Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) on Netflix
During Prohibition, Dorothy Parker trades barbs with the Vicious Circle at Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel. She leans on Robert Benchley, a Vanity Fair colleague, while her marriage falters.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.4/105,108 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes76%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan is the hub of the Vicious Circle, a set of writers, critics and actors who gather nearly every weekday during Prohibition. Alcohol fuels the talk at their table, and the group's meetings run from 1919 to 1929. Dorothy Parker is one of the circle and a successful writer, though her troubled marriage to a drug addict weighs on her. She works at Vanity Fair alongside Robert Benchley, and his friendship becomes a steady and genuine presence in her life. When the group stages an improvisational theatrical performance, Dorothy crosses paths with Charles MacArthur, and the two begin a relationship.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Robert Altman said he forced the film to be made by putting his own money into it, claiming he held his other projects hostage and did "a lot of lying" to get it financed.
- Director Alan Rudolph met Jennifer Jason Leigh at Robert Altman's 1992 Fourth of July party, was struck by her physical resemblance to Dorothy Parker, and cast her; she agreed to make the film for a tenth of her usual fee.
- During the 40-day shoot the cast stayed in a run-down hotel they nicknamed Camp Rudolph and played all-night poker; Leigh skipped these games to stay in character on and off camera.
- Jennifer Jason Leigh researched the part by staying a week at the Algonquin Hotel, reading Dorothy Parker's entire body of work and listening repeatedly to the two existing recordings of Parker's voice.
- The original cut began with a scene showing the founding of the Round Table at a party thrown by Alexander Woollcott after World War One; co-writer Randy Sue Coburn said it was removed because it was not "the real heart of it".
- Jennifer Beals said that because so much dialogue was improvised, many of the historical characters were not essential to the plot, so actors who had shot large parts were edited down to nearly nothing in the final cut.
- Alan Rudolph shot the film in Montreal because the building facades of its old city most closely resembled period New York City.
