Headless Body in Topless Bar (1995)

Interesting facts

• Filmed in: New York City and Los Angeles

Headless Body in Topless Bar is a 1995 American black comedy film directed by James Bruce and written by Peter Koper. The ensemble cast includes Raymond J. Barry, Rustam Branaman, Jennifer McDonald, Taylor Nichols, and David Selby. The film's title is taken from a 1983 headline in the New York Post written by Vincent Musetto, and the plot is loosely based on the events that inspired the headline.

Production

Vincent Musetto's famous headline first inspired writer and co-producer Peter Koper when it appeared in the New York Post in 1983. Koper, who called headlines the "haikus of our times," developed the screenplay with the headline as its title over the next decade, after first scripting the material for the stage. Notwithstanding the title, Headless Body in Topless Bar is only loosely based on the facts in the original news story.

Koper had first worked with director James Bruce four years earlier, collaborating on a dozen dramatic crime reenactments for Fox Television's America's Most Wanted, where Koper was a staff writer and producer.

Headless Body in Topless Bar was shot in eighteen days, three of which were spent shooting exteriors on location at the Baby Doll Lounge in Lower Manhattan. The remainder of the film was shot on a soundstage in Hollywood, California.

The ensemble cast worked for what Bruce and Koper called "hostage scale," earning Barry's pay for the day should they manage to steal the gun from him as per the plot. If they tried and failed, however, they paid their day's wages to Barry. Only Barry earned extra cash.

Bruce said he shot the film on a budget of four hundred thousand dollars.

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