Producer Gerry Ayres had bought the rights to Darryl Ponicsan’s novel “The Last Detail” in 1969. After returning from the set of “Drive, He Said” (1971), Robert Towne began adapting the novel. The screenwriter tailored the script for close friends Jack Nicholson and Rupert Crosse.
Ayres convinced Columbia Pictures to produce the film based on his consultant’s credit on “Bonnie & Clyde” (1967), but had difficulty getting it made because of the studio’s concern about the bad language in Towne’s script. Columbia Pictures executive Peter Guber recalled, “The first seven minutes, there were 342 ‘f**ks.'” The studio asked Towne to reduce the number of curse words to which the writer responded, “This is the way people talk when they’re powerless to act; they b!tch.” Towne refused to tone down the language and the project remained in limbo until Nicholson, by then a bankable star, got involved.
Ayres sent the script to Robert Altman and then Hal Ashby. Ayres remembers, “I thought that this was a picture that required a skewed perspective, and that’s what Hal had.” Ashby was coming off the disappointing commercial and critical failure of “Harold and Maude” (1971), and was in pre-production on another film, “Three Cornered Circle” at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when Nicholson told him about “The Last Detail.” The director had been sent the script in the fall of 1971, with a reader’s report calling it “lengthy and unimaginative,” but he personally found it very appealing.
He wanted to do it but it conflicted with his schedule for “Three Cornered Circle.”Ashby pulled out of his deal with MGM, and Nicholson suggested that they team up on “Last Detail.” Columbia did not like Ashby because he had a reputation of distrusting authority and made little effort to communicate with executives. The $2.3 million budget was low enough for him to get approved.
Nicholson was set to play Buddusky; additional casting focused mainly on the roles of Mule and Meadows. Bud Cort met with Ashby and begged to play Meadows, but the director felt that he was not right for the role. Robert Englund also auditioned for the role of Meadows. Casting director Lynn Stalmaster gave Ashby a final selection of actors, and the two that stood out were Randy Quaid and John Travolta. As originally written, the character of Meadows was a “helpless little guy”, but Ashby wanted to cast Quaid, who was 6’4″. He had offbeat and vulnerable qualities that Ashby wanted. Towne remembers thinking, “There’s a real poignancy to this huge guy’s helplessness that’s great. I thought it was a fantastic choice, and I’d never thought of it.” Rupert Crosse was cast as Mule.
Ashby was busted for possession of marijuana while scouting locations in Canada. This almost changed the studio’s mind about backing the project, but the director’s drug bust was not widely reported and Nicholson remained fiercely loyal to him, which was a deciding factor.
Just as the film was about to go into production, Crosse was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Ashby postponed principal photography for a week to allow Crosse to deal with the news and decide if he still wanted to do the film. The actor decided not to do the film, and Ashby and Stalmaster scrambled to find a replacement. They cast Otis Young.
Released in 1973, “The Last Detail” was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival and Nicholson was awarded Best Actor. It was also nominated for three Academy Awards – Jack Nicholson for Best Actor, Randy Quaid for Best Supporting Actor, and Robert Towne for Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, with none of them winning. Nicholson won the Best Actor awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle. However, he was disappointed that he failed to win an Oscar for his performance. “I like the idea of winning at Cannes with ‘The Last Detail,’ but not getting our own Academy Award hurt real bad. I did it in that movie, that was my best role.” (Wikipedia)
Happy Birthday, Hal Ashby (to the left of Young and Nicholson)!