The Boys (1991)

The Boys (aka The Guys) is a drama/black comedy television film starring James Woods and John Lithgow. It was directed by Glenn Jordan, who had previously worked with Woods on the 1986 TV movie Promise and later worked with Woods again in 1994 for the TV drama film Jane's House. The film first aired on September 15, 1991 on the ABC Network.

Background

The film stars James Woods as Walter Farmer and John Lithgow as Artie Margulies. Others in the film include Joanna Gleason as Marie, Eve Gordon as Amanda, Alan Rosenberg as the psychiatrist and Rosemary Dunsmore as Helene.

Today, the film remains out-of-print in America, having never received a VHS or DVD release. In the UK, where the film was re-titled The Guys, the movie was released on VHS via CIC Video, where it has remained out-of-print. The Boys was created by production companies Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment International and William Link Productions.

Writing and filming

The film was largely inspired by the lives of the film's writer William Link and his writing partner, Richard Levinson, and Levinson's death. However, the key plot point of the story didn't happen in reality. In real-life, Richard Levinson was the smoker.

A day before the original broadcast on the ABC Network, an article with the Los Angeles Times was based on the film, under the headline "'Til Death Do They Part". The article stated that writer Link used to say his relationship with long-time writing partner Levinson was like marriage without the sex. The story was written by Link as a sort of private therapy to get over Levinson's death. In the article, it is mentioned that neither Woods or Lithgow worry about taking time out of their film careers to do a TV film. "Each of us looks for good material. And a lot of good material today is written for television," said Lithgow, whilst Woods stated "There's always been great material on television".

In the article, it is stated that the film was the first TV movie to deal directly with the issue of secondary smoke, although both leading actors insisted that The Boys was not a network disease-of-the-week movie. "The secondary smoke is certainly an important aspect of the story," Lithgow said. "One man is dying because the other man smokes. It's an important little turn of the plot, but it's sort of the last thing I think about. This is not an advocacy film, in my mind, at all."

Originally, after Woods was cast in the film, the filmmakers then searched for the best person to play Woods' partner. Woods stated in the Los Angeles Times article "I told my agent to close his eyes and imagine the best person to play Arty, and I'll do the same thing. And we both came up with Mickey Rooney, but he wasn't available. After, we went for Andy Rooney, and then Andy Garcia, then finally John. But John was doing The Last Elephant at the time."

"I was off in Africa," Lithgow said. "You couldn't phone in and you couldn't get calls out, but somehow or other a faxed script arrived on my bed one night by a carrier caribou." Describing the acting in the film, Lithgow stated "The first time I saw James was in a student production of Jean-Paul Sartre's The Victors, when he was 19 years old, even back then, I'd heard an awful lot about him and his work process. We work in a very, very similar way, which is perfect for this movie." Woods added "It's a sort of shorthand". "Very fast," Lithgow said. "In fact, the relationship between these two writers is so easy and fun for us to play because that's very much like our collaborative relationship as actors. We have already devised a thousand little tricks. His mind just whirs along, and I love to keep pace with it."

According to the article, Woods and Lithgow were immediately looking for a new project together after The Boys. "We have the same agency, so we told our agents to put their heads together on our behalf," Lithgow said. "And they'll probably come up with some fabulous script, and then give it to Redford and Newman," Woods said. Both Woods and Lithgow wouldn't work together again.

In a mid-April 1991 article with Ocala Star-Banner, writer Link spoke of the film's story and the writing of the script. "Call it therapy. I had mentioned this concept to Dick several years before he died, but he did not want to write it. I asked him why, and he said "you guess". I don't think he wanted to be under scrutiny in promoting the show, with people asking him, "Why are you chain-smoking in this interview when you just produced a movie that is against it?" A week after Dick died in 1987, I was at ABC with Brandon Stoddard (the network's former programming chief). He said "What have your got for us?" I told him this idea, he thought it was terrific, and he said I had an on-the-air commitment. He also said "I think it'll be very good therapy for you." Dick and I had written every line together. I was used to working in a room with my best friend for 41 years, and when he died, I felt stranded. I was very fearful that I couldn't write, because my crutch wasn't there anymore. It was as if I'd had an amputation, and it took me about 10 months to get around to this. In four two-day weekends, I wrote "The Boys," and it just poured out. It was like someone was dictating it to me."

In the same article, Link spoke of how any worries of writing solo were soothed considerably with the signing of the two central roles to Woods and Lithgow. "It's rare in this business that you get two people who are so dedicated to the material. They wouldn't change one syllable, and they treated the script like Biblical text. That's amazing, because sometimes, you work with people who learn their dialogue right on the set while the director is blocking the shot." In the article, Woods also stated that he believed that The Boys is "very lighthearted in its approach to a very serious subject. It's a very odd piece, but in the best sense of that term. It's not a structured three-act story, but a pastiche of the relationship of these two wonderful men who loved each other for so long. Some of it's very funny and some of it's very sad, but finally, it's like a two-hour window into this long relationship. It's a real love letter from Bill Link to his friendship with Dick Levinson."

Plot

Walter and Artie are almost married. They've churned out scripts for movies and TV shows for 20 years, and as writing partners, they have shared a lifetime of experience, experiences that include Artie's three packs of cigarettes a day. Despite his squeaky clean lifestyle, now Walter has lung cancer, where he is given six months to live, and his life is literally going up in Artie's smoke. As Walter fights cancer he also tries to put his affairs in order by teaching writing to prison inmates, talking to his son and ex-wife, and getting his partner to quit smoking.