FilmInk salutes the work of creatives who have never truly received the credit that they deserve. In this installment: screenwriter Hilary Henkin (above, with Gary Oldman and Peter Medak), who penned Road House, Fatal Beauty, Wag The Dog and Romeo Is Bleeding.
When digging into the Unsung Auteurs column, investigation into one creative can uncover another whose work you weren’t even aware had impressed you on a number of different occasions. This has happened a few times, and it occurred most recently during the preparation of an Unsung Auteurs column on late director Peter Medak, whose films include The Ruling Class and The Krays. One of Medak’s most intriguing works is unquestionably 1993’s bold-as-brass and considerably deranged black comedy Romeo Is Bleeding. While revisiting this inventively nasty little number, we were prompted to ask ourselves, “Who the fuck wrote this crazy movie?”
The answer is Hilary Henkin, a screenwriter and occasional producer with a fistful of tough, crime-oriented credits on her resume about whom we could only find a smattering of information. As per the innate nuttiness of Romeo Is Bleeding, Hilary Henkin would indeed appear to be quite the interesting character. “I’ve been told I write like a man,” Henkin told The Los Angeles Times in 1993. “I’m not exactly sure what that means. What does writing like a woman really mean? If they want the girl next door, they should go next door.” She might appropriately chafe at the labelling, but Hilary Henkin certainly has a resume divergent to most female screenwriters.
Born in 1952 in New Orleans and raised in Memphis and New York, Henkin worked as a go-go dancer in various bars in The Big Apple before turning to screenwriting. “I was young…you didn’t have to be much of a dancer,” Henkin told The Los Angeles Times in 1993. “All you had to do was kind of stand there and shake. I probably had some romantic notion about it. I saw how men dealt with each other and how men dealt with women. If you’re a young girl, and you’re pretty, and you keep your mouth closed, you can learn a lot.”
Whether Henkin used any of that information in her scripts is not a matter of record, but she made her reputation in the business via a violent, highly regarded but ultimately unproduced script that she wrote for Warner Bros. called Free Fall, which follows three astronauts who nearly die in space and return to find their previous lives have disappeared. Henkin made her eventual debut in 1980 with Headin’ For Broadway, which was a co-write with Larry Gross (48 Hours, Streets Of Fire) and the film’s director Joseph Brooks, who would later be convicted on multiple counts of rape, leading to his eventual suicide. With this kind of ugly black cloud enshrouding it, any discussion of Headin’ For Broadway is difficult, but it’s a fairly solid drama about four young people trying to make it in the entertainment industry, and stars Rex Smith, a briefly serving teen idol of the 1970s and 1980s.
Henkin next contributed to the scripts of two interesting but barely released films. The 1983 curio Prisoners is set in New Zealand, and follows the daughter (Tatum O’Neal) of a prison worker who falls in love with one of her father’s criminal charges, played by Colin Friels. Obscure to the extreme, Prisoners is rivalled in its lack of recognition by 1985’s Blue Heaven, a drama about an abusive husband starring James Eckhouse (Beverly Hills 90210) and Leslie Denniston. Despite the low profile of the films, they certainly showcase Hilary Henkin as a writer not afraid to tackle difficult subject matter.
Gaining a strong rep via more unproduced work (including William Friedkin’s stab at novelist Don Pendleton’s tough guy series character Mack Bolan, who was to have been played by Sylvester Stallone in The Executioner), Henkin was brought onto what would become 1987’s Fatal Beauty, which originated with the legendary John Milius and was set to star Cher. When the famed diva pulled out, she was replaced by Whoopi Goldberg, with Sam Elliott co-starring and Tom Holland (Child’s Play) in the director’s chair. The result is a slightly shaky but still entertaining and very 1980s crime thriller in which Goldberg’s unconventional cop and Elliott’s hardman bodyguard try to stop the titular new synthetic drug from flooding the streets of Los Angeles.
Henkin’s next credit is an absolute belter: Rowdy Herrington’s 1989 cult barnstormer Road House, a co-write with screenwriter and novelist David Lee Henry (The Evil That Men Do, Out For Justice), who originated the project. While it’s impossible to know who contributed what, we’ll salute absolutely anyone connected to this action classic, which stars Patrick Swayze as a bouncer battling Ben Gazzara’s crime boss. Judging from Henkin’s fondness for action and later-revealed penchant for creative kill scenes, it’s safe to assume that she contributed to at least a few of the moments that make this actioner so memorable and truly indelible.
After co-writes, late call-ups and unproduced screenplays, Hilary Henkin really staked her claim with 1993’s Peter Medak-directed Romeo Is Bleeding, a nutty, blood-soaked, near-screwball crime black comedy that stars a shockingly on-form Gary Oldman as a horribly corrupt cop and a truly remarkable Lena Olin as a vicious, unstoppable mob hitwoman. Filled with bizarre humour and hard-slamming, bizarrely orchestrated violence, Romeo Is Bleeding (which had apparently been kicking around Hollywood for years until Medak rescued it) was pretty much blasted by critics upon release, but is a true cinematic tour de force. It’s richly imaginative, gruesomely hilarious, and utterly original…and with writer Hilary Henkin’s name the only one on the poster, we know that all the madness comes directly from her.
“This material came naturally to me,” Henkin told The Los Angeles Times. “Sometimes I wish I wrote frolicsome comedies. But I must have landed on a darker, stranger planet. Why I write what I write, I don’t know. When I started writing Romeo Is Bleeding, women were playing wives. Then they progressed to feisty female attorneys and outspoken reporters. I thought maybe it was time for a character who lived outside the law and created her own morality.”
In the boys’ club that is Hollywood, Hilary Henkin has likely copped some knocks, and the most visible one came with the 1997 critical darling Wag The Dog. Henkin was engaged to adapt Larry Beinhart’s novel American Hero for the screen, and she crafted a faithful screenplay that also took a few structural detours. When director Barry Levinson came onto the political satire, he brought along his friend and legendary writer David Mamet to recraft the material. The duo then tried to have Henkin’s name removed from the film’s credits. The Writers Guild of America, however, intervened on Henkin’s behalf. They found that she had created the screenplay’s structure, as well as much of the screen story and dialogue, and deserved due credit. We’re sure Levinson and Mamet kicked a fair bit of furniture around when Henkin was included in the film’s nomination for a Best Screenplay Oscar.
“What they found is that my script significantly informs every aspect of the finished film, including structure, story, dialogue and characters,” Henkin told Variety. “I know what I wrote and I know I made a very significant contribution. The Guild agreed. When David Mamet rewrote my script, it’s automatic for the Guild to arbitrate. I did not ask for sole credit, I asked for shared credit and the Guild decided in my favour.”
Since the Wag The Dog dust-up, Hilary Henkin has pretty much vanished from the Hollywood scene. There is some information online about her penning a script based on Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s graphic novel V For Vendetta, but this was not used by The Wachowskis, who produced the eventual 2005 film and penned their own script. It’s a damn shame…there aren’t enough women working in the action and crime genres, and Hilary Henkin (“A screenwriter who doesn’t find feminism and eroticism mutually exclusive,” according to Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers) proved herself an audacious talent with imagination and originality to burn.
If you liked this story, check out our features on other unsung auteurs Eleanor Coppola, Peter Medak, Kieth Merrill, Tim Hill, Martin Bell, Joan Freeman, Rod Amateau, Sam Wanamaker, Paul Aaron, Savage Steve Holland, Rudy Wurlitzer, Keith Gordon, Alan Metter, Lynne Littman, Chuck Russell, John Derek, Don Chaffey, Harley Cokeliss, Jeannot Szwarc, Craig Gillespie, David Greene, Ernest Pintoff, Paul Williams, Jo Heims, Lee H. Katzin, Christoper Cain, Ken Wiederhorn, Barbara Loden, David Mackenzie, Alan Rudolph, James Lee Barrett, Edwin “Bud” Shrake, Joan Tewkesbury, Jamaa Fanaka, Jack Starrett, Joseph Sargent, Jeffrey Schwarz, George Sidney, Philip Dunne, Zak Hilditch, Luke Sparke, Cyrus Nowrasteh, Morgan Matthews, Tom Laughlin, Diane Keaton, Ed Hunt, Nancy Savoca, Robert Vincent O’Neil, Marvin J. Chomsky, Sam Firstenberg, Jack Sholder, Richard Gray, Giuseppe Andrews, Gus Trikonis, Greydon Clark, Frances Doel, Gordon Douglas, Billy Fine, Craig R. Baxley, Harvey Bernhard, Bert I. Gordon, James Fargo, Jeremy Kagan, Robby Benson, Robert Hiltzik, John Carl Buechler, Rick Carter, Paul Dehn, Bob Kelljan, Kevin Connor, Ralph Nelson, William A. Graham, Judith Rascoe, Michael Pressman, Peter Carter, Leo V. Gordon, Dalene Young, Gary Nelson, Fred Walton, James Frawley, Pete Docter, Max Baer Jr., James Clavell, Ronald F. Maxwell, Frank D. Gilroy, John Hough, Dick Richards, William Girdler, Rayland Jensen, Richard T. Heffron, Christopher Jones, Earl Owensby, James Bridges, Jeff Kanew, Robert Butler, Leigh Chapman, Joe Camp, John Patrick Shanley, William Peter Blatty, Peter Clifton, Peter R. Hunt, Shaun Grant, James B. Harris, Gerald Wilson, Patricia Birch, Buzz Kulik, Kris Kristofferson, Rick Rosenthal, Kirsten Smith & Karen McCullah, Jerrold Freeman, William Dear, Anthony Harvey, Douglas Hickox, Karen Arthur, Larry Peerce, Tony Goldwyn, Brian G. Hutton, Shelley Duvall, Robert Towne, David Giler, William D. Wittliff, Tom DeSimone, Ulu Grosbard, Denis Sanders, Daryl Duke, Jack McCoy, James William Guercio, James Goldstone, Daniel Nettheim, Goran Stolevski, Jared & Jerusha Hess, William Richert, Michael Jenkins, Robert M. Young, Robert Thom, Graeme Clifford, Frank Howson, Oliver Hermanus, Jennings Lang, Matthew Saville, Sophie Hyde, John Curran, Jesse Peretz, Anthony Hayes, Stuart Blumberg, Stewart Copeland, Harriet Frank Jr & Irving Ravetch, Angelo Pizzo, John & Joyce Corrington, Robert Dillon, Irene Kamp, Albert Maltz, Nancy Dowd, Barry Michael Cooper, Gladys Hill, Walon Green, Eleanor Bergstein, William W. Norton, Helen Childress, Bill Lancaster, Lucinda Coxon, Ernest Tidyman, Shauna Cross, Troy Kennedy Martin, Kelly Marcel, Alan Sharp, Leslie Dixon, Jeremy Podeswa, Ferd & Beverly Sebastian, Anthony Page, Julie Gavras, Ted Post, Sarah Jacobson, Anton Corbijn, Gillian Robespierre, Brandon Cronenberg, Laszlo Nemes, Ayelat Menahemi, Ivan Tors, Amanda King & Fabio Cavadini, Cathy Henkel, Colin Higgins, Paul McGuigan, Rose Bosch, Dan Gilroy, Tanya Wexler, Clio Barnard, Robert Aldrich, Maya Forbes, Steven Kastrissios, Talya Lavie, Michael Rowe, Rebecca Cremona, Stephen Hopkins, Tony Bill, Sarah Gavron, Martin Davidson, Fran Rubel Kuzui, Elliot Silverstein, Liz Garbus, Victor Fleming, Barbara Peeters, Robert Benton, Lynn Shelton, Tom Gries, Randa Haines, Leslie H. Martinson, Nancy Kelly, Paul Newman, Brett Haley, Lynne Ramsay, Vernon Zimmerman, Lisa Cholodenko, Robert Greenwald, Phyllida Lloyd, Milton Katselas, Karyn Kusama, Seijun Suzuki, Albert Pyun, Cherie Nowlan, Steve Binder, Jack Cardiff, Anne Fletcher ,Bobcat Goldthwait, Donna Deitch, Frank Pierson, Ann Turner, Jerry Schatzberg, Antonia Bird, Jack Smight, Marielle Heller, James Glickenhaus, Euzhan Palcy, Bill L. Norton, Larysa Kondracki, Mel Stuart, Nanette Burstein, George Armitage, Mary Lambert, James Foley, Lewis John Carlino, Debra Granik, Taylor Sheridan, Laurie Collyer, Jay Roach, Barbara Kopple, John D. Hancock, Sara Colangelo, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Joyce Chopra, Mike Newell, Gina Prince-Bythewood, John Lee Hancock, Allison Anders, Daniel Petrie Sr., Katt Shea, Frank Perry, Amy Holden Jones, Stuart Rosenberg, Penelope Spheeris, Charles B. Pierce, Tamra Davis, Norman Taurog, Jennifer Lee, Paul Wendkos, Marisa Silver, John Mackenzie, Ida Lupino, John V. Soto, Martha Coolidge, Peter Hyams, Tim Hunter, Stephanie Rothman, Betty Thomas, John Flynn, Lizzie Borden, Lionel Jeffries, Lexi Alexander, Alkinos Tsilimidos, Stewart Raffill, Lamont Johnson, Maggie Greenwald and Tamara Jenkins.
