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Thoughts on the DVD Deleted Scene: The Hand Man (SPOILERS)

posted 3 years ago by ecarle (14979)
3 replies | jump to latest

May 2022: The DVD is now out for Licorice Pizza(2021) and it only has one deleted scene.

Various trailers and commercials for the movie back when it was out revealed bits of scenes that weren't in the final film:

ONE: Bradley Cooper's drug-crazed Jon Peters at a gas station(that we do seem him at in the film), simultaneously smashing the side view mirrors of two adjacent cars, like a Samarai warrior.

TWO: Somebody farting in the car en route to/from filming Joel Wachs campaign commericial. "Ill roll down the window," Wachs says diplomatically. Cut to: Alana Kane(Alana Haim) in the kitchen of the home of Gary Valentine(Cooper Hoffman) , demanding to know if he did it -- "I knew it was you. I know your smell," she says with disgust.

THREE: And SOME girl in a bikini(she looks bigger and chunkier than Alana Haim) walking into a sliding glass door from a swimming pool. (There's also a shot -- not seen in the movie -- of Alana in HER bikini, BY that swimming pool.

'The DVD is out and NONE of those deleted scenes is on the DVD. Only one is included and it is called "The Hand Man Scene."

It turns out that it is an odd little scene -- very much in tone with the rest of the movie and yet in some ways more rough in content than the rest of the movie...and more stylistically mannered.

Those of us who saw the movie know what "The Hand Man" means -- we wanted to see what kind of follow-up scene was involved.

The "feed scene" IN the movie has Alana Kane emerging from the bathroom stall at the film's notorious Japanese restaurant to find another young woman primping in the mirror. The character is "Frisby Cahill," played by one of two Spielberg/Capshaw daughters in the movie.

Alana had been in the stall installing one of Gary's "Fat Bernie Waterbed" ad cards, but she washes her hands so maybe used the bathroom too.

Alana and Frisby, side by side, make small talk. Frisby works as a waitress in the restaurant, and is wearing the kimono to prove it. She asks Alana if she still works at "Tiny Toes" child photography, and Alana says no, she is business partners with Gary Valentine.

Frisby responds that she knows Gary: "A cute kid for a hustler," always hanging around the restaurant and her boss. Alana (surprisingly) praises Gary as "very smart and a good businessman." (Aha, she admires him if not quite loves him.) Frisby then volunteers that Gary is always bothering her for hand jobs -- Alana jumps in with "me too" -- and Frisby calls him "The Hand Man" and says "I'll pass the baton on to you," and leaves the bathroom.

In the next shot, Alana gets in the car to drive (she has a license, Gary does not), and Gary sits in the passenger seat, innocent of what Alana has learned from Frisby. PTA gives us a tight close-up on Alana's smiling, self-amused, perhaps jealous face as she stares at Gary.

END OF SCENE IN MOVIE

That scene alone, on its own, created several unanswered questions:

Does Gary REALLY pester Frisby for hand jobs?
And if so, did Frisby actually GIVE Gary hand jobs?(Her phrasing is neutral, she says he always pesters her, she doesn't say she always refuses.)
What baton is Frisby passing to Alana? To be PESTERED for hand jobs, or to give them?

There is also this: Frisby shares her demoralizing information about Gary after learning that Alana is partnered with him in business. Is Frisby jealously trying to screw things up for Alana and Gary?

And this: Frisby is demonstrably prettier than Alana -- Alana may be deflated to know that Frisby has ANY sort of interaction with Gary. (Hence, Alana falsely volunteers that Gary asks HER for hand jobs, all the time.)

BEGIN DELETED SCENE

The deleted scene STARTS in the car with Alana at the wheel, with Alana's smiling, self-amused, perhaps jealous face as she stares and Gary, and she starts to talk:

Alana: (False cheer) I just got a baton!
(Long pause)
Gary is confused.
Alana: You know who I got it from? (Pause) Frisby Cahill.
Gary: Frisby Cahill...how do you know her?
Alana: (Doesn't answer.)
(Long pause.)
Alana: She said her wrists are tired.
Gary(confused): Why?
Alana: (Doesn't answer.)
(Long pause.)
Alana: You know what I'm going to do with that baton?
Gary: What?
Alana: I'm going to shove it up your asshole.
(Gary is now reduced to confused, uncomfortable silence. We can assume that at a minimum, he knows he's in trouble simply because he KNOWS Frisby Cahill. But maybe there's more?)
Alana: Who's the hand man?
(Gary becomes almost a child, reduced to total embarrassment and inability to speak. He seems very YOUNG. He's a little bit terrified.)
(Long pause.)
Alana: "Who's the hand man?" (Her cold repeat of the same question is menacing, unforgiving.)
Gary(weakly): I don't know.
And now, Alana GUNS the car engine and drives it at top speed, and Gary looks truly terrified. Alana brakes the car to a sudden halt.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Alana: By the way, maybe a guy will think about buying a waterbed when he's got his weiner in his hand, but a girl sitting on the toilet isn't going to think : "Oh, I should buy a F'ING waterbed!" (This is Alana's trademark sudden rage -- earlier expressed at the young actor about his Judaism and at her sister for saying she shouldn't fight with the family all the time.)
(Long pause.)
Alana (More rage, built on earlier rage and exploding): "YOU'RE the f'ing hand man!"

END DELETED SCENE.

Hey, well, its as entertaining as any other scene in Licorice Pizza, and continues some of the character study of the two leads. Given that Gary has almost no lines and has to play the scene in ever growing uncomfortable silence, the scene to defaults to our show-stopping young star, Alana Haim, who here takes Alana KANE from the suggested bi-polar personality of the main film and off to the edge of an actual raging psychotic.

(As a female commenter on YouTube wrote of this scene: "Nice girl you've got there, Gary.")

The first thing to do with this deleted scene is to pull out that (to me) terrible line near the end about waterbeds -- and examine it. The main thrust of this scene is that Alana is confronting Gary about another woman -- what's with this non sequitur about the water beds? (With it icky images of boys with wieners in their hands and girls sitting on the toilet.)

I suppose this is Alana's "final take" on the "Soggy Bottom" name for the waterbed company -- Gary(a boy) suggested that waterbeds suggest sex and Alana(a girl) suggested that "Soggy Bottom" suggests shitting your pants. Here, Alana is using her rage to "lay down the law" about Soggy Bottom(but hey, the company name has already been changed to Fat Bernies.) Still, this seems a bad line to me, and deserved to be deleted. NOT the whole scene though.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

CONT

The main event of this scene -- as with many scenes in the movie -- is to demonstrate that while Alana and Gary have committed to a "non-romantic friends" relationship, , they each get very jealous of each other all the time, and hence -- they ARE in love with each other and this movie is going to have to deal with that eventually.

Two questions are begged here:

ONE: Gary's silent embarrassment suggests that yes, he DID ask Frisby for hand jobs. He's been caught hitting on another woman, by the woman he says he loves.
TWO: Alana THINKS that Frisby really DID give GAry hand jobs -- and she is telling him that she will not -- in a most nasty way -- she will shove that baton not simply up his ass, but up his assHOLE. ("Nice girl you've got there, Gary.")

The movie leaves unanswered the reality of exactly what Gary and Frisby did, but it is clear than Alana is jealous about it, and it is clear that GAry is embarrassed to have been "exposed," no matter what really happened.

So much for the CONTENT of the scene. Now, all about its strange STYLE.

Perhaps the scene was deleted because the style was so different from the rest of the film. It depends on a lot of long, LONG pauses between lines for Alana -- it has a rhythm to it, plus she is seeking to torture Gary with silences.

The scene is pretty much all Alana's to play. She gets most of the lines, and the close-ups. She is (once again) simultaneously pretty(sexy) and plain. Her anger (Bi-polar? Psychotic?) rises to the fore. And her voice and line readings are just great, on lines like:

"I just got a baton!'

"Frisby Cahill." (And later about Frisby..."Ah...umm." )

"You know what I'm going to do with that baton?"

But PTA has Alana do something noticeable: take very, very long pauses between her lines. She even nods her head up and down to create a "metronome" effect between lines -- something visual to do.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The effect is to turn Alana into a rather sadistic inquisitor of Gary -- making him wait through those pauses and forcing him to REFUSE to answer ("Who's the hand man?") , and for her part, trying to tamp down and control the rage (always within) her that here comes out "bit by bit" ("You know what I'm going to do with that baton?") and explodes at the end "YOU"RE the f'in hand man!")

I love it all. Maybe the scene should not have been in the movie(one commenter said it would undercut the next scene where Alana sexily sells a guy on the phone a waterbed), but I'm glad it is here to look at. The scene reinforces the the fact that Licorice Pizza is a heart, BOTH a rather sweet AND a rather twisted tale of "young love." Gary can't help but be infatuated with this unformed, raging young woman (men sometimes GO for that rage; see Depp/Heard); Alana can't help but be a kind and loving person beneath her raging surface. And she loves Gary. We keep rooting for these two despite their issues(and ages...they can wait.)

Fun deleted scene to watch. I wish we could see more.