Size does matter

The perfect follow-up to my ANT-MAN review.

As I’ve mentioned before (ad nauseam) David Isaacs and I wrote the 1985 Tom Hanks-John Candy movie, VOLUNTEERS. Happily, it still airs some thirty years later. Recently it was on HBO. (Ka-ching!)

The director, Nicholas Meyer graciously allowed David and me to participate in editing. Basically, we just watched. We’re not stupid.

Back in those days the editors worked on movieolas, splicing strips of film, physically attaching them, and then previewing on a machine with a monitor the size of an ipad mini.

In VOLUNTEERS, Tom Hanks, John Candy, and Rita Wilson play characters who join the Peace Corps and wind up in Thailand in 1962. Tim Thomerson plays the Peace Corps leader who is sweet on Rita Wilson. He’s also a fucking nutcase. We wanted to hint at that by having him give Rita a little present – a small statue of a Siamese Prince. These were common items. But the key feature on this particular one was a large protruding penis.

Nick cut the scene together and we noticed he cut to a close up of the statue. David and I said, “You can’t do that. On the big screen that's going to be horrifying. You can’t tell here on a 5” monitor but on a giant silver screen all hell will break loose.” Nick worried that if we stayed in the master that the statue wouldn’t have enough impact, and the penis might not even register.

He was the director so we bowed to him.

Once the film was all assembled we put together a screening for a test audience. It was held in the main theater on the 20th Century Fox lot that seats – I dunno – five or six hundred. Maybe a thousand?  Who knows?  David and I sat in the last row taking notes.

The infamous moment arrived when the statue was revealed and this giant penis filled the entire screen.  Every woman in the theater screamed in bloody horror. David and I had to slip out into the lobby where we were proceeded to laugh hysterically through the rest of the picture.

Needless to say, the close up came out. I’m only sorry the preview wasn’t on an IMAX screen in 3D. I think I’d still be rolling on the ground.

The moral here is that size does matter – but sometimes the smaller the better.