Griffin Dunne’s memoir sounds interesting
Who’s Griffin Dunne?, you might ask. He’s an actor I first became familiar with from the Scorcese film “After Hours.” I saw it in a movie theater when it first came out in 1985, and I think that although the word “quirky” serves as a descriptor, it doesn’t even begin to cover how strangely entertaining the film is. Dunne is no conventional leading man, either; he’s a hapless and confused character on the edge of desperation, and yet he manages to make the role bleakly comic as well.
More recently, Dunne surfaced playing another quirky (there’s that word again) character in the very popular TV series “This Is Us.” He grabbed my attention in that one, too, all these years later.
Griffin Dunne’s memoir isn’t the usual Hollywood tell-all stuff either. He came from a famous and literary family, marked by tragedy but also quite loving:
The black comedic vignettes of Dunne’s memoir, befitting a Nathanael West novel, feature the ascendant, fallen, and broken stars of an era when celluloid was still currency. Dunne was “raised in the land of make-believe,” he writes—first in New York, where Elizabeth Montgomery, a struggling actress before she played Samantha in Bewitched, was his babysitter, and then in Los Angeles, where Sean Connery saved him from drowning in a pool. (“A wee bit early for the deep end, sonny,” said James Bond.)
Dunne’s cinephilic and literary family made possible these early Tinseltown encounters. His parents, Dominick and Ellen (Lenny) Dunne, were Hollywood’s mid-sixties “‘it’ couple, invited to every party and hosting their own, big and small,” including a black and white ball that inspired one attendee, Truman Capote, to throw his own more famous one, in 1966. His uncle John Gregory Dunne married the up-and-coming writer Joan Didion; it was at their home that Dunne saw the W-shaped palm trees from a favorite childhood movie, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and assisted a young carpenter, Harrison Ford, in building their deck.
Much much more at the link. His sister Dominique was murdered by an abusive boyfriend, and there was a sensational trial which his father wrote about for Vanity Fair. Interestingly, although I hadn’t yet read the piece about Griffin Dunne when I wrote my post today about Dershowitz and OJ, there are some coincidental tie-ins: the article about Griffin’s book says that his father covered the OJ trial for Vanity Fair, and also that in the trial of his daughter’s murderer Sweeney, “Dunne’s father managed to hate the defense attorney ‘even more than he hated Sweeney.’” I think that, as the father of the victim, he can be forgiven that sentiment.
Here’s a little clip from “After Hours” – it doesn’t do it justice, but it will suffice. I highly recommend the film itself:
Here’s a link to Griffin Dunne’s memoir at Amazon.
Funny, I enjoyed that movie years ago, and always thought I should find it again.
I just found it on Tubi and started watching it. Thank you.
I misremembered the star as Mark Linn-Baker, not Dunne.
“After Hours” slayed me when I saw it at the theater. I didn’t see it coming at all.
Griffin Dunne was brilliant. I loved his eye cuts when he was trying to convince himself that reality wasn’t going terribly off track into Franz Kafka territory.
Then all the strange women Griffin ran across, played to perfection by Rosanna Arquette, Linda Fiorentino, Terri Garr and Verna Bloom.
I was surprised that the film didn’t do better — it was directed by Scorsese after all — but it didn’t get past cult hit status. Though that surprises me less these days. Quirky by definition is not mainstream taste.
I’m also a Joe Frank fan, a very quirky creator of radio monologues (dec’d 2018), whom I mention because a Columbia student copped a Joe Frank piece for a college screenwriting course. The script got ballyhooed all the way up to Scorsese, who based the movie “After Hours” on it. Later Frank settled for an undisclosed sum.
https://www.joefrank.com/shop/lies/
One of my favorite comedies ever. The fact that it’s not better known just makes it all the more wonderful.
Sounds like an interesting read.
He also starred in “An American Werewolf in London”, a scary movie that is actually pretty scary, that’s pretty much where I know him from.
Funny, I know exactly whom of which you speak, yet never really got interested in him. I might need to re-visit that.
}}} He also starred in “An American Werewolf in London”, a scary movie that is actually pretty scary, that’s pretty much where I know him from.
That almost certainly is Dunne’s biggest, most well-known role.
}}} Mark Linn-Baker, not Dunne.
They do have a mildly similar look and affect. I think Dunne is more serious, whereas Baker is/was more comic. In addition to playing “Balki’s Cousin” in the mildly popular “Perfect Strangers”, Baker’s other biggest role was probable as the young “Woody Allen” character (the “nominal” lead and title narrator and subject) in the excellent slice-of-life comedy My Favorite Year, in which Peter O’Toole wonderfully plays an Errol Flynn type actor down on his luck, who takes a role as a guest star on a Sid Caesar “Your Show of Shows” type 50s comedy-variety. Baker makes an excellent foil to O’Toole’s lush, but very talented and very smart film actor. LOTS of “supporting actor” type talent in that movie. Highly recommended if you are in the mood for light comedy slice-of-life kind of stuff. Baker is the person for whom the title is referring to.
A very re-watchable film, too. Right up there with Hopscotch and The Princess Bride.
The strategy to acquit OJ comes to mind to an observer of current Spanish politics. President Sanchez’ wife is under investigation for corruption; Sanchez is taking advantage of this by trying to convince the socialist electorate that it’s only a plot by the right to harm the socialist party. Never mind if the accusations are true. If he succeeds, the PSOE may have a good result in today’s election for the EU parliament. Given the indifference of socialist voters with respect to corruption charges when their comrades are at stake, it will be curious to look at the election result.
This is quite a coincidence since I went through a lot of my old VHS tapes of films that I have and I came across “After Hours“. I’m going to watch it again this week. I haven’t seen it in decades! I first saw it when it came out in 1985. I’m grateful that I have a DVD/VCR combo.
Here’s a clip of the “After Hours” segment with Dunne and Arquette synced to Joe Frank’s “Lies” monologue.
“Joe Frank – Lies 1982, over After Hours 1985”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02-qdq5LumM
You can tell the film follows the monologue closely. However, the monologue only covers the initial meet in the cafe and first encounter at the apartment between Dunne and Arquette.
The escalating crazy was added by the college student and the Scorsese team. Interesting.
“After Hours” was Dunne’s peak as a leading man. He has taken plenty of acting roles, film and tv, but never cracked the movie star tier.
However, he also branched out to many producer and director roles, so he is pretty busy in the industry.
oh yeah, he got mauled by david naughton, and is undead narrator,
huxley:
But now he’s more famous than ever, due to the TV show “This Is Us,” which was mega-popular.
Dunne did a terrific brief cameo as ‘the button man’ in Timothy Hutton’s Nero Wolfe series. Episode ‘The Mother Hunt’. Carrie Fisher too!
And I second the recc of ‘My Favorite Year’. Just had our annual viewing.
neo:
Glad to hear Dunne has garnered more fame than I knew from “This is Us.”
Which I didn’t see because my library borrow was scratched. I loved it for the totally brilliant Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris theme song:
–“Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris – This Is Us (Real Live Roadrunning | Offi–cial Live Video)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DLR7dviLVE
But has Dunne “cracked the movie star tier”?
But now he’s more famous than ever, due to the TV show “This Is Us,” which was mega-popular.
==
Never heard of it until a couple of months back. Seen fragments of two episodes. Didn’t care for it.
My Favorite Year — O’Toole’s [role as a] lush, but very talented and very smart film actor.
ObloodyHell:
Not to take anything away from O’Toole — one of the greats — but he was playing to his strengths there… 🙂 Thumbs up for “My Favorite Year.”
Love Peter O’Toole. I was thrilled when I realized he was voice-acting the restaurant critic, Anton Ego, in “Ratatouille” (2007).
Anyone who missed “The Stunt Man” (1980) and “Creator” (1985) with O’Toole might want to set their WayBack Machine to the 1980s and check those out.
I liked his final understated performance in for the glory about the cristero
rebellion
Andy garcias passion projecf well the second one after the golden city about havana on the eve of fidels triumph
Indeed, “The Stunt Man” has a pretty spectacular opening…
Hey, speaking of Peter O’Toole…
“The importance of T. E. Lawrence”—
https://newcriterion.com/article/the-importance-of-te-lawrence
…For those who are partial to psychological historiography; though I’m not so sure that all of David Fromkin’s insights are all that insightful…. Nonetheless, worthwhile. (OTOH, if one might prefer a far more antagonistic view of Lawrence, there’s always Richard Aldington’s fiercely iconoclastic—and controversial—effort…)
as they say, i concur and dissent, yes they came up a cropper, when it came to the Gazan incursion, those three battles cost 10,000 lives, of course Fromkin leaves out that the Indian branch was funding Ibn Saud, and he kept his powder dry, who was the contact men, St John Philby, the future German agent and son of the traitor Kim Kitchener was the original lawrence, since he was the intel officer on garnet worseleys staff on the invasion of Egypt which would lead to the denoument, in Khartroum, with Gordon, and ultimately Omdurman, Churchill got a good look at Kitchener, in that instance, and were at odds, for nearly 20 years,
David Lean did have this way of romanticizing something with a rosey colored lens, like he turned Dr Zhivago from an anti communist tract to one celebrating
the Cheka general that was his brother, thats not my insight,
Um, father.
heck I’m rolling here, yes both father and son, thought themselves more clever than their employees, one story that would make a fascinating teleplay would be Tim Powers Declare, a Lovecraft and Lecarre gumbo, of course a film could not do it justice, it would have to be a short story,
Declare is about David Hale, an enigmatic character discovers many things about himself, least of which is he is Kim’s twin brother
the story begins in the search for Noah’s Ark in 1948 then circles back to his recruitment into the above titled Operation Declare, and spins forward toward the 60s, from Spain to the Empty Quarter, which the latter mapped out
to Beirut and to the dark heart of the Soviet terror state,
Um, employers… (sorry—I love your stuff, really I do…)
Anyway, father and son. Pair ‘o psychopaths. High-IQ psychopaths, at that….(guess the unholy ghost was Uncle Joe)…
Father far more colourful than the son…though I guess that the latter’s manner was merely an expression of filial rebellion. (Would have made his father very proud, though, in any event…)
One is reminded somewhat of Le Carre’s “A Perfect Spy”…
yep, when you know half a dozen dialects of Arabic and Hindi, you might well get that swelled head, Philby burned Cornwell along with a host of others, Tinker Tailor was about him dealing with this, there is a long speech with the standin for kim justifying his treason, eventually he went over to the Other side, Drummer Girl, and lets not leave out Absolute Friends which I consider a dark comedy, his brother John, was a chip of the old block, pushing the libel against Pius, one of the first, although he probably did some good work in subsequently, about German scientists like Conrad Stark,
Fathers and Sons…Sons and Lovers…
Speaking of sons…
“Ex-LSU player Josh Maravich, son of Hall of Famer Pete Maravich, dead at age 42”—
https://nypost.com/2024/06/08/sports/pete-maravichs-son-josh-dead-at-42/
“Son of famous novelist who became arts journalist dies aged 59”—
https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2022/news/son-of-famous-novelist-who-became-arts-journalist-dies-aged-59/
RIP
+ Bonus:
“John le Carré’s sons: ‘We had to forgive our father’s sins'”—
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/john-le-carres-sons-would-regard-today-high-dark-comedy-really/
“THE DOUBLE LIFE OF JOHN LE CARRÉ”—
https://thelampmagazine.com/issues/issue-16/the-double-life-of-john-le-carr%C3%A9
To be sure, this might just be Peter Hitchens being…Peter Hitchens…
I had not heard of this person
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11321735/After-14-year-break-spy-writer-John-le-Carr-mistress-reignited-breathless-affair.html
so his character in Tailor in Panama, which basically transposes Greene, both Pender and his handler were closer to the truth,
I think I mentioned this previously some time ago here, but since no one else brought it up, here is another Griffin Dunne reference.
He’s a commentator and director of the documentary film,
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold, 2017, 1h 34m
Many here were familiar with her works. I was not, and found the film fascinating. On Netflix. The film has quite a bit on the Dunne family and Joan’s husband John.
John Dunne, eh?
A literary AND cinematic family…
Ask not for whom the cookie crumbles…etc.
don’t get me started on joan and the drive by she did with Miami in the 80s, was she as bad as TD Allman, or Sontag’s son David Rieff, ymmv, to be fair, which she never was that was her stylings pretty much everywhere, she like Ray Bonner wanted the FMLN to win, an echo of what we see with the Hamasniks today,
I think I saw the film version of True Confessions, by the other Dunne, but I couldnt get into it, how is it such rich and successful people, hove such a miserable outlook, I would say Dominick’s side of the family, considering his loss, still was an optimist,
}}} Not to take anything away from O’Toole — one of the greats — but he was playing to his strengths there… Thumbs up for “My Favorite Year”.
Agreed. But he does it so freaking well… 😀
}}} Anyone who missed “The Stunt Man” (1980) and “Creator” (1985) with O’Toole might want to set their WayBack Machine to the 1980s and check those out.
Two thumbs up for The Stunt Man (though it feels dated and a lot slower than it used to — see PS comments below), less impressed with Creator, though I grant, it’s been close to 4 decades since I last saw it… my more mature opinion may vary.
==============
P.S., The Stunt Man, given that it’s about a returning Vietnam Vet with PTSD feels dated for obvious reasons.
It also feels “Slow” for reasons I’ve gone into here and many other places:
Movies segment on four different phase change events:
a — Talkies, ca. 1930. Kinda duh how anything before these is radically different from after.
b — Method Acting, ca. 1952. Prior to this, actors tended to be cast based on their “look” and less so for actual acting talent. This also led to “casting against ‘type'”, which, for example, had the blonde as the bad girl and the brunette as the good girl. After this, people started expecting all actors to really really act… prior to it, some did, but not as many as you might think.
c — the MPAA, ca. 1969. Prior to this, the Hayes Code strongly limited the topics which could be dealt with and/or caused them to be only tangentially suggested. Holly Golightly would likely be considered a prostitute (though sex was never really suggested, though implied) and the same with Paul Varjak, who was pretty obviously a gigolo, and Town Without Pity, well, the subject was rape, but that topic was never referred to by name, IIRC. There were other oddball things as a result of the Hayes Code, for example, husbands and wives had twin beds, because the HC specified that a man and a woman could not be shown in or sitting on a bed without each of them having one foot on the floor. This was true even if the two actors were married in real life, such as Tracy and Hepburn. The first MPAA Oscar winner was, of course, Midnight Cowboy, which was rated “X” despite being quite tame by modern standards, and openly deals with the subject of male prostitution. This “twin beds” thing bled into TV shows, as well, for much the same reasons. It was a moderately big deal, a watershed moment, when The Bob Newhart show depicted Bob and Emily in a king-sized bed, the first time that was done for a (US) TV show, I believe.
d — MTV, ca. 1980s (varies with director). Yes, oddly enough, Music Videos changed movies considerably. Think about it — a music video is a “little movie”, so it is trying to tell a visual, graphic story in a very short time. Plus it’s also a nice cheap way to test the real-world chops of a promising young director — much cheaper than handing off a 90m TV movie or low-budget movie to one, if they can’t handle it. So, it’s obvious that, in the process of telling those short, little stories that they would invent a kind of visual shorthand that the audiences — mostly young people, clearly — would learn as well. That, plus modern digital editing techniques allowed for many more cuts and shorter sequences, plus cheaper cameras also allowed the use of more angles for any given take. So music videos, then movies as the young directors moved to feature films, began to have a far faster visual pacing, with fewer long shots and many more closeups. The end result was a visually faster paced film… which led to older people complaining that “newer movies were all bang! bam! boom!!” while younger people, looking at classics, are going, “Freaking A, is anything gonna happen in the next 15m, or can I go take a crap and miss nothing?” 😀 Another, related affect (relevant to The Stunt Man, in particular) is the increased professionalism and education levels of actual Stunt Men, which led to much more intense action sequences as well as far more complex stunts, as they used actual physics and specialist knowledge (e.g., explosives) to make far more complex stunts and visual FX. You go back and watch the car chase scenes from Bullitt and The French Connection, which were considered very intense when released, and they are downright laughable nowadays (more cameras also have had an effect, with more cuts to keep it visually active). Basically, what happened was, as the 80s progressed, more and more directors adapted to the newer visual pacing, making the 80s another watershed area for films — before 1980, they had one pacing, after 1990, they had another — and films released during the 80s can be either way, depending on the director. (TV was slower to adapt — changes really did not occur there until around 1993, with the beginning of NYPD Blue).
AND, back to the original topic: The Stunt Man, since it’s from 1980, is in the older “slow” mode of film-making. This can lead to it feeling slow, so you have to adjust your internal “clock” to handle the slower pace of the scenes and the filming processes.
😉
Another film of this type, The pair of The Three/Four Musketeers, from 1973/74, are by far the best “Musketeers” adaptation, but they definitely seem a bit slow nowadays.
ObloodyHell:
It’s fun when you let loose!
I don’t hold up “Creator” as a great film, but it is funny/good Peter O’Toole as a college professor seeking literally to clone his dead wife, but madcap Mariel Hemingway teaches him to live in the present, while flashing a boob or two.
He came from a famous and literary family, marked by tragedy but also quite loving.
The Dunnes compared themselves to the Kennedys. Watch out what you wish for.
I really loathed “An American Werewolf in London.” It didn’t seem like any kind of major contribution to the genre. Gratuitous violence, gratuitous everything. I do still remember the little piece of skin dangling from Dunne’s ripped open throat when he talked, but that’s not a recommendation. “True Confessions” came out at about the same time. I didn’t get it. It was too dark and murky, in the lighting, in the mood, and in the plot. Somebody said at the time that it was essentially an NYC story that suffered from being set in LA. I did very much enjoy “My Favorite Year,” mostly because of Peter O’Toole and the recreation of the Sid Caesar era.
One might say the gore was amped up for rick baker to show off his make up effects also a gruesome realism involved whereas the older films were more subdued
I adored “Creator.” Re-watched it recently with equal pleasure.