My Best Friend's Birthday

My Best Friend's Birthday
Clarence (Quentin Tarantino) meets Misty (Crystal Shaw)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Produced by
  • Quentin Tarantino
  • Craig Hamann
  • Rand Vossler
Written by
  • Quentin Tarantino
  • Craig Hamann
Starring
  • Quentin Tarantino
  • Craig Hamann
  • Crystal Shaw
  • Allen Garfield
  • Al Harrell
  • Brenda Hillhouse
  • Linda Kaye
  • Stevo Polyi
  • Alan Sanborn
  • Rich Turner
  • Rowland Wafford
Cinematography
Edited by Quentin Tarantino
Distributed by Super Happy Fun
Release date
  • 1987 (1987)
Running time
 70 minutes (original version)
36 minutes (remaining version)
Country United States
Language English
Budget $5,000 (estimated)[1]

My Best Friend's Birthday is a partially lost black-and-white amateur film directed, edited, co-written, co-produced and starring Quentin Tarantino.[2][3][4]

Plot

A young man continually tries to do something nice for his friend's birthday, only to have his efforts backfire.

Cast

  • Quentin Tarantino as Clarence Poole
  • Craig Hamann as Mickey Burnett
  • Crystal Shaw as Misty
  • Allen Garfield as entertainment magnate
  • Al Harrell as Clifford
  • Brenda Hillhouse as wife
  • Linda Kaye as ex-girlfriend
  • Stevo Polyi as DJ
  • Alan Sanborn as Nutmeg
  • Rich Turner as Brandon Turner
  • Rowland Wafford as Lenny Otis

Production

The film was made while Tarantino was working at the Video Archives, now closed, in Manhattan Beach, California.[4] The project started in 1984, when Hamann wrote a short 30- to 40-page script.

Tarantino became attached to the project as co-writer and director, and he and Hamann expanded the script to 80 pages. On an estimated budget of $5,000, they shot the film on 16mm over the course of the next four years. Hamann and Tarantino starred in the film, along with several video store and acting class buddies, and worked on the crew, which included fellow Video Archives employees Rand Vossler and Roger Avary. It is the most overtly comedic film that Tarantino has made. In an interview with Charlie Rose (available on the Region 1 Collector's Edition DVD of Pulp Fiction), he referred to it as a "Martin and Lewis kind of thing."

The original cut was about 70 minutes long, but due to a film lab fire, only 36 minutes of the film still exist.[3] The surviving footage has been edited together and shown at several film festivals. Several actors in this film later appeared in Tarantino's other films Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Kill Bill.

See also

References

  1. ↑ O'Connor, Roision (October 21, 2016). "Quentin Tarantino: Director's first film My Best Friend's Birthday on YouTube". The Independent. Retrieved July 21, 2018.
  2. ↑ "My Best Friend's Birthday". Free Movies Cinema. Retrieved 2009-09-26.
  3. 1 2 Ferrari, Alex (October 14, 2015). "Quentin Tarantino's Unreleased Feature Film: My Best Friend's Birthday". Indie Film Hustle.
  4. 1 2 Wild, David (November 3, 1994). "Quentin Tarantino: The Madman of Movie Mayhem". Rolling Stone.


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