Dudes, diciottenni arrabbiati (1987)

Curiosità

• Girato a: Arizona

Dudes is a 1987 American independent film directed by Penelope Spheeris, written by Randall Jahnson, and starring Jon Cryer, Catherine Mary Stewart, Daniel Roebuck, and Lee Ving. A Western revenge story in a contemporary setting, its plot concerns three punk rockers from New York City who attempt to make their way to California. When one of them is murdered by a vicious gang leader, the other two, played by Cryer and Roebuck, find themselves fish out of water as they pursue the murderer from Arizona to Montana, assisted by a tow truck driver played by Stewart.

Production

In writing Dudes, scriptwriter Randall Jahnson was partly inspired by visits to Old West locations which he felt were "frozen in time". In the early and mid-1980s, he later reflected, the punk and art rock scenes in Los Angeles were demonstrating a certain fascination with the West, exemplified by Wall of Voodoo performing cover versions of Spaghetti Western songs, the Dead Kennedys covering "Rawhide", and the Meat Puppets mixing punk with countr…

Jahnson pitched his script to producer Miguel Tejada-Flores of independent film company the Vista Organization as "punk rockers out in the wilds of Wyoming", which Tejada-Flores thought was an interesting idea, though a bit "out there" conceptually. He and fellow producer Herb Jaffe sought Ridley Scott to direct, but could not agree with him on the film's "vision". Penelope Spheeris first read the script in March 1986 and expressed interest.

Cinematographer Robert Richardson, who had recently finished working on Platoon (1986), personally approached Spheeris and expressed interest in working with her. Tejada-Flores and Jaffe had been impressed by Richardson's prior work, but did not think they could afford him; however, Richardson agreed to work within their cinematography budget.

Spheeris wanted Jahnson to be part of the casting process, and invited him to many of the casting sessions, which was not common practice for directors. Jon Cryer, who had recently gained attention for his role in the hit film Pretty in Pink, was attracted to the eclectic nature of Dudes' script as well as the opportunity to play the hero, which he had not done before.

Catherine Mary Stewart became interested in the role of Jessie because "she was a strong female character, which is important, and also was somebody who could ride horses, shoot a gun, she owned a garage...Part of my fantasy when I was a little girl was to do exactly all that stuff, and when I came on the set I had an idea of what my character should be and what I sort of developed for myself, and [Spheeris] was very supportive of that." In prepa…

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