his work in television and film. He played the lead role of James "Sonny" Crockett in the 1980s TV cop series, Miami Vice, which led him to huge success. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges...
as Harry Madox - Virginia MadsenVirginia MadsenVirginia Madsen is an American actress and documentary film producer. She came to fame during the 1980s, having appeared in several films aimed at a teenage audience...
as Dolly Harshaw - Jennifer ConnellyJennifer ConnellyJennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
as Gloria Harper - Jerry HardinJerry HardinJerry Hardin is an American actor who has made many television and film appearances. He played illegitimate heir, Wild Bill Westchester, in the failed 1982 television series Filthy Rich. One of his most recognizable roles was that of the character Deep Throat in the series The X-Files...
as George Harshaw - William SadlerWilliam Sadler (actor)William Thomas Sadler is an American actor who works in film and television. His television and motion picture roles have included Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller in The Pacific, Luther Sloan in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sheriff Jim Valenti in Roswell, convict Heywood in The Shawshank Redemption,...
as Frank Sutton - Charles Martin SmithCharles Martin SmithCharles Martin Smith is an American film actor, writer, and director.-Early life:Smith was born in Van Nuys, California. His father, Frank Smith, was a film cartoonist and animator, while his uncle Paul J. Smith was an animator as well as a director for the Walter Lantz Studios...
as Lon Gulick - Barry CorbinBarry CorbinLeonard Barrie Corbin, known as Barry Corbin , is an American actor with more than one hundred film, television and video game credits.-Early life:...
as the Sheriff - Leon RippyLeon RippyLeon Rippy is an American actor.-Life and career:He has worked with Roland Emmerich on seven movies including: Moon 44 , Eye of the Storm , Universal Soldier , Stargate , The Thirteenth Floor , The Patriot , Eight Legged Freaks and also had a role in the 2004...
as Deputy Tate - Jack NanceJack NanceMarvin John Nance , known professionally as Jack Nance and occasionally credited as John Nance, was an American actor of stage and screen, primarily starring in offbeat or avant-garde productions...
as Julian Ward - Virgil FryeVirgil FryeVirgil Charles Frye is an American actor and former Golden Gloves boxing champion.He grew up in Estherville, Iowa. He has two children, Sean Frye and Soleil Moon Frye , and is the father-in-law of Jason Goldberg....
as Deputy Buck
Production
Charles Williams wrote a screenplay version of his own novel with Nona Tyson in 1962. It was intended for Robert MitchumRobert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
. Many years later, Dennis Hopper found the script and updated it. The director described the film as "Last Tango in Texas. Real hot, steamy stuff". A bedroom scene originally called for Madsen to appear naked, but she decided to put on a negligee because she felt that, "Not only was the nudity weak storywise, but it didn't let the audience undress her". Hopper later admitted that Madsen was right. The director gave his impressions of working with Johnson: "He wasn't that bad. He has a lot of people with him. He came on to this film with two bodyguards, a cook, a trainer, ah let's see, a helicopter pilot he comes to and from the set in a helicopter, very glamorous let's see, two drivers, a secretary, and, oh yes, his own hair person, his own make-up person, his own wardrobe person. So when he walks to the set he has five people with him". Johnson found Hopper's approach to filmmaking "a little disappointing, I gotta tell you". Hopper shot the film in Texas during what he described as the "hottest, steamiest weather you could imagine". The swimming scenes were filmed at the Hamilton Pool Preserve
Hamilton Pool Preserve
Hamilton Pool Preserve is a natural pool that was created when the dome of an underground river collapsed due to massive erosion thousands of years ago. The pool is located about 23 miles west of Austin, Texas off Highway 71. Since the 1960s, Hamilton Pool has been a favorite summer swimming...
.
Reception
The Hot Spot had its world premiere at the 1990 Toronto Film Festival. Director Dennis Hopper felt that stars Don Johnson and Virginia Madsen were not as enthusiastic in promoting the film as he would have liked. Hopper said of Johnson that "He says he's not going to do anything for this picture until he reads the reviews." Johnson claims that he was unable to do promotion because he was shooting the film Harley Davidson and the Marlboro ManHarley Davidson and the Marlboro Man
Other songs in the film, but not included on the soundtrack are "Stop the World" by The Screaming Jets, "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi, and "Work to Do" and "The Better Part of Me" by Vanessa Williams.-See also:* List of American films of 1991*...
with Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke
Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....
. Of Madsen, Hopper claimed that she "was very embarrassed" by the amount of her on-screen nudity. The film was released on October 12, 1990, in 23 theaters, grossing USD $112,188 in its opening weekend. The film grossed only $1.2 million in the North America, far less than the cost of its production.
The Hot Spot received generally mixed reviews from critics and currently has a 67 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "Only movie lovers who have marinated their imaginations in the great B movies from RKO and Republic will recognize The Hot Spot as a superior work in an old tradition." In her review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
wrote, "Mr. Hopper's direction is tough and stylish, in effective contrast with the sunny look of Ueli Steiger's cinematography." USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "In other words, Hopper's direction isn't any great shakes, and the wrap-up is somewhat confusing, but this film does make you want to go skinny-dipping with someone else's mate." In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, "Hot Spot will never go down as timeless, neoclassic noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
. But, with its Hopperlike moments, over-the-top performances and infectious music, it carries you along for a spell." Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film a "B" rating and Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
wrote, "Hopper still hasn't learned how to pace a movie, but working from Charles Williams' 1952 novel Hell Hath No Fury he comes up with a reasonably diverting hothouse yarn."
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the film is composed by Jack NitzscheJack Nitzsche
Bernard Alfred "Jack" Nitzsche was an arranger, producer, songwriter, and film score composer. He first came to prominence in the late 1950s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector, and went on to work with the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and others...
and features an original collaboration between John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal (musician)
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...
and Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers (guitarist)
Roy Rogers is an American blues rock slide guitarist and record producer. He was named after the singing cowboy, Roy Rogers...
. Allmusic describes the soundtrack album as "marvelous music ... something listeners should be thankful for, particularly fans of either Miles Davis or John Lee Hooker".