Rhinestone is a 1984 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Bob Clark from a screenplay by Sylvester Stallone and Phil Alden Robinson and starring Stallone, Dolly Parton, Richard Farnsworth and Ron Leibman. It is based on the 1975 hit song "Rhinestone Cowboy" written by Larry Weiss. Although a critical and financial failure, the film spawned two top 10 country hits for Parton on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
Plot Jake Farris is a down home country singer from Tennessee stuck in a long-term contract performing at "The Rhinestone", a sleazy country music nightclub in New York City. Jake boasts to the club's manager, Freddie Ugo, that she can make anybody into a country sensation, insisting that she can turn any normal guy into a country singer in just two weeks. Freddie accepts Jake's bet, putting up the remainder of Jake's contract (if she wins the bet, the contract becomes void; if she loses, another five years will be added). He then ups the ante: if Jake loses, she must also have sex with him.
The problem is that Freddie can select the man, and he selects an obnoxious New York City cabbie named Nick Martinelli. Nick not only has no musical talent whatsoever; he claims to hate country music "worse than liver". Realizing that she is stuck with Nick, she takes him back to her hometown of Leiper's Fork, Tennessee to teach him how to walk, talk and behave like a real country star. While there, he has to put up with Jake's constant nagging and berating him about his behavior; the culture shock of not knowing anything about the South; and Jake's ex-fiancé, Barnett Kale, who befriends Nick, then turns on him when he realizes that he and Jake have developed feelings for one another.
It all leads to Nick performing a song at The Rhinestone where the crowd is a crazed group of hecklers and are "out for blood." After Nick's first attempt to sing bombs, he turns to the band and says, "Okay guys, let's pick up the beat" and the band begins playing the song in a more rock n' roll version and he wins the crowd over. In the end, Jake gets her contract back and she and Nick begin to sing another song with the implication that they will continue their budding relationship together.
Cast
Sylvester Stallone as Nick Martinelli Dolly Parton as Jake Farris Richard Farnsworth as Noah Farris Ron Leibman as Freddie Ugo Tim Thomerson as Barnett Kale Stephen Apostle Pec as Mr. Martinelli Penny Santon as Mrs. Martinelli Russell Buchanan as Elgart Ritch Brinkley as Luke Jerry Potter as Walt Jesse Welles as Billie Joe Phil Rubenstein as Maurie Tony Munafo as Tony Don Hanmer as Sid Speck Rhodes as Mr. Polk Guy Fitch as Wino Cindy Perlman as Esther Jean Troy Evans as Bettor Paul Garner as Rhinestone Heckler Joseph Sheppard as Cut 'N Slice Heckler Randy Parton as Cut 'N Slice Band Singer Mike Baird as Rhinestone Drummer Joey Scarbury as Rhinestone Band Singer Leland Sklar as Rhinestone Bassist
Production
Development and writing Sylvester Stallone reportedly turned down Romancing the Stone (1984) to make Rhinestone. He was paid $5 million and a percentage of the gross. Executives at both Fox and Paramount expressed interest. Paramount's interest evaporated after president Michael Eisner reviewed the project and liked it but not enough to get into a bidding war with another studio. Fox production chief, Sherry Lansing, was enthusiastic enough to buy it out of turnaround from Embassy for about $60,000, telling screenwriter Phil Alden Robinson that it was the best love story and the best comedy they had read in years. They loved the dialogue and talked of offering Robinson an overall deal in which he would write, direct and produce future projects.
However, when Sherry Lansing departed Fox, her successor, Joe Wizan, reviewed all projects in development. Wizan felt the Rhinestone script could not move forward unless they could get major stars for it. He and several Fox executives reviewed the list of actors who could co-star with Dolly Parton. They were concerned that they find someone who could be believable as a New York cab driver and have enough charisma that he would not be blown off the screen by the presence of Parton—who, some Fox executives thought, had done just that to Burt Reynolds in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). Mike Ovitz, whose talent firm, Creative Artists Agency, represented Parton (and Stallone) intervened, and insisted Fox take one of its male stars if they wanted Parton; CAA advocated for Stallone. According to one insider, CAA said, “‘If you want her, you better take him,’” and “that was the end of discussions of whether anyone else could be obtained for the part.” Stallone's agents at CAA had been positioning him to direct Rhinestone himself. When Stallone declined to pursue the position, it was decided to let him direct the picture in fact, even though Don Zimmerman would be the director of record. But Zimmerman was never let in on the secret. He thought he was the one and only director.
Sylvester Stallone was tentatively set to do a film for Paramount before beginning production on Rhinestone for Fox. The Paramount producers, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, were encountering the same problems as their Fox counterparts, after offering Stallone the lead in Beverly Hills Cop, Stallone told the Paramount executives he wanted to make a few changes and then proceeded to rewrite the script. Simpson and Bruckheimer, with more experience producing big-budget, high concept projects, than the executives at Fox, responded by saying that they did not want to film the script as rewritten and promptly exited talks with Stallone and his representatives. When the Paramount film fell through, the start date for Rhinestone was moved up. The original four or five months of preparatory planning were reduced to two and a half. To complicate matters further, Stallone decided that the script needed to be rewritten.
When Fox bought his script, they initially told Robinson it was their intent that he do any rewrites, if needed; but they were sincere from the outset, making Robinson aware they could not promise this. A meeting was scheduled by the studio for Stallone and Robinson to discuss script changes. The studio wanted Stallone to supervise Robinson in the rewrite. But the morning of the meeting Robinson was disinvited. Stallone wanted to rewrite the script himself. According to Robinson, Stallone did two drafts, one worse than the other. Stallone had, in a few short weeks, thrown out what had taken Robinson a year to write. Stallone changed the attitude of his character Nick Martinelli, making him more streetwise and less vulnerable."Stallone’s script read very much like a first draft," according to one observer. “You didn’t sense a lot of work went into the choices. There had been a lot of texture in the screenplay, a lot of charm, and the characters were very well defined and they went through carefully plotted-out progressions of character change. All that was gone.” The original script worked hard to keep out clichés. Stallone added them.Fox executives agreed that Stallone's changes by and large hurt the script. With seven weeks to go before the start of principal photography, the studio said they would not make the movie on the basis of the revised script. Robinson was brought back in and asked to “restore the charm” of the original, and “put those great characters back,” without changing any of the dialogue Sylvester Stallone had written for himself. Robinson objected, telling Fox executive Wizan that what was wrong with the script was the awful dialogue. Wizan replied: “Welcome to Hollywood.” Robinson reluctantly agreed to the studio’s restrictions on the rewrite. He says he was able to solve some structural problems and tried to make sense of Stallone’s changes. When he turned it in, the studio said the new script was great, and one executive vowed that Stallone was either going to do it as written or walk. When they showed the changes to Stallone he said, “Fine, fine. I just have a few changes to make.” Stallone then proceeded to restore most of his changes.
The studio was not happy with Stallone’s new revisions. Robinson’s original Rhinestone script was a small movie about a strong-willed Southern woman determined to own a restaurant in Manhattan. By the time Stallone's revisions were completed, it had become the story of a New York cab driver's miraculous victory in a country western singing contest, a contest that parlayed Parton's character Jake Farris into going to bed with her sleazy boss Freddie Ugo (Ron Leibman) should they lose the contest.“CAA pretty much took over [the film],” says one insider. “And one of the reasons that they were able to take over was that Twentieth Century Fox at that time was run by people who weren’t strong filmmakers. They had people who were not experienced in making movies. They had marketing directors, story editors and ex-agents, but they didn’t have filmmakers running the place.” By turning the project over to Stallone they were giving the movie to someone who had written and directed. And they knew that if things didn’t turn out well, they could always lay the blame on Stallone.When the film started shooting, production problems immediately arose. Zimmerman thought he was the director. But Stallone told him what to do, ad-libbed scenes and made changes as he saw fit. By everyone's reckoning, including Stallone's, the first few weeks were a disaster. Tensions were exacerbated when Stallone and Zimmerman got into a dispute over the cameraman. Stallone was unhappy with the look of the movie. Zimmerman thought the cameraman was doing a wonderful job and loyally stuck by him. Stallone forced the cameraman out, and after that, says Zimmerman, their relationship quickly deteriorated.
Three weeks into production, Zimmerman was fired. His contract was settled and the production shut down while the studio sought a new director. CAA proposed that Fox hire Bob Clark, who had directed the hit film Porky's, which Fox had distributed—contrary to Stallone's later statements, director Mike Nichols was never considered for, much less affiliated, with Rhinestone. Nichols was still very loyal to his agent Sam Cohn, with ICM, throughout the 1980s; and CAA oversaw principle talent (package) acquisitions on Rhinestone, during this time. Since the new director had to be acceptable to Sylvester Stallone, it did not hurt that both were represented by CAA. Clark reportedly received $1 million to direct, plus a guaranteed fee for his next project at Fox, whether or not it was ever produced. That project is reputed to have been previously rejected by the studio. The first three weeks of filming were thrown out (all footage directed by Zimmerman, including location work in New York City and Nashville). Knowing his reputation for problem sets, Stallone was anxious not to be cast as the villain in this production switch so he told a reporter that the change had been made because studio executives were panicked when the film fell behind schedule.