It’s usually the norm for Woody Allen to be the one to steal concepts from other filmmakers or playwrights and rework them for himself (see: Stardust Memories and Blue Jasmine, for a start), but, for once, somebody decided to do it to him. Or rather, two people. Specifically, Zak Penn and Adam Leff, who came up with the story idea for 1993’s meta action-comedy “cult classic” Last Action Hero before it was then passed on to Shane Black and David Arnott for the actual screenwriting process.
Released eight years after The Purple Rose of Cairo came out in 1985, perhaps the story creators/writers felt almost a decade was enough time for people to forget all about that movie (plus, everyone was in a “disown Woody” mood in 1993 after the first time the Dylan Farrow accusation materialized). After all, Allen has such a specific audience (still does, in fact—regardless of the child molestation stain). Maybe Penn and Leff weren’t even a part of that audience and had no idea that The Purple Rose of Cairo’s lead character, Cecilia (Mia Farrow), also employs the same (then) affordable therapy method as Last Action Hero’s Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien). Which is to say, they both feel the need to go to the movies on a constant basis to escape the sadness of their existence.
Just as Danny, Cecilia is trapped on the East Coast (New Jersey instead of New York, but, really, same thing). And it is the glitz and glamor of Hollywood movies like RKO Pictures’ (the movie is set in 1935, after all) latest release, The Purple Rose of Cairo, that keep Cecilia from, basically, losing her will to live. It’s part and parcel of the Great Depression-era blues, to be fair. But she’s also married to a proverbial cad called Monk (Danny Aiello). After seeing the same movie so many times in the theater to forget about real life, the dreamy so-called “minor” character, an archaeologist named Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), notices her in the audience, steps out of the screen and tells her how much he appreciates her reverence.
Obviously dazzled by this new form of “movie magic,” Cecilia decides to give him a tour of her town before eventually deciding to pop into his realm, too—in what amounts to an inverse turn of events to the ones that transpire in Last Action Hero, with Danny first entering Jack Slater’s movie universe before then bringing Jack back out into his “real” world (as though anything about this world should be called real). However, in between the time of Tom’s “absconding” from The Purple Rose of Cairo, it causes a ripple effect within the movie’s universe (and starts to give the other characters “ideas” about fleeing themselves). This despite Tom being belittled as a “minor” character, which perhaps speaks to the aphorism attributed to Konstantin Stanislavski, “There are no small parts, only small actors.”
That’s clearly Cecilia’s view, who homed in on the “bigness” of Tom out of everyone else in the movie. To boot, villains are often billed as “supporting” cast members in the vein of Tom. Which is part of the reason why glass-eyed Mr. Benedict (Charles Dance), the stooge of the theoretical “main” antagonist, Tony Vivaldi (Anthony Quinn), realizes he can make himself the true lead by exiting from the plot of Jack Slater IV and committing his dastardly deeds on the audience’s side of the screen (where plenty of light is made about how the bad guys actually get away with everything in the non-movie dimension).
With Mr. Benedict’s transference to the “tangible” sphere, the most glaring plot device difference between Last Action Hero and The Purple Rose of Cairo again becomes noticeable in that the former feels obliged to “explain” how the magic is happening in terms of hopping between the real and cinematic realms. Where Danny uses a magical ticket given to him by the projectionist at the movie theater (who informs Danny that Harry Houdini bequeathed it to to him back in the day), Cecilia simply “attracts” the interest of Tom from her demure perch in the dark.
As another character in The Purple Rose of Cairo later puts it, “If this is a new trend, our industry’s as good as dead. The real ones want fictional lives, the fictional ones want real lives.” That’s essentially what happens with Jack Slater, who has no awareness that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the “real-life” actor playing him until he’s thrust into the mere mortal dimension. Seeing that his “real” self is Schwarzenegger at the Times Square premiere of Jack Slater IV, he experiences something akin to an existential crisis. Just as Tom Baxter does when he discovers the “real-life” actor playing him is Gil Shepherd. The very actor enlisted with the task of getting Tom to go back inside the film so things can return to normal.
Part of his plan to do so is to demean Tom for being not enough of a real man for Cecilia, reminding her, “He’s fictional. You wanna waste time with a fictional character? I mean, you’re a sweet girl. You deserve a human.” And yet, what’s so great about humans, least of all male ones? That’s part of why movie heroes are so much easier to admire and not be disappointed by for people like Danny and Cecilia.
Tom, valiant “soul” that he is, wants to remain loyal to Cecilia’s love. Thus, it’s not so easy for Gil to cajole him back to being his celluloid self. Not with Cecilia having fallen in love, famously confessing, “I just met a wonderful man. He’s fictional, but you can’t have everything.” It smacks of the final line of Some Like It Hot when Jerry as Daphne (Jack Lemmon) finally admits to Osgood (Joe E. Brown), “I’m a man!” and the latter replies, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Unless, of course, they exist solely as a character in the movies. Becoming the stuff of heroic legend that patrons such as Danny and Cecilia can’t help but idolize and look to for comfort from their movie theater seat position down at heel. In the instance of both devout moviegoers, their endings are filled with bittersweetness… for while they each get to return to their prized seat in front of the silver screen, it is without their beloved idol at their side. Instead, they must settle once more for remote veneration.
