Steve Martin at F-Bombs Rent a Car
For loyal fans, no Thanksgiving is complete without the help of Planes, Trains, and Cars, which turns 35 this Friday.
The plight of Steve Martin’s advertising executive Neil Page — who finds himself stuck due to travel delays with shower curtain salesman Dale Griffith (comedy legend John Candy) and just trying to get home to his family’s turkey dinner — is essential holiday watching.
“Around Thanksgiving, it’s kind of ubiquitous,” says Martin of the classic 1987 road comedy—now available in a 4K Ultra home version—which was imbued with even more emotion after Candy’s death in 1994 and writer/director John Hughes in 2009.
“It’s tragic,” says Martin. “I want them to see how this movie has this momentum. When it came out, it was good. But it’s almost an even bigger hit 10 years later.”
Martin, 77, spoke to USA TODAY about insisting the rental car scene be filmed without f-bombs and the deleted scene he still misses.
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Question: “Airplanes” was shot during 87 cold days in climes from Buffalo, New York, to Braidwood, Illinois. How much real travel went down in the movie?
Answer: Everything in the movie happened during the filming of the movie, communications were lost, planes were lost. Lots of moving. We were supposed to shoot in one town, but there was no snow, so we moved everything to Buffalo. Part of the joke of the movie is that John Candies Dell wears a jacket while I wear a suit. And it’s already 14 degrees when I walk across this field after the train broke down.
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There is a deleted plane scene of John Candy mocking the influences of the movie “Psycho” on the shower-ring business. How much of the film was stressful?
There was a lot of publicity stunts, because John Hughes loved it. will not cut. These are the days of film, so you can do a scene and hear the film play out (making spinning noises). John and I look into each other’s eyes like, “Shall we keep going?” Then we have to shoot professional reaction shots and extend the day to 16 hours. This started as a 145-page text. In the end we realized that the movie was moving too slowly and weeks behind. John and I have come to an agreement: no more sponsored ads.
Did either of you break into laughter, especially while getting dressed?
we laughed a lot. But we did the funny part before we rolled around to get that out of our system because we’d figure out what to do. The scene in the hotel bed with “Those Aren’t Pillows” we came up with on set, and then we shot it.
It’s funny how comfortable you look in this motel bed. How was that for filming?
We were comfortable with each other, we loved each other. It’ll Make Me Laugh It’s hard to explain why this is funny, but we’ve been together so much that we’d come to the set and punch each other. Kind of taking the frustration out of the long days, but a laugh.
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Was there an advertisement in Neil’s famous Rental Car sermons?
I did ad-lib. There is a certain rhythm to John’s writing. And if you just start pronouncing the f-word anytime you want, it’s going to be far fetched and not poetic.
You write in your new book, Number One Walking: My Life in Film and Other Diversions, that you shot that scene without the f-bomb?
I just thought it was practical in those days, airplanes had clean versions. I said to Hughes, “They’re going to need it for the planes.” So we launched it. does not swear. It was like, “I want a car now!” As far as I know, he never saw daylight or an airplane.
Fast forward to a now classic scene. So obviously there’s no regrets for pushing the f-bombs with the movie to an R rating?
No, it’s a famous scene. Mike Nichols, the great director, once told me, “In every movie you do, there should be a scene where you say to yourself, ‘Can we do this?'” This certainly applies here.
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Is there a cut scene that you really miss so far?
There is a scene at the end where I come back to find John’s character sitting alone at the train station. This is when the truth comes out. He doesn’t have a home, he just travels. Then he said, “I’m fine usually. But on holidays, I usually attach myself to someone. But this time, I just couldn’t let it go.” It’s a very moving scene. I remember sitting across from John thinking, “Wow, this guy kills this.”
I was surprised that the scene was cut. I never understood why nor did I ask John because that is his business.
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