That’s: Amore! (1993)

Filmmaker Lorenzo Doumani has quite the history. It’s certainly more interesting than this misfiring comedy, as Dave finds out.

I’ll be honest: the life story of writer/director Lorenzo Doumani is a lot more interesting than his sophomore picture, AMORE!.

Born in Las Vegas to wealthy property developer Edward Doumani, the filmmaker achieved notoriety at the age of twenty when he flunked out of law school, headed to New York, and gave legendary producer Robert Evans the keys to his trust fund in order to help get Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club (1984) off the ground. Doumani’s father and uncle came good for $30 million too, in exchange for a fifty percent stake in the picture, but it was a complete disaster, with mobsters, murder and litigation conspiring to ensure that The Cotton Club was one of the most expensive flops of all time.

Undeterred, Doumani teamed back up with Evans to pen a script called ‘III’ – an intended third chapter for The Godfather (1972) series. Evans sent the screenplay over to a host of influencers like critic Pauline Kael and supposedly received glowing accolades in return. According to Doumani, even Godfather author Mario Puzo loved the script; Coppola, alas, “took the paycheck” [1] and, despite years of saying no, opted to make the next instalment of the mafia saga in his own inimitable way.

In the bio on his website, Doumani suggests that his ‘ordeal’ with The Godfather and Paramount led to him falling into the world of direct-to-video movies, where he was prevented from making the type of studio films that he aspired to. Such ambition is admirable – but you have to wonder if even with The Cotton Club‘s budget and a box office leading man, just who would queue up in the rain to see Amore!…

Saul Schwartz (Jack Scalia) is a successful businessman with the world at his feet, but his mundane life is boring him to death. Determined to inject a little spark into his monotony, he files for divorce, quits his job, and heads to Hollywood to pursue his dream of movie stardom. However, to paraphrase his no-nonsense agent (the ever-brilliant Elliott Gould), nobody wants an overweight, fifty-year-old New Yorker who looks like a lawyer. There will have to be some adjustments, although nothing can prepare Saul for the effects that those modifications will have to both his career and love life.

The main downfall of Amore! is its identity. It’s not slushy enough to be a romance, and not funny enough to be a comedy, but it does succeed as a satire – albeit not as often as you’d like. The digs at the film industry are sharp enough to have history, and with Doumani’s career in mind it gives them a welcome edge. Sadly, what could have ridden the coattails of The Player (1992) gets bogged down in cringeworthy diversions like Saul’s Italian-born alter ego ‘Salvatore Guilliano’ – a dim-witted caricature who sounds like Gino D’Acampo – as Doumani’s eye seems preoccupied with getting the spotlight on a handful of musical numbers for his soon to be (though now ex) wife, Brenda Epperson, in her motion picture debut.

The social circle of the writer/director means that Amore! remains of interest thanks to a host of tasty cameos from the likes of Betsy Russell as Saul’s ex-wife, while his dad is played by iconic stand-up Norm Crosby. There’s also room for George Hamilton (an old-time matinee idol), James Doohan (a shrink), and Mother Love. Doumani’s best film would come towards the end of the decade, in the form of fun creature feature Some Things Never Die (1998) (aka ‘Bug Buster’); as for Amore! I have only odiare.

Doumari may have shrugged off this period of his career as one that failed his ambition, but if you scroll back six months before its release, Amore! was known as ‘The Last Paeson’, and it was doing the rounds on a regularly repeated edition of E! Behind the Scenes Special, so its potential seemed somewhat more earnest. By November 1993, however, it had only managed to sneak into a handful of cinemas around the Las Vegas area before eventually becoming an unexpected acquisition for PM Entertainment, who put it out on tape in March ’94. Screenings on Cinemax followed twelve months later.

USA ● 1993 ● Comedy, Romance ● 98mins

Jack Scalia, Kathy Ireland, Norm Crosby, James Doohan, Elliott Gould, George Hamilton ● Dir./Wri. Lorenzo Doumani