In Hollywood, you’re only as hot as your last movie. Very few actors and filmmakers have the clout to bounce back from a disaster of movie so easily in the grand scheme of things. After the surprise hit Wayne’s World released during February of 1992, Mike Myers was a hot commodity.
So, it was no surprise when Columbia TriStar was quick to get Myers on a contract as the actor was in his late 20s and probably wouldn’t stay on Saturday Night Live much longer. Wayne’s World had been his first movie but he had already showed diva-live behavior reportedly fighting with director Penelope Spheeris and he had even tried to get Dana Carvey recast as Garth for the movie. Spheeris has been vocal about how she feels Myers kept her from returning as director.
Later when he appeared in the first Austin Powers movie as Dr. Evil, Carvey felt cheated as he had originated the character’s persona and mannerisms as a parody of SNL producer Lorne Michaels. The long-time producer was also angry at Myers too as the inevitable sequel to Wayne’s World had gone into pre-production with sets being built as Myers wanted to do a remake of the 1949 British movie Passport to Pimlico. There was just one problem. They hadn’t obtained the rights. Sherry Lansing, head of Paramount Pictures at the time, which produced and distributed the movie, was furious as Myers and Michaels. This would cause friction between Michaels’ production company Broadway Video and Paramount for years.
So, Myers seemed to exhibit behavior, even if it was exaggerated, that would’ve ended a person’s career long before it could really take off. Could Myers be the 1990s answer to Klinton Spilsbury, the little known actor who appeared as John Reid in the 1981 notorious The Legend of the Lone Ranger? That would all bet on the success of So I Married an Axe Murderer and the Wayne World’s sequel.
Unfortunately, Axe Murderer seemed to be a hard sell to audiences in the summer of 1993. Despite his black comedy tone, the movie relies a lot on slapstick as well as Myers’ ability to play multiple characters. Playing a 20-something named Charlie Mackenzie in San Francisco, he seems to be a local beat poet who comes from an outrageous family. His father, Stuart (also Myers) is a brash Scottish-born conspiracy theorists who has a Scotland Walk of Fame devoted to Scotland-born celebrities and notable people. His mother, Mary (Brenda Fricker) has become obsessed with the outrageous weekly tabloids such as Weekly World News. There’s something funny as she says “That’s a fact” seriously with a lit cigarette between her fingers as she goes on about the tabloids as Charlie plays along.
The Scottish family scenes are the highlights of the movie as Charlie’s friend, Tony Giardino (Anthony LaPaglia), a San Francisco police officer, sits with Stuart as they watch a soccer match. You can actually see LaPaglia doing his hardest to keep it together as Myers keeps making me laugh as he talks in a thick Scottish accent doing an impression of Colonel Sanders. Stuart also constantly berates his younger son, William (Matt Doherty), who he calls “Heed” because of William’s big head made bigger by an ginger Jewfro.
Another highlight of the movie is a running gag where Tony doesn’t feel fulfilled in his job as he mostly works undercover but TV and the movies have lied to him. His captain (Alan Arkin) is actually a very supportive friendly superior and Tony wants him to be more gruff and a hard case. So, they’re constantly working on it. And there’s something funny how Tony tries to get him to say “paisan” correctly. These are part of the movie that are comic gold.
Yet the main story feels like it’s from a completely different movie. Charlie meets a butcher, Harriet Michaels (Nancy Travis), who Charlie immediately likes and hits it off well. However, Mary’s love for tabloid and true-crime news seems to make Charlie believe that Harriet may be “Mrs. X” a woman reported to have killed her husbands on their honeymoon with an axe. Considering Harriet is a butcher and seems to exhibit traits associated with Mrs. X, Charlie becomes worried.
The history of Axe Murderer originated in the 1980s as a project proposed by producers Robert N. Fried and Cary Woods about a Jewish man in New York City who is paranoid about relationships. Reportedly, Woody Allen was approached to play the lead and came close to starring. Other actors such as Albert Brooks, Chevy Chase and Martin Short were considered but all reportedly had issues with the character as it was written by Robbie Fox.
After Columbia TriStar and their parent company, Sony, got Myers on board, he rewrote the script with his friend Neil Mullarkey, who’s British. However, Hollywood gossip led to Axe Murderer becoming tabloid fodder itself as it was reported Myers didn’t want Fox to get writing credit. The writer reportedly refused a “Story by” credit resulting in arbitration by the Writers Guild of America where he got sole credit despite the final movie not having much of his work. This upset Fried and Woods who felt Mullarkey (who famously appeared as the invetory clerk during the penis pump scene in Austin Powers) should’ve received credit as he contributed more to the script.
Because it was written by two sets of writers who had two different ideas, the relationship story between Charlie and Harriet seems pushed to subplot era until the final act. Myers and Travis actually have some good chemistry and a scene in which Charlie helps Harriet out at the butcher shop as a Monty Pythonesque vibe to it. However, once the movie introduces Harriet’s sister, Rose (Amanda Plummer), you know where this movie is headed. Originally, Sharon Stone was interested in playing both Harriet and Rose, which might have given the movie a more black comedy vibe. It would be like the way Kathleen Turner parodied her femme fatale breakthrough role in Body Heat by going on to appear in the Steve Martin/Carl Reiner comedy The Man With Two Brains.
So, when the movie begins to focus more on the Mrs. X issue, it feels too rushed, even though they’re are some nice cameos by Charles Grodin as motorist who doesn’t want to give Tony a ride and Steven Wright as a pilot with narcolepsy. And the late Phil Hartman appears as a gruff tour guide on Alcatraz who goes by “Vicky.” The movie itself seems a little foreshadowing of Hartman’s own fate as less than five years later, he would be shot and killed by his third wife, Brynn.
Axe Murderer seems to be a victim of Hollywood gossip as director Thomas Schlamme did admit he and Myers had difference on how the movie should be but they didn’t really fight. Other reports had indicated the two stopped talking to each other before principal photography ended. Regardless, the movie did have high test audience scores. And following the low box-office of Last Action Hero a month before, Columbia TriStar and its parent company Sony needed a big comedy hit.
Unfortunately, it didn’t happen with the movie only making $11.5 million in America and Canada and $27 million worldwide against a $20 million budget. Myers’ second movie in 1993 Wayne’s World 2 fared better at the box office but it was in a very competitive Christmas season. It may be that the summer of 1993 was a difficult summer as Coneheads had been a flop as well. And since it opened a week before Axe Murderer, maybe some audiences felt it was too much at once with the SNL movies.
Now, Axe Murderer, like Last Action Hero, is considered a cult classic as it found its audience on cable and the home video market. There’s even been speculation that the Scottish family scenes inspired the Klump family scenes in The Nutty Professor remake with Eddie Murphy. Myers has had ups and downs through his career. He stayed on SNL but left willingly during the 1994-1995 season, which is considered one of the worst.
He just seems to be one of those actors who is at his best when he’s pretending to be a character with a certain accent or hiding behind make-up and prosthetics. Even his role on The Gong Show in 2017 and 2018, he played a British persona Tommy Maitland.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 