Hudson Hawk is a 1991 American action comedy film directed by Michael Lehmann.^[3] Bruce Willis stars in the title role and also co-wrote the story. Danny Aiello, Andie MacDowell, James Coburn, David Caruso, Lorraine Toussaint, Frank Stallone, Sandra Bernhard, and Richard E. Grant are also featured.^[4]

The live action film makes heavy use of cartoon-style slapstick, including sound effects, which enhances the movie's signature surreal humour. The plot combines material based on conspiracy theories, secret societies, and historic mysteries, as well as outlandish "clockpunk" technology à la Coburn's Our Man Flint movies of the 1960s.^[5]

A recurring plot device in the film has Hudson and his partner Tommy "Five-Tone" (Aiello) singing songs concurrently but separately, to time and synchronize their exploits. Willis-Aiello duets of Bing Crosby's Swinging on a Star and Paul Anka's Side by Side feature on the film's soundtrack.

Plot[link]

Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins (Bruce Willis) —  "Hudson Hawk" is an expression that refers to the often bracing winds off of the Hudson river — is a master burglar and safe-cracker, attempting to celebrate his first day of parole from prison with a cappuccino. Before he can get it, he is blackmailed by various entities, including his own parole officer, a minor Newark Mafia family headed by the Mario brothers (a reference to Nintendo's Mario Bros.), and the CIA into doing several dangerous art heists with his singing partner in crime, Tommy "Five-Tone" Messina (Danny Aiello).

The holders of the puppet strings turn out to be a "psychotic American corporation," Mayflower Industries, run by husband and wife Darwin (Richard E. Grant) and Minerva Mayflower (Sandra Bernhard) and a blade-slinging butler, Alfred (Donald Burton). The company, headquartered in the Esposizione Universale Roma (E.U.R.) in Rome, seeks to take over the world by reconstructing "La Macchina dell'Oro", a machine purportedly invented by Leonardo da Vinci (Stefano Molinari) which converts lead into gold. A special assembly of crystals needed for the machine to function are hidden in a variety of Leonardo's artworks: the maquette of the Sforza, the Da Vinci Codex, and a scale model of DaVinci's helicopter design. Sister Anna Baragli (Andie MacDowell) is an operative for a secretive Vatican counter-espionage agency, which has arranged with the CIA to assist in the Roman portion of Hawk's mission, though apparently intending all along to foil the robbery at St. Peter's Basilica.

Throughout the adventure, Hudson is foiled in repeated attempts to drink a cappuccino. After blowing up an auctioneer to cover up the theft of the Sforza, the Mario Bros. take Hawk away inside an ambulance, but when Hawk sticks needles into Antony Mario's face they try to run him down (as the stretcher Hawk is on falls out of the ambulance as it speeds along the highway), but are both killed when their driver crashes the ambulance due to the needles in Antony's face. Immediately afterwards, Hawk meets CIA head George Kaplan (James Coburn) and his CIA agents: Snickers (Don Harvey), Kit Kat (David Caruso), Almond Joy (Lorraine Toussaint), and Butterfinger (Andrew Bryniarski), who take him to Darwin and Minerva Mayflower. Hawk successfully steals the Da Vinci Codex from another museum, but eventually refuses to steal the helicopter design, and Tommy Five-Tone fakes his death so they can escape. However, they are found and attacked by the CIA Agents. Kit Kat and Butterfinger take Anna to the castle. Tommy trips Snickers, causing his bomb launcher to shoot a bomb onto his head. Hudson and Tommy escape while Snickers and Almond Joy are killed when the bomb goes off.

The film culminates in a showdown at Leonardo's castle, between the remaining CIA agents, the Mayflowers, and the team of Hudson, Five-Tone, and Baragli, to stop the Mayflowers from successfully operating the machine, during which Kit Kat and Butterfingers are betrayed and killed by Minerva. Tommy fights Darwin and Alfred inside Darwin's limo, while Hudson fights George Kaplan on the roof, and knocks him on top of the limo. Alfred, though wounded, jumps out of the limo with Darwin and plants a bomb on it, with Tommy trapped inside and George on the hood, and it explodes just as it falls over a cliff. Darwin and Minerva force Hawk to put together the crystal powering the machine, but Hawk intentionally leaves out one small piece. As a result, when the Mayflowers try the machine, it explodes and kills Minerva. In the battle that follows, Darwin is electrocuted and Hawk battles Alfred, and eventually decapitates him on his own blades. Hawk and Baragli escape the castle and discover that Tommy survived the crash due to airbags and sprinklers inside the limo. Hawk finally gets to enjoy a cappuccino.

Cast[link]

• Bruce Willis as Eddie Hawkins/Hudson Hawk^[6]
• Danny Aiello as Tommy "Five-Tone" Messina
• Andie MacDowell as Anna Baragli
• James Coburn as George Kaplan
• Sandra Bernhard as Minerva Mayflower
• Richard E. Grant as Darwin Mayflower
• Donald Burton as Alfred
• Andrew Bryniarski as Butterfinger
• David Caruso as Kit Kat
• Lorraine Toussaint as Almond Joy
• Don Harvey as Snickers
• Doug Martin as Igg
• Steve Martin as Ook
• Leonardo Cimino as The Cardinal
• Frank Stallone as Cesar Mario
• Carmine Zozzara as Antony Mario
• Emily Eby as Peppermint Patty
• William Conrad as The Narrator

Reception[link]

The film received very negative critical reviews and was overall a box office bomb.^{[7][8][9][10][11]} James Brundage of AMC filmcritic said the film was "so implausible and so over the top that it lets inconsistency roll off like water on a duck's back."^[12] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said of the film, "A movie this unspeakably awful can make an audience a little crazy. You want to throw things, yell at the actors, beg them to stop."^[13] It was also subjected to extensive criticism at Agony Booth in its mega recap.^[14] It received three Razzie Awards for Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst Picture with additional nominations for Worst Actor (Bruce Willis), Worst Supporting Actor (Richard E. Grant) and Worst Supporting Actress (Sandra Bernhard). In his autobiography, With Nails, Richard E. Grant diarises the production of the film in detail, noting the ad-hoc nature of the production and extensive rewriting and replotting during the actual filming. Willis went on to become one of the leading box-office stars of the 1990s, but has not made any further forays into scriptwriting.

Part of the reason for the box office failure is that the film is clearly intended as an absurd comedy and yet was marketed as an action film one year after the success of Die Hard 2. When the film came to home video the tag line "Catch The Adventure, Catch The Excitement, Catch The Hawk" was changed to "Catch The Adventure, Catch The Laughter, Catch The Hawk".^[15]

Effect on TriStar Pictures[link]

Hudson Hawk has the dubious distinction of being the final film produced by TriStar Pictures prior to their being bought out and merged with Columbia Pictures (which was going through similar financial difficulties). Because Hawk (in conjunction with other unsuccessful films from the same studio) had lost so much money, the Sony Corporation had to salvage TriStar by purchasing its remaining stock, and by reorganizing the company as part of the recently-formed Sony Studios. As with United Artists when they were bought out by MGM, Columbia and Tri-Star were allowed to keep their own logos, and to continue making movies under their own names.

(Interestingly, TriStar was first formed under similar circumstances: with stock purchased from Lord Grade's now-defunct ITC, following the costly failure of four ambitiously-expensive movies: Can't Stop The Music, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Raise The Titanic, and Saturn 3.)

Soundtrack[link]

Music composed and conducted by Michael Kamen for the film. Released by Varèse Sarabande in 1991, there are eleven tracks in all.

1. "Hudson Hawk Theme" - Dr. John (05:38)
2. "Swinging on a Star" - Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello (02:53) - Sung in incorrect order of verses (the plot device in the movie refers to the original track length as 5:32)
3. "Side by Side" - Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello (02:18) (the plot device in the film refers to the original track length as 6:00)
4. "Leonardo" (04:55)
5. "Welcome to Rome" (01:46)
6. "Stealing the Codex" (01:58)
7. "Igg and Ook" (02:22)
8. "Cartoon Fight" (02:54)
9. "The Gold Room" (05:57)
10. "Hawk Swing" (03:41)
11. "Hudson Hawk Theme" (instrumental) (05:18)

The song "The Power" by Snap! is featured, although not included on the soundtrack, when Hudson Hawk is taken for the first time to the headquarters of the Mayflowers. Minerva Mayflower, played by Sandra Bernhard, is sitting on a desk singing the song while it is being played on her headphones.

Video game[link]

A video game based on the film was released in 1991 under the title "Hudson Hawk" for various home computers and game consoles. Sony Imagesoft released versions of the game for the NES and Game Boy, while Ocean Software released it for the Commodore 64, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, and Atari ST. It is a side-scrolling game where the player, as the Hawk, must steal the Sforza and the Codex from the auction house and the Vatican, respectively. Then Castle Da Vinci has to be infiltrated in order to steal the mirrored crystal needed to power the gold machine. On his journey, Hawk must face many oddball adversaries, including dachshunds that try to throw him off the roof of the auction house, janitors, photographers, killer nuns, and a tennis player (presumably Darwin Mayflower).

References[link]

External links[link]

• Hudson Hawk at the Internet Movie Database
• Hudson Hawk at AllRovi
• Hudson Hawk at Box Office Mojo
• Hudson Hawk at Rotten Tomatoes

Andie MacDowell
MacDowell at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival
Born	Rosalie Anderson MacDowell (1958-04-21) April 21, 1958 (age 54) Gaffney, South Carolina, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, model
Years active	1984–present
Spouse	Paul Qualley (1986–99) Rhett Hartzog (2001–04)
Children	Justin Qualley (b. 1986) Rainey Qualley (b. 1989) Sarah Margaret Qualley (b. 1995)

Rosalie Anderson "Andie" MacDowell (born April 21, 1958) is an American model and actress. She has received the Goldene Kamera and an Honorary César.

Early life[link]

Andie MacDowell was born in Gaffney, South Carolina, the daughter of Pauline "Paula" Johnston (née Oswald), a music teacher, and Marion St. Pierre MacDowell, a lumber executive.^[1][2] She is of part Scottish descent.^[3] Her family owned an Antebellum period summer house in Arden, North Carolina, which has since been made into a bed-and-breakfast named the Blake House Inn. Graffiti from her childhood visits is preserved in an upstairs bedroom closet. She attended Winthrop College for two years before moving briefly to Columbia, South Carolina. There she worked two jobs; one in a clothing boutique and the other in a restaurant/bar called "Stage Door". "Rosie," as she was known locally, lived with her sister, Beverly, and saved all her money so she could move to New York City and start her career.^{[says who?]} She was initially spotted by a rep from Wilhelmina Models while on a trip to Los Angeles before she would later sign with Elite Model Management in New York City.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

MacDowell at Cannes Film Festival, 2001

In the early 1980s, MacDowell modelled for Vogue magazine and appeared in ad campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent, Vassarette, Armani perfume, Sabeth-Row, Mink International, Anne Klein and Bill Blass. She worked with such esteemed photographers as Bruce Weber, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn and Herb Ritts among others.^{[citation needed]} A series of billboards in Times Square and national television commercials for Calvin Klein drew attention to her and led to her 1984 film debut in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, a role in which her lines were dubbed by Glenn Close because her southern accent was too pronounced for her to play the role of an Englishwoman.^[4] In 1985, she had a small part in St. Elmo's Fire.

MacDowell studied method acting with teachers from the Actors Studio, in addition to working privately with the renowned coach Harold Guskin.^{[citation needed]} Four years later, director Steven Soderbergh cast her in the independent film Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989). Her performance earned her an Independent Spirit Award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress, several other award nominations and led to a series of starring roles in films such as Green Card, The Object of Beauty, and Short Cuts. In the 1990s, MacDowell achieved stardom due to the box office success of the 1993 comedy by Harold Ramis, Groundhog Day, and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), opposite Hugh Grant. Groundhog Day and Four Weddings and a Funeral remain MacDowell's biggest box office hits.

Since 1986, MacDowell has appeared in print and television advertisements for the cosmetic and haircare company L'Oréal.

In September 2010, MacDowell joined the cast of Fox's drama series Lone Star,^[5] which was canceled after two aired episodes due to low ratings.

In 2012 she is playing in the TV series Jane by Design.

Personal life[link]

MacDowell was married from 1986 to 1999 to fellow former model and rancher Paul Qualley, whom she met while both were posing for Gap ads. The couple have a son, Justin, and two daughters, Rainey (Miss Golden Globe 2012^[6]) and Sarah Margaret.^[7] She was married to businessman Rhett Hartzog from 2001 to 2004.^[7]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Andie MacDowell

• Andie MacDowell at the Internet Movie Database
• E!Online 1999 article and interview