DEATH BECOMES HER (1992)

MORGAN'S GRADE

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Helen and Madeline hate each other. Madeline is married to Ernest, who is having an affair with Helen. Both women rely on Ernest for plastic surgery for their continued good looks, so when Madeline finds a cure for aging, Helen gets it, too. It isn't until both become immortal that they realize that "life" will never be the same again.

Bruce Willis (Ernest Menville), Meryl Streep (Madeline Ashton), Goldie Hawn (Helen Sharp), Isabella Rossellini (Lisle Von Rhoman), ian Ogilvy (Chagall), Adam Strike (Dakota), Nancy Fish (Rose), Alaina Reed Hall (Psychologist), Michelle Johnson (Anna), Mary Ellen Trainor (Vivian Adams), William Frankfather (Mr. Franklin), John Ingle (Eulogist), Clement von Franckenstein (Opening Man), Petrea Burchard (Opening Woman), Jonathan Silverman (Jay Norman), Fabio (Lisle's Bodyguard), Sydney Pollack (Emergency Room Doctor, uncredited).

YOUR BASIC BLACK COMEDY.

FACTS

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

RELEASE DATE: July 31st, 1992 (USA) BOX OFFICE OPENING: $12.1 million (USA) BOX OFFICE RESULT: $58.4 million (USA) WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: $149 million - Actress and comedian Tracey Ullman shot scenes as Toni, a bartender, that were deleated after test screenings. Ullman appeared in the trailers and after filming what director Zemeckis referred to as a "saccharine ending": Ernest and Toni escaping to Europe, Zemeckis decided to opt for a darker ending, and Ullman's character was one of seven or eight actors with speaking roles that was cut. - Meryl Streep accidentally scarred Goldie Hawn's cheek with a shovel during the fight scene. - In the scene where Helen sits down onto a shovel handle, she didn't sit in the way she was expected to do, so the SFX people had to morph the image to make it look like the shovel handle was pushing up into her chest. - Winner of one Academy Award Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

DIRECTOR: Robert Zemeckis. WRITERS: Martin Donovan and David Koepp. PRODUCERS: Robert Zemeckis and Steve Starkey. ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Rick Porras. CO-PRODUCER: Joan Bradshaw. ORIGINAL MUSIC: Geoffrey Aymar (songs) and Alan Silvestri. DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures.

QUOTES

Madeline: My ass! I can see my ass!

[Helen has a gaping hole in her abdomen.] Madeline: You're a walking lie Helen, and I can see right through you.

Lisle Von Rhuman: This is life's ultimate cruelty. It offers us a taste of youth and vitality, and then it makes us witness our own decay.

Madeline: Wrinkled, wrinkled little star...hope they never see the scars.

Ernest: Where did you put my wife? Doctor: She's dead, sir. They took her to the morgue. Ernest: The morgue? She'll be furious!

CRITICAL COMMENT

"Effects-laden comedy of absurd extremes is told with too heavy a hand, though Streep is a hoot as the egomaniacal actress." -- Leonard Maltin