There are a few oddities to mention about this film:
First, it’s very similar to a film that was made just three years earlier (The Operation, 1990, is on YouTube in its entirety. My lengthy overview of Malice is here.)
In both films, a wife is subjected to an unnecessary hysterectomy. Apparently devastated, she sues the doctor for an enormous amount.
SPOILER
The ol’ switcheroo? It turns out the woman and the doctor are in cahoots and plan to split the money, which would be provided by his malpractice insurance.
Oh, the sub-plots are different, and the dialogue is not identical, but the essence of the films is identical. I guess such an instant reboot of a TV film to a theatrical release could make sense in a certain context. I mean people go to Broadway shows a second time when the cast changes, and this was basically the same film with a different cast. On the other hand, perhaps that explanation makes less sense in this case because this is a production that hinges on the surprise plot twist, which means you know the twist of the second film if you have seen the first, and there’s no other compelling reason to see the second if you know the solution to the mystery.
Unless you want to see Nicole Kidman’s butt, which I admit is not that bad a reason.
Second, Nicole Kidman wore nipple patches.
Nicole, as you know, is an absolute stalwart in the history of screen nudity, one of the all-time greats. She has now done nude scenes in five different decades, and shows no signs of slowing down. Directly to the point of this specific film, she had just done full-frontal nudity in Billy Bathgate, which makes it seem odd that she suddenly acquired some modesty for brief, insignificant breast exposure in this film, especially given her unobstructed rear nudity in the same film.
Something doesn’t add up, but I don’t know the explanation.
I mean, I know it seems a wild suggestion in these parts, but the nipple covers might have been at Pullman’s request instead of hers. But perhaps he found it too distracting to also act?
It is very common for nipple covers, etc. to be done by the company making the movie, not the actors. They decide which scenes they want to show nipple and when they don’t. I’ve watched tv series where and actress wears a nipple cover during one sex scene and then later in the same episode she isn’t wearing nipple covers in another sex scene. The way the scene is cut it is clear the show didn’t want to show nipples in one scene, but made sure you see nipples in the other one. This decision is more often made by the people doing the snow than the actors themselves.
It is also very common for them to film a scene 2 or 3 different times where the actress is dressed completely differently. In one she is modestly covered, in the 2nd one she is half naked and in the 3rd one she is completely nude. This is done because they production company may release different versions in different regions or because maybe they aren’t exactly sure how much they will want to show. People shouldn’t think it’s the actors calling these shots. I know the Hollywood press wants everyone to think that actors and directors make all decisions, but in reality that is almost never the case. They lie about it as they prefer the audience to believe it. These huge companies do what they want and the actors go along with it. If the actors don’t go along with it, these companies simply find another actor.
None of that really seems relevant to this film. It’s difficult to conceive of a reason to cover the side of her nipple for two frames when the camera behind her nearly shot up her rectum.
(And the nipple cover probably wasn’t even seen for several years. It could only be seen with freeze-frame, and freeze-frame was difficult and low-res in the VHS era. I didn’t realize the nipple cover was there until the film appeared on DVD. I previously assumed the scene was shot and edited to prevent a nipple from being seen.)
1993 was the year NYPD Blue started showing on ABC, a time when it was acceptable to show rear nudity on network TV and sideboob but not nipples. Maybe the nipple cover was placed there by the film studio to allow the film to be shown on Network TV – at the time, a far more lucrative option for the film studio than cable. Sure, no one at home would have been able to tell the difference, but being able to say to the TV censors “we used nipple covers so this will be ok for you” would have probably mattered for negotiations.
That doesn’t really address the question of why they would use pasties for two frames of sideboob, when they could have just edited out any stray nipple.
The editing would have been a better option, since it would mean that they also had unedited footage that could be used to create a separate cut and sell a few more DVDs. The key point is that if you have the nude footage, you can easily create a non-nude version, but it doesn’t work in reverse.
Given from what I know of these things, an overzealous compliance lawyer or executive in the studio is always a possibility for a weird decision like this.
Could well be that an executive had control over what happened in shooting but not in editing and they wanted to make double sure no nipples are shown, for whatever reason.
There’s a coincidence – Debrah Farentino did a nude scene in “Malice”, the subject of this post, and was also as nude as women were allowed to be on NYPD Blue.
I mean, I think that is also a crucial factor, that movies made at the time were working on the principle of “It’s not like anyone is going to be able pause this and blow it up with pristine resolution!” I think about the bit in How To Succeed In Business where “Jane Curtin” is stripping in the background, but the woman in the background is NOT Jane Curtin, but we can really only tell that now with our ability to pause and blow up, something audiences never could have done when the movie was made.
Man, this is much more complex than some people think. If the studio really wants an actress for a film or project, but the actress doesn’t want to be nude for a scene, they simply hire a body double and that’s it (there are thousands of examples of this in Hollywood and even outside of Hollywood).
And if the actress is very famous, she has even greater bargaining power… It’s no coincidence that Zendaya was the only actress in the main cast of Euphoria who didn’t appear nude in the series. She even has a few sex scenes, but she’s always clothed, and there are her scenes of implied nudity, blurred out. So yes, it depends on a lot of things, there are a lot of variables. There are cases of actresses who appear to be nude, but in reality it’s just CGI; the actress wasn’t even actually nude, as is the case with that famous scene with Jessica Alba in the shower in movie machete, and several other films that have examples of this.
Kidman is the main reason to see the film, but Baldwin gives a fun performance, too.
That’s a very fair point. It was a role that required him to act as arrogant and crazy as possible, because the essence of the conspiracy meant that the more he lost in the suit, the greater his half of the split. To maximize his take, he would need the jury to hate him as much as possible, and to find him totally irresponsible, so he delivered an utterly hammy level of arrogant ass.
(In other words, pretty similar to his own personality.)
Comparing him to Joe Penny in the 1990 version was like comparing Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday to Dennis Quaid’s in those two Wyatt Earp movies that came out at the same time. Quaid and Penny tried to create believable characters from larger-than-life roles, but who cares? Baldwin and Kilmer brought the fun!
Small nit. Dennis Quaid played Doc, Costner was Wyatt.
Thanks. I didn’t even realize I had done that. Thinking of both guys, got distracted.
All said & done: legendary butt shot, best of the 90s?
I’ve been intrigued by the absence of any credit to the original writer/ movie and that the screenplay is credited to future heavyweights Aaron Sorkin and Scott Frank.
I’ve always found that mystifying. There were no lawsuits, at least not to my knowledge. And whatever happened to Douglas Stefen Borghi, the alleged writer of The Operation? In 1995, he just disappeared from the face of the Earth. There is a newspaper article about him in April 1995. He was to speak at a writers’ conference at Chapman University. After that, there’s not a single mention anywhere in any newspaper in the USA. No obituary. Nothing. Dead silence.
Yet he had been involved in some high profile projects in the 1980s, public records show he was a real person, not a pseudonym, born in May 1950. What happened to him? How could he just disappear from both IMDb and Newspapers.com? Did he continue his career under another name? Did he go into witness protection? I don’t know. The trail just stops dead.
Incidentally, he has two entries at IMDb: Douglas Stefen Borghi and Douglas Borghi
Interesting. Thanks.
I don’t know if you noticed this, but for some reason, the sole entry in IMDb against Douglas Borghi doesn’t show up in the WGA records.
I did not notice that.
Variety gave that film a good review. Both IMDb and Variety say that he wrote and directed.
TMDB lists that one and his other scripts under the same name.
Have you ever seen his 1995 film, An Element of Truth?
I stumbled on the Variety review right after I read your first comment. I’ve put both that movie and An Element of Truth on my watchlist.
Thanks.