Once upon a time, David Bowie played a romantic lead in a U.S. feature film that received virtually no theatrical release in the U.S. Aside from its scruffy indie roots that resulted in minimal promotion or bookings, the film was cursed by opening in L.A. during the same weekend as the 1992 L.A. riots, a time when going to the theater was nobody’s top priority. Even with Bowie’s massive fame and co-star Rosanna Arquette’s quirky marketability, the film largely disappeared from public consciousness, aside from some later spotty cable appearances. Indeed, I had no knowledge of the existence of this film until the arrival of this new Blu-ray.
Buy The Linguini Incident (Director’s Cut) Blu-rayEnter director Richard Shepard, still fond of his early film and still wondering what might have been if it had ever been available to a larger audience. With the film’s rights seemingly vanished, as well as any prints of the film itself, Shepard set out to track down his creation and finally make it available for curious fans. That story is recounted in full in the Blu-ray bonus features, a quest that led Shepard around the world only to end up back at the Screen Actors Guild for the rights, and deep in the European backwaters for the print.
The film takes place in New York but all interiors were filmed in L.A., giving it a dreamy, not-quite-real feel. Bowie plays a broke bartender at a hip NYC restaurant who needs to marry a U.S. citizen in a hurry to stay in the country. Rosanna Arquette proves to be a suitable target, also a broke fellow employee and resentful of the flamboyantly wealthy owners of the restaurant (Buck Henry and Andre Gregory). When Arquette’s broke roommate (Eszter Balint, Stranger Than Paradise) gets involved, the trio hatch a plan to rob the restaurant to solve their problems, leading to unexpected chaos. It’s a little bit funny, a little bit silly, and occasionally romantic, a charmingly light piece of odd fluff that is well worth a watch. It’s not a conventional romantic comedy by any stretch of the imagination, but Bowie does get suitable opportunity to play a romantic lead rather than his typical oddball characters. Interestingly, he also met his wife during the film’s production, with Iman briefly appearing in a particularly humorous cameo.
Bowie is incredibly charming as he tries to woo Arquette’s character, radiating massive charisma at the peak of his mainstream fame that can barely be contained by his character’s lowly barman status. Arquette is also impressive, with the film ostensibly acting as a bookend for her handful of roles as quirky NYC ingenues, including the classics Desperately Seeking Susan and After Hours. The cast also includes Marlee Matlin in an early role as the restaurant’s hostess. The script is a bit flighty, never fully locked in on what it means to accomplish, but Shepard does a great job of establishing the characters of the bizarre restaurant and just letting them loose to construct this offbeat gem.
The new Blu-ray features a new director’s cut constructed by Shepard after an exhaustive worldwide search for a complete print. With no access to dailies, he could only tighten up the existing work, resulting in his new 93-minute cut trimming five minutes from the original 98-minute film. No tangible restoration has been attempted, with plenty of specks still appearing in the film, but the 4K transfer from film interpositive maintains steady colors in its 1080p hi-def Blu-ray presentation. Sound is clean and mostly hiss-free in the LPCM 2.0 mono soundtrack. The original version of the film is also provided on the disc for the purists, albeit only in SD resolution. While I didn’t attempt to spot the differences between the two cuts, the new version is wholly competent and progresses logically.
In addition to a filmed introduction to the film by Shepard, the disc contains a freewheeling feature-length documentary about the making of the film containing brand new exclusive interviews with all surviving principals. I can’t stress enough how essential this bonus feature is, with the 1hr 45min documentary actually timing out longer than the film itself. With no studio to placate, and with their careers largely over or winding down on the periphery of the Hollywood machine, the participants are completely unfettered, and Reader, they absolutely spill the tea.
Perhaps the most juicy gossip is reserved for the tale of how they landed Shelley Winters, only to be forced to fire her two days later, recounting all the drama of what went down on set. It’s particularly great to see Arquette in new footage, still holding up quite well, as she discusses her experiences during the film, produced right as she was going through a rough real-life breakup with Peter Gabriel. Also featured are Shepard, Matlin, Balint, the co-writer, costume designer, production designer, and producer, providing a particularly complete spectrum of all aspects of the production. From romances behind and within the scenes, to Shepard’s heartfelt mea culpa about how clueless he was back then, to appreciative tales of Bowie’s heavy involvement and sacrifice in getting the film made, to the crazy way they arrived at the film’s nonsensical title, this documentary is possibly more entertaining than the film itself.
But wait, there’s more: two audio commentary tracks are provided for the film, one with most of the documentary participants including Arquette, and another exclusively by Shepard. He also supplied a photo gallery with commentary. The original theatrical trailer and a new theatrical trailer round out this insanely stuffed single disc, an incredible value that is now, finally, available to add to your home collection thanks to Shepard’s efforts.
