In 1952 Brooklyn, workers have entered the sixth month of a strike against the local factory. Shop steward Harry Black relishes his new role as the strike secretary as it allows him to get out of the house, away from his wife who does not realize that Harry is gay. Boyce, the union leader, tries to negotiate between the factory and union representatives.
Meanwhile, Tralala is a prostitute who lures unsuspecting sailors out to a vacant lot to be robbed by Vinnie, an ex-convict and Tralala's pimp. Georgette is a young transgender woman who harbors a crush on Vinnie. Big Joe, one of the striking workers, struggles with accepting his daughter's out of wedlock pregnancy and embracing his future son-in-law.
Harry meets Regina, another transgender woman, and falls in love with her. Tralala also meets a kindly sailor in Manhattan who appears to truly love her and lets her move in with him. Both romances end on tragic notes for Harry and Tralala.
There had been several attempts to adapt Last Exit to Brooklyn into a film since the controversial book's 1964 publication.[7] One of the earliest attempts was made by producer Steve Krantz and animator Ralph Bakshi, who wanted to direct a live-action film based on the novel. Bakshi had sought out the rights to the novel after completing Heavy Traffic, a film which shared many themes with Selby's novel. Selby agreed to the adaptation, and actor Robert De Niro accepted the role of Harry in Strike. According to Bakshi, "the whole thing fell apart when Krantz and I had a falling out over past business. It was a disappointment to me and Selby. Selby and I tried a few other screenplays after that on other subjects, but I could not shake Last Exit from my mind."[8] An adaptation was also considered by Stanley Kubrick and Brian de Palma at one point.[5]
German producer Bernd Eichinger and director Uli Edel had been wanting to adapt the novel for 20 years, with the latter having first discovered the novel as a university student.[9] The two filmmakers obtained the rights to Selby's novel in the mid-1980s after Edel's success with the film Christiane F.[9]
One of the challenges of adapting Selby's book was combining its different stories and characters into one film.[5][9] Screenwriter Desmond Nakano was brought on to pen the screenplay.[9]
Filming
Filming took place over 14 weeks in the summer of 1988[10] on location in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, "only blocks from the housing projects where Mr. Selby lived while writing Last Exit."[9]
Some scenes for the film were shot at Montero's Bar and Grill, which was owned by Pilar Montero and her husband.[11]
Reception
Release
The film was first released in Europe in 1989, where it was a critical and a commercial success.[9] The film had a limited distribution in the United States in May 1990 after delays to its release date.[12] Some theaters, such as the Edwards theater in Orange County, declined to show the film because of its dark and graphic subject matter.[13]
Critical response
The film has a 67% rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 critics' reviews.[14]
Though critics noted the film's unrelenting bleakness and how it is not an easy watch, Last Exit to Brooklyn was also praised for Uli Edel's direction and the performances of its actors.[7]Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote the film "is both grim and eloquent. The strike scenes are some of the roughest ever seen in a fiction film."[4] Canby added the film "has a European sensibility that works to the advantage of its American subject matter...[and] sees everything at the distance of a sober-minded alien observer. One result is that 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' never appears to exploit its sensational subject matter."[4] He concluded the film "suggests that physical, social, psychological and political degradation can only be understood when seen in something like their true dimensions. Without hope."[4] In a review that awarded 3 and ½ stars out of four, Roger Ebert wrote the characters "are limited in their freedom to imagine greater happiness for themselves, and yet in their very misery they embody human striving. There is more of humanity in a prostitute trying to truly love, if only for a moment, than in all of the slow-motion romantic fantasies in the world."[7]
Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The strike-breaking attempt at the factory is Last Exit’s vast visual set-piece, a long and magnificently staged mass of moving bodies and machinery that shows Edel’s accomplished and painterly eye and the remarkable camera work of Stefan Czapsky."[5] Benson singled out Jennifer Jason Leigh as the "defiantly tragic Tralala, [Ohrbach’s] [sic] implacable union leader, Stephen Lang’s self-hating Harry Black and Alexis Arquette’s dry wit-over-desperation as Georgette" as the film's standout performances.[5]
