Crimewave: Screenplay vs movie
I just finished reading the original shooting script for Crimewave, or The XYZ Murders as it is titled on the script (it says it is the final draft, and is dated 25th August 1983). Naturally, the script presents a rather different version of the story, as it was written before Embassy Pictures interfered with the film and insisted on reshoots. Here's a brief account of the differences:
* The wraparound segments in Hudsucker Penitentiary are not in the script, which instead begins on a helicopter shot over Detroit that culminates in the scene where Trent calls the exterminators to order the hit on Odegard. Aside from the wraparounds, the script plays out largely as it does in the film, aside from the following exceptions and a few other small ones not worth reporting here.
* The character of Vic is written less as the bespectacled geek seen in the film, and more just as a "good-looking young man" who just happens to lack any grace or social skills. It is hence much more believable that a younger Bruce Campbell could have played the part, as was originally intended.
* By contrast, the character of Renaldo (just referred to as "Heel" in the script) does not appear in the scene with Vic and Nancy in the hotel lobby (the scene just plays out between Vic and Nancy), and the scene where he negotiates a deal with Odegard and blows the fancy "dancing girl" smoke shape is missing altogether. These bits were added once Embassy shot down Bruce being cast as Vic, and Sam beefed up the role of the Heel for him.
* Crush initially tries to get into Mrs Trend's apartment by using the dead body of Colonel Rodgers (Emil Sitka's character), whom he has just killed, like a puppet and doing an impression of him through the door.
* Whilst running away from Crush in the Parade Of Protection, Mrs Trend grabs two knives and stabs at a figure in the darkness - who turns out to be Mr Trend, who survived his earlier attack from Arthur but then dies. Crush appears in a strobe-lit doorway, carrying two mannequin heads (a shot from this appears in the film's trailer, and was used as the front cover of the UK video cover); it is then Mrs Trent accidentally escapes in the box being sent to Uruguay, as in the film.
* The tone of the script is generally more violent and excessive; for example, Vic is practically beaten to a bloody, gory pulp by Arthur whilst trying to save Nancy from the exterminators during the car chase on the motorway.
* During said chase, Vic is briefly aided by a gang called the Motor City Madmen - two of them are violently killed by Arthur, at which point the other two callously drive away and leave them to it.
* The ending is drastically different, and much longer than in the film: after the cars crash on the bridge, Vic saves Nancy from the Oldsmobile toppling into the water. It is then Crush attacks him (he does it before in the film); as he hurtles into Vic, the two are sent through a manhole into the sewers, where the climactic fight takes place. Vic and Crush hurtle through the sewer via a water current, and wind up on a ledge where they have a battle using sewer pipes. (The script strikingly describes them fighting through gas from a burst pipe like "two ancient Samurai warriors, floating in mist".) Whilst fighting, they enter a tunnel and fall into an abandoned part of the sewer surrounded by rats and the skeletons of dead sewage workers. The sewer begins to flood with water from a burst pipe, the water level getting higher and higher; not to mention, an exposed cable swings above, sparks flying. Vic manages to get out of the water as Crush is viciously attacked by the rats; he throws them off, but just as he is about to kill Vic, the power cable makes contact with the water and Crush is fatally electrocuted. A whirlpool forms in the water, which sucks Crush's body and Vic in through a hole in the ground, sending them through another series of pipes and spitting Vic out into the Detroit River. As he washes up on the shore, apparently dead, Nancy runs to him, grieving and confessing her love. Whilst she isn't looking, however, Vic opens his eyes, awake and listening to every word! He winks at the camera, which pans up into the sunrise. The End.
It's easy to see reading this how Raimi and the Coens would feel like disowning the finished film, especially baring into account how further insult was made by Embassy replacing Raimi's choices of editor and composer, Kaye Davis and Joseph Lo Duca, respectively. (Lo Duca still scored the third act of the film, however, except for that crappy end title song, of course.) Truth be told, even if it had been filmed as is, and Raimi had total artistic control, the film would still be something of a mess.
Even so, it would still have been a better film, with its own wacked-out integrity preserved, and the excesses subsequently pruned by Embassy would make the film more memorable and give it better shape. (I'm dying to know what the filmed version of the sewer finale would have been like!) Sadly, the likelihood of a Director's Cut is dismal, since according to Raimi, Embassy cut into the original negative when re-editing the film. Odds are the deleted scenes have long since been lost to the ravages of time. A terrible shame, as a preservation of Raimi's original cut would be a instant classic in the Raimi canon, albeit a flawed one (or as Raimi said in the Evil Dead Companion, "it would have been a whole letter grade better").
Give a thousand monkeys a thousand laptops and they'd all be writing their stupid opinions on IMDB.