So I Married an Axe Murderer

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So I Married an Axe Murderer
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Thomas Schlamme
Produced by	Robert N. Fried Cary Woods
Written by	Robbie Fox
Starring	Mike Myers Nancy Travis Alan Arkin Anthony LaPaglia Amanda Plummer Brenda Fricker
Music by	Bruce Broughton
Cinematography	Julio Macat
Editing by	Colleen Halsey Richard Halsey
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date(s)	July 30, 1993
Running time	93 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$20,000,000
Gross revenue	$11,585,483
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

So I Married an Axe Murderer is a 1993 American film starring Mike Myers and Nancy Travis. Myers plays Charlie McKenzie, a man afraid of commitment until he meets Harriet (Travis), who works at a butcher shop and may be a serial killer.

This was Myers' first film after achieving success in the Wayne's World franchise and was not well received by most mainstream critics or at the box office, grossing a total of USD $11 million in North America, well below its $20 million budget. It has since managed to earn somewhat of a cult following on video, with many of its lines and strong Scottish dialects repeated by then-current as well as future fans of Myers's work.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast and characters 3 Production 3.1 Casting 3.2 Locations 4 Soundtrack 4.1 Track listing 4.2 Other music in the film 5 Reaction 6 DVD 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Plot

Charlie McKenzie (Myers) is a beat poet with Scottish roots and a fear of making a big commitment like marriage. He even proceeds to create outlandish reasons to break up his relationships ("She smelled like soup", "she was in the mafia" or "she stole my cat" are some of the memorable reasons). This all changes when Charlie meets Harriet (Travis), a butcher whose first date with Charlie has him assisting Harriet on a busy day at her store. This is significant to Charlie, as it allows him to temporarily work the same job as his Scottish father (also played by Myers). Eventually, Charlie continues to date and ultimately gets engaged to Harriet. However, upon learning from several sketchy, ambiguous sources (namely the tabloid rag, The Weekly World News) that Harriet could indeed be a killer on the loose, famous for butchering her husbands on the night of their honeymoon, Charlie wonders if he has made a grave mistake.

[edit] Cast and characters

Actor/Actress	Role
Mike Myers	Charlie/Stuart Mackenzie
Nancy Travis	Harriet Michaels
Anthony LaPaglia	Tony Giardino
Amanda Plummer	Rose Michaels
Alan Arkin	Police Captain
Brenda Fricker	May Mackenzie
Matt Doherty	(William "Head" Mackenzie)
Charles Grodin	Commandeered Driver
Phil Hartman	John "Vicky" Johnson, Alcatraz Guide
Debi Mazar	Susan, Tony's Girlfriend
Steven Wright	Pilot

[edit] Production

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The film was inspired by the experiences of producer Robert N. Fried, and writer Robbie Fox. The script was developed while Fried was an executive at Columbia Pictures. Fox was a popular, young comedy writer/director who had written and directed a short film for Chanticleer Film's Discovery Program that caught Fried's attention. Myers contributed extensively to the script, but his name was omitted from the final credits because of Writers Guild of America rules.

[edit] Casting

Rounding out the main cast are Anthony LaPaglia (Charlie's best friend, who works as a San Francisco police officer), Brenda Fricker (playing Charlie's mother, May), and Myers himself in a dual role also as the main character's Scottish father, Stuart. Myers' portrayal of the Scottish father was derived from a Saturday Night Live sketch, and would later reemerge in the animated character, Shrek.

Mike Myers was not originally set to play his character's father. He simply read the part during early script-reads and rehearsals because an actor had not yet been cast, but the filmmakers enjoyed his interpretation, so they decided to have him play both parts. Myers based his performance on the mannerisms of his own father. This was the first film in which Mike Myers played multiple characters, a trend that would resurface several years later when he did Austin Powers.

The movie also features cameos by Charles Grodin, Phil Hartman, Michael Richards, Mike Hagarty, Debi Mazar, and Steven Wright. Alan Arkin appears in an uncredited role as Tony's sensitive boss.

[edit] Locations

Set in San Francisco, California, the film features many famous sights and neighborhoods of the Golden State metropolis, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts and Alcatraz. The restaurant where Myers and Travis double date with LaPaglia and Debi Mazar is the Fog City Diner. The butcher shop used for "Meats of the World" was Prudente Meats on Grant Ave in the North Beach Section of San Francisco. Prior to being Prudente Meats, it was known as Jacobi Meats, the oldest Kosher butcher in the city. Today, the building houses an art gallery. The final scenes are set at Dunsmuir House. The exterior shot for the cafe, Cafe Roads, where Myers recites his beat poetry is the bar Vesuvio, at Columbus Avenue and Jack Kerouac Alley. The interiors of Cafe Roads was shot at two locations, the first at Cafe Picaro (3120 16th Street). But, after three weeks of shooting in that location (originally blocked out as one week) all of the footage was deemed unusable, and the cast and crew were later brought back to shoot these scenes over at the Rococo Showplace (165 10th Street) for two weeks.

• Illustrated location guide

[edit] Soundtrack

So I Married an Axe Murderer (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Soundtrack by Various artists
Released	July 27, 1993
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	39:14
Label	Columbia Records
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link

[edit] Track listing

1. Boo Radleys - "There She Goes" 2:18
2. Toad the Wet Sprocket - "Brother" 4:04
3. Soul Asylum - "The Break" 2:46
4. Chris Whitley - "Starve To Death" 3:14
5. Big Audio Dynamite II - "Rush" 3:55
6. Mike Myers - "This Poem Sucks" 2:04
7. Ned's Atomic Dustbin - "Saturday Night" 3:08
8. The Darling Buds - "Long Day In The Universe" 4:08
9. The Spin Doctors - "Two Princes" 4:15
10. Suede - "My Insatiable One" 2:57
11. Sun-60 - "Maybe Baby" 3:43
12. The La's - "There She Goes" 2:42

[edit] Other music in the film

1. The Bay City Rollers - "Saturday Night"
2. Ron Gonnelia - "A Touch of Gaelic"
3. Nancy Travis - "Only You"

[edit] Reaction

So I Married an Axe Murderer was not well-received at the box office. It was released on July 30, 1993 and grossed a total of USD $3.4 million in 1,349 theaters on its opening weekend. It made a total of $11.5 million in North America, well below its $20 million budget.^[1]

The film was not well received by critics and currently holds a 52% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert, in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, criticized the film for being "a mediocre movie with a good one trapped inside, wildly signaling to be set free".^[2] Rolling Stone magazine's review felt that "Juggling mirth, romance and murder requires a deft touch - think of Hitchcock's Trouble with Harry. Axe is a blunt instrument".^[3] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C-" and said, "In some perverse way, So I Married an Axe Murderer seems to be asking us to laugh at how not-funny it is".^[4] However, Janet Maslin's review in the New York Times said that it came as "a welcome surprise that So I Married an Axe Murderer, which might have been nothing more than a by-the-numbers star vehicle, surrounds Mr. Myers with amusing cameos and gives him a chance to do more than just coast."^[5]

[edit] DVD

The DVD was released on June 1, 1999. The artwork for the DVD featured an altered image. Early releases of the poster had Harriet holding an axe behind her back, mirroring Myers holding flowers behind his back. For whatever reason, the axe was then removed, creating a noticeable amount of empty space behind Harriet on both posters and the DVD cover, thus ruining the gag.^{[citation needed]}

A "Deluxe Edition" DVD and Blu-ray edition will be released on June 17, 2008.^[6]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• So I Married an Axe Murderer at the Internet Movie Database
• So I Married an Axe Murderer at Allmovie
• So I Married an Axe Murderer at Rotten Tomatoes
• locations where the film was shot