Frankie and Johnny

Al Pacino is a recent parolee and Michelle Pfeiffer is an emotionally repressed waitress in a Manhattan diner. The original play by Terrence McNally was called Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune. You want to know how much they changed the movie version from the original? Try this: In the Off-Broadway production the parts were played by F. Murray Abraham and Kathy Bates. Now, Pacino and Pfeiffer are both great actors, and they are quite good here, but can you really imagine Michelle Pfeiffer as a waitress? Not me. Yes, I realize that casting Kathy Bates (this was a few years before she became a recognizable star with her Oscar win in Misery) in the role would not have filled theaters, but really, this was serious miscasting. Better not to have made it at all, is my feeling.