Moon Over Parador

Moon Over Parador (1988)

He's not the first actor to impersonate a president... but he may be the last.

Underappreciated actor Jack Noah is on location in Parador at the time the dictator dies. The dictator's right-hand man makes Jack an offer he cannot refuse... to play the dictator. Jack's acting skills fool the masses but not close friends and employees of the dictator.

Date of release
1988-09-09
TMDB
5.9 / 10 (91)
Runtime
1h 43m
Genres
Comedy, Romance
Director
Paul Mazursky

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Rio de Janeiro and New York City

Moon Over Parador is a 1988 American romantic comedy film directed and produced by Paul Mazursky, who co-wrote the screenplay with Leon Capetanos. The film is based on the short story "Caviar for His Excellency" by Charles G. Booth and is a loose remake of the 1939 film The Magnificent Fraud. It stars Richard Dreyfuss as a little-known actor hired to impersonate a deceased Latin American dictator, with Raul Julia and Sônia Braga in supporting roles.

Production

The basic plot of Moon Over Parador came from a B film titled The Magnificent Fraud (1939), in which Akim Tamiroff played the actor-turned-dictator. The screenplay was written by Paul Mazursky and Leon Capetanos, who had previously collaborated on Tempest (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986). Mazursky had also worked with Richard Dreyfuss in the lattermost.

Mazursky and Capetanos invented the fictional country of Parador as the film's setting after traveling through Guatemala, El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica and researching "all the Latin American dictatorships" in April 1986. Mazursky said that the country could be "Paraguay or Ecuador or whatever you want it to be."

Principal photography began on August 17, 1987, and wrapped on October 26, 1987, with a budget of approximately $19–$20 million. The film was shot entirely on location in Rio de Janeiro, Ouro Preto, and Salvador de Bahia, Brazil and New York City.

Mazursky dressed up in drag to portray Momma, "the haughty, disdainful mother of a Caribbean dictator." He was credited as Carlotta Gerson, his mother's maiden name. Judith Malina had been hired to play the role, but was unable to make it due to another engagement in Germany.

The real President Alphonse Simms was played by Dreyfuss' older brother, Lorin, while Mazursky's wife and daughter, Betsy and Jill, appeared as woman at buffet and assistant director, respectively.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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