Pretty Woman

The screenplay began as 3000 by J. F. Lawton, and it was a different animal: Edward threw Vivian out of the car and drove off, and her cocaine habit was written into the arrangement. Studio executives required the whole thing be rebuilt as a modern fairy tale and rejected the original title on the grounds that it sounded like science fiction. That rebuild left a seam you can see. The drug material survives in one scene and never returns, so her past is asserted rather than dramatised. The second thing to know is how the running time is divided. Close to a third of Garry Marshall’s film is occupied with the hostile takeover of a shipbuilding company, which means anyone who came for the romance spends a fair stretch waiting through boardroom scenes. The single most replayed beat was not written at all: the snap of the necklace box was improvised and the startled laugh from Julia Roberts is a real reaction. The picture is most alive in accidents of that kind. Several actresses turned the part down, one calling the premise icky and another calling it degrading to women. Al Pacino read with Roberts and chose The Godfather Part III instead. The budget was fourteen million dollars, and the body on the publicity poster belongs to a double.