Splash (film)

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Splash
190px
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Ron Howard
Produced by Brian Grazer
Screenplay by Lowell Ganz
Babaloo Mandel
Bruce Jay Friedman
Story by Bruce Jay Friedman (screen story, based on a story by Brian Grazer)
Starring <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Music by Lee Holdridge
Cinematography Donald Peterman
Edited by Daniel P. Hanley
Mike Hill
Production
company
Distributed by Buena Vista Distribution
Release dates
 <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
  • March 9, 1984 (1984-03-09)
Running time
 111 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $8 million
Box office $69,821,334

Splash is a 1984 American fantasy romantic comedy film directed by Ron Howard, written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, and starring Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Dody Goodman. The film involves a young man who falls in love with a mysterious woman who is secretly a mermaid. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The original music score was composed by Lee Holdridge.

The film is notable for being the first film released by the Walt Disney Studios' Touchstone Pictures label, which had been created that same year in an effort to release films targeted at adult audiences, with mature content not appropriate for the studio's flagship Walt Disney Pictures banner. Splash had received a PG-rating for including some profanity and brief nudity.

Plot

As an eight-year-old boy, Allen Bauer (David Kreps) is vacationing with his family near Cape Cod. While taking a sight-seeing tour on a small boat, he gazes into the ocean and sees something below the surface that fascinates him, while his older brother Freddie Bauer is walking around the boat fascinated by the women. Allen jumps into the water, even though he cannot swim. He grasps the hands of a girl who is inexplicably under the water with him and an instant connection forms between the two. Allen can now breathe under water as he is in the hands of a mermaid. However, Allen is pulled to the surface by the deck hands and the two are separated, though apparently no one else sees the girl. After the ferry moves off, Allen looks back at the girl, who dives underwater showing her mermaid's tail. Allen comes to believe the encounter was a near-death hallucination, but his bond with the mermaid proves so strong that his subsequent relationships with women fail as he seeks the connection he felt with the mermaid.

Years later, Allen (Tom Hanks) is a co-owner of a wholesale fruit and vegetable business in New York City with his womanizing older brother Freddie (John Candy). Depressed after his latest breakup, Allen returns to Cape Cod, where he encounters eccentric scientist Dr. Walter Kornbluth (Eugene Levy) and again falls into the sea. He wakes up on a beach with a headache where he encounters a beautiful naked woman with long blonde hair, a necklace with a lion medal, and the inability to talk (Daryl Hannah) who, unknown to him, is the mermaid he met as a boy (her tail transforms into legs when it becomes dry). After kissing him, she dives into the sea and leaves Allen to return home. Kornbluth, while diving in order to seek proof of strange sea creatures, also encounters the mermaid in her sea form, causing him to become obsessed with finding her again.

The mermaid finds Allen's wallet in the water and goes to a sunken boat where she finds a map. Using Allen's wallet to find where he is from, she then decides to find him in New York. She comes ashore naked at the Statue of Liberty, where she is arrested for indecent exposure. Using information from Allen's wallet, the mermaid gets released into his care. She learns how to speak English from watching television, and says her name is a high-pitched chirp sound in the language of mermaids. She's eager to see a big city for the first time in her life, and she chooses the name Madison from a Madison Avenue sign. She tells Allen that she will be in New York for "six fun-filled days when the moon is full" and if she stays longer, she can never go home again (the reason for this is unexplained). Despite Madison's occasional unusual behavior, she and Allen fall in love. Allen proposes to Madison, but she declines and runs away. After pondering her reason for coming to the city in the first place, Madison returns to Allen and agrees to marry him, with the added promise of telling him the truth about herself at an upcoming dignitary dinner to welcome the President of the United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Meanwhile, Kornbluth, realizing that the naked woman at Liberty Island was the mermaid he had encountered, pursues the couple trying to expose her as a mermaid by splashing her with water. Many attempts are unsuccessful, and Kornbluth ends up with multiple injuries including a badly broken arm and whiplash. Kornbluth lies in wait with water tanks at the dignitary dinner, splashing Madison with an attached hose and successfully proving the existence of mermaids when government officials are surprised to see Madison's tail flapping in public. Madison is put under government study, headed by Kornbluth's rival Dr. Ross (Richard B. Shull) for examination. However, Kornbluth regrets his actions after he learns that Madison is due to be studied and dissected, as he just wanted to prove that he wasn't crazy.

Allen is shocked by Madison's secret and when he denies his love for her, Freddie lashes out at him, telling his brother how happy he was with her. Allen confronts a guilt-ridden Kornbluth, who agrees to help him.

Impersonating Swedish scientists, Freddie and Allen enter the lab with Kornbluth and smuggle Madison outside. Madison makes it back to the ocean and tells Allen that he can survive under water as long as he is with her. Allen realizes she was the young mermaid he had met so long before. The United States military arrive to recapture her, ignoring Allen's demands to let her be free. Although Madison warns him that if he comes to live in the sea he can't return, he jumps into the water and they elude their pursuers. Together they swim along the ocean floor toward what appears to be an underwater kingdom.

Cast

Cameos

Screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel both make cameo appearances in the film. Ganz plays Stan the Tour Guide in the scene set at the Statue of Liberty. Mandel plays the man in charge of ice skate rentals who tackles Tom Hanks' character when he tries to run out with his skates still on. Director Ron Howard's father, actor Rance Howard, can be seen early in the film as Mr. McCullough, an unhappy customer screaming at Allen about his cherries. Howard's brother Clint Howard can be seen as a wedding guest, identified by Candy's character as the bride's brother and yelled at by Hanks.

Production

According to the documentary on the Splash: 20th Anniversary Edition DVD in 2004, producer Brian Grazer had pitched the film to numerous studios but was turned down repeatedly until Walt Disney Productions, then headed by Ron Miller, agreed to produce the film. An issue at the time of production was the competition between Splash and another announced mermaid film from Warner Bros. that had lined up Warren Beatty as its star. Director Ron Howard promised the studio that Splash would be filmed more quickly and cheaply than the other film, which eventually fell through. Many big name actors such as Jeff Bridges, Chevy Chase, Richard Gere, Kevin Kline, Bill Murray, and John Travolta were all considered for the lead role before the producers decided on the then lesser known Tom Hanks. Before Daryl Hannah was cast as Madison, it had already been turned down by Tatum O'Neal, Michelle Pfeiffer, Lynne Frederick, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Genie Francis, Melanie Griffith, Fiona Fullerton, Diane Lane, Kathleen Turner and Sharon Stone.

Principal photography began on March 1, 1983 and completed on June 30, 1983 in Los Angeles, California and New York City, New York. The beach where Tom Hanks first encounters the nude Daryl Hannah is on the former Gorda Cay in the Bahamas.

Darryl Hannah's mermaid tail was designed and created by Academy Award-winning visual effects artist Robert Short.[1] The tail was fully functional. Hannah swam with the mermaid tail so fast that her safety team could not keep pace with her. According to the DVD documentary, Hannah had been swimming "mermaid" style with her legs bound together since she was a child, due to her fascination with Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" story. However, the exceptionally detailed film tail was difficult to remove. For the sake of efficiency, Hannah at first kept it on while the cast had lunch. In the documentary contained on the 20th-anniversary Splash! DVD, Tom Hanks recalled how the other cast members would drop French fries over the side of the tank to her as though she were a trained sea mammal, for she couldn't leave the water while her legs were "shrink-wrapped."

Reception

The movie was a huge financial success. It was produced on an US$8 million budget, grossing $6,174,059 in its opening weekend[2] and finished its domestic run with $69,821,334,[3] making it the tenth highest-grossing film of 1984.[4] The movie was also well received by critics and is considered to be one of the best films of 1984.[5][6][7][8] It earned a 92% "Fresh" rating from the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.[9]

Awards

Wins[10]
Nominations

American Film Institute Lists

Soundtrack releases

A soundtrack album of Lee Holdridge's music for the film was released on both vinyl LP and cassette in the UK by Cherry Lane Records Ltd in 1984, with the music re-recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer. Both have been out of print for many years. The catalogue numbers for these releases were PIPLP 710 and ZCPIP 710 respectively. In 2000 the original music was released on a twenty six track CD in the U.S. by Super Tracks Music Group. The back cover states that this product is "For Promotional Use Only" and that it has been "Manufactured for the composer...". Although this release is very hard to find brand new and may in fact be out of print, it is still obtainable from certain movie soundtrack specialist retailers and also occasionally used from certain online stores. This CD has every track that the LP and cassette have but has a considerably longer running length due to the twelve extra tracks. These extra tracks include more of the original music from the film, the theme song (by Lee Holdridge and Will Jennings) sung by Rita Coolidge and alternate versions of some of the tracks which appear on the LP and Cassette. The catalogue number for this release is LH CD – 02.

Cherry Lane album track listing

  1. "Love Came For Me (Love Theme)" (2:34)
  2. "Madison In Bloomingdale's" (1:37)
  3. "Mermaid On the Beach" (2:32)
  4. "Underwater" (2:20)
  5. "Reflection" (1:03)
  6. "Rainy Night" (2:40)
  7. "Face To Face" (1:25)
  8. "Escape And Chase" (2:54)
  9. "Madison And Allen" (3:04)
  10. "Moonlit Night" (2:56)
  11. "Daydream" (:55)
  12. "Raid On A Museum" (:50)
  13. "The Leap To Freedom" (3:35)
  14. "Return Home" (1:23)

Super Tracks album track listing

  1. "Main Title" (1:51)
  2. "First Meeting" (1:33)
  3. "The Boat/Mermaid On The Beach" (2:34)
  4. "Underwater – Version No. 1" (1:29)
  5. "Underwater – Version No. 2" (1:25)
  6. "Daydream" (:57)
  7. "Madison At Bloomingdale's" (1:09)
  8. "In The Bar" (2:12)
  9. "Late At Night" (2:35)
  10. "Watching TV" (1:24)
  11. "I Love You" (1:41)
  12. "Rainy Night" (2:38)
  13. "All Wet" (1:07)
  14. "Sneak Attack" (1:03)
  15. "Raid On A Museum" (:43)
  16. "Reunion" (1:21)
  17. "Escape And Chase" (2:55)
  18. "The Leap For Freedom" (2:20)
  19. "Return Home" (2:14)
  20. "Love Came To Me (Love Theme) – Rita Coolidge" (4:30)
  21. "End Title" (3:07)
  22. "Rainy Night – Version No. 2" (2:37)
  23. "Escape And Chase – Film Version" (2:54)
  24. "The Leap For Freedom – Film Version" (2:20)
  25. "Love Came For Me – Solo Sax Version" (2:36)
  26. "Love Came For Me – Solo Guitar Version" (3:48)

Legacy

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's 2006 book Freakonomics credits the film with popularizing the name "Madison" for girls, as does Steven Pinker's 2007 The Stuff of Thought. In the film, Daryl Hannah's character takes her name from Madison Avenue after walking past a road sign. Hanks' character comments that it is not a real name as, at the time, it was a rather unusual name for a woman. However, in the years since the film was released in theatres and re-released on VHS and then DVD, the name's popularity has skyrocketed.[14]

According to the Social Security Administration, the name "Madison" was the 216th most popular name in the United States for girls in 1990, the 29th most popular name for girls in 1995, and the 3rd most popular name for girls in 2000.[15] In 2005, the name finally cracked the top 50 most popular girls' names in the United Kingdom, and articles in British newspapers credit the film for the popularization. In a 2014 interview, Hannah commented on the irony of the name's popularity and subsequent acceptance as a standard first name given its origins as joke based on Madison being primarily known as a street name at the time:

It's funny because no one understands the irony, because the whole point of me choosing that name was because it [was such a] silly name...Obviously everyone knew it as the name of the street. No one really saw it as a first name and that was a joke. And now, of course it's not funny at all. It's just like, Oh, what a beautiful name!'…It was funny at the time and now it's not even ironic.[14]

Butch Hartman once credited the Eugene Levy character as the inspiration for his character of Denzel Crocker on The Fairly Oddparents. Both characters are obsessed with a certain legendary creature and spend their free time trying to prove that such creatures exist. In both cases, the characters have practically no social life and various enemies.

In Tom Green's 2001 film Freddy Got Fingered, when Gord is showing his cartoon "Zebras in America" to the head of the cartoon studio in an attempt to shop the drawings, he compares the cartoon to Splash calling it "A fish out of water story".

Actress and underwater stunt woman Mermaid Melissa's films, Real Life Adventures, are a tribute to Splash by replicating the mermaid tail used for the movie. Underwater scenes are filmed using the tail not only as a prop but as a functional swimming peripheral.

Film actor and underwater performer Merman Christian, uses fully functioning silicone tails that often feature the fin shape seen in Splash.

Spinoffs

See also

References

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  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs Nominees
  12. ↑ AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions Nominees
  13. ↑ AFI's 10 Top 10 Ballot
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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