Searching for Candy

by Tracey J Morgan

  The whole cast and crew got on great, it was a very light and fun set for all.

  Even though the movie is over 30 years old it still gets regular television showings, in fact as Levine explained to me, Tom Tuttle from Tacoma is quite the icon in Washington.

  “It’s really fun, the Washington State football team still show the scenes of John singing their fight song during the games. A few years ago when Washington State got into the Rose Bowl on ESPN they were showing the crowd and the sports anchor said “Hey I think I have just seen Tom Tuttle from Tacoma”. It’s a character that has sort of taken on a life of its own and again that is all due to John and how well he played that character and how he turned the part into a beloved character. Way more people remember John Candy as Tom Tuttle in that movie than I think people remember Tom Hanks was Lawrence Bourne III, no one can tell you unless they are a real movie buff the name of the character Tom Hanks played. Everyone can tell you Tom Tuttle from Tacoma – like it is his full name.”

  Levine would have loved to have worked with John again, but alas, their paths did not cross.[3]

  Armed and Dangerous

  In 1984 John was asked to read a script, it was originally written for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in 1979, at one point Harold Ramis did a rewrite, then it evolved that John was going to do it with Dan and John Carpenter was going to direct. John had already signed the contract, written a cheque for a house he had secured near where the shoot was taking place, when he had a phone call that Aykroyd wasn’t going to do it due to creative differences, which he accepted, then he gets the call that John Carpenter had also pulled out. John was like “well I’m still here, I’m ready to go to work” and Columbia said the whole shoot was off. A legal battle then followed, as Columbia claimed they weren’t breaking contract, that it was “an act of God”.

  The film was about a cop that had been fired and a useless lawyer, they changed careers and became security guards, but actually ended up uncovering a corrupt union.

  John was working with Eugene Levy on various other projects, he showed him the script and Levy liked it. They thought it could work if they swapped the parts around - originally Aykroyd was going to be playing the cop, Frank Dooley and John the Lawyer, Norman Cain, however John felt more suited to the cop role, and Levy the lawyer. So John rang Columbia and basically said, why don’t we compromise as opposed to getting into a legal battle, would you consider me and Levy? They sent tapes of them both working together in The Last Polka and doing sketch work on SCTV, Columbia saw they had great chemistry together and agreed, they then got Mark L. Lester on board to direct and the shoot was back on.

  Larry Hankin co-starred playing a stoned security guard, and remembers his time on set.

  “Armed and Dangerous was the first time I met John. He knew about me, he knew me before I knew him. I guess he seen me on television or whatever, but he really befriended me. He was John Candy who I looked up to, as I was a big fan of his from SCTV. On Armed and Dangerous he looked out for me and he seemed to respect my work which was kind of cool. There was one incident where he stepped up for me, I put a funny joke in and the director didn’t want me to do it, John thought it was pretty funny he and the cinematographer stood up for me. There was one scene where they were giving out the flashlight guns, we are all in a line, we were given a flashlight and my character in my mind was kind of doing Acid and stuff so when I was handed my flashlight, I immediately turned it on and looked into the light. I thought it was cute. So we did the first take, I was standing behind John so he didn’t really know what I was doing so he got his flashlight and gun and would go, so at the end of that take the director said ‘Cut’. He came over to me and said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ and I go, ‘What do you mean?’ He said ‘Looking into the flashlight, what are you doing?’ He really had an attitude and was like what is this crazy? So I just said I thought it was funny, he said, ‘Well it’s not funny just get your flashlight and get out of there, let the next guy go up.’ I said ,‘OK fine’. So I remembered John had turned around and laughed from behind the scenes when everyone else was giggling. We did take two and the cinematographer came over to me and said, ‘Why didn’t you do that looking at the light again?’ I said. ‘Well because the director said it wasn’t funny’. The cinematographer called over John and said, ‘John that was pretty funny wasn’t it?’ John said ‘Yeah’. So they both went over to the director and said let’s do it again but let’s get Larry looking into the light, the director said, ‘Why?’ And John and the cinematographer said because it is funny, he said, ‘It’s not funny’, so John said, ‘Well it is’.

  It is such a small thing, but it was a major thing on the set. So the cinematographer asked for one more take as he just wanted to try something, the director agreed. So the cinematographer called the entire crew over, he asked them all to come to the set and just watch. So all the crew just surrounded us and he said, 'OK run it again' and told me to do that thing again. So I did it. When it came to me looking at the flashlight the crew laughed out loud so the cinematographer went over to the director and said ‘See?’, he said ‘OK fine’ and since they had filmed that it stayed in. So John came over to me and said don’t worry about it. I didn’t really care, but that kind of bonded us, I would always check with John, ‘Do you think this is funny?’

  “When were we talking during the filming of that movie I would talk to him about writing stuff. So he would say, if you have got anything you want to write show it to me. I was writing film shorts at that time, he would say if you get something together let me see it and maybe we can put this together and make some film shorts. I really appreciated the nod from John who I was a big fan of. I thought, “If [he liked what I did then] it was kind of like a nice little nod, and gave me something to go on.

  “I always liked him. He was the friendliest guy I have ever met, in the best way. He was really very helpful, he really respected who he was and helped other people.

  “John directed me in the landfill scene, finding the comb, I found it and held it up and said to John, 'Do you think this is funny?' I didn’t trust the director and his humour anymore after that scene with the flashlight. Where I fell and disappeared down the garbage, John would laugh, so I would always check with John. The director was always asking me what I was doing and I would say I just thought it was funny, he would just walk away because he didn’t want another scene on set with John and the cinematographer. He never got anything I did. By the end of the movie when they had the crew screening, the director came up to me and he said ‘I would like to apologise for the way I treated you on the movie’, which was much later so I didn’t even think about it. I hardly even remembered, but I said ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Well I just thought they had hired somebody who was on Acid.’ He thought I was that guy and he was afraid I would just freak out! Good job John was there to calm him down.”

  Steve Railsback did an iconic scene with John towards the end of the film, a chase scene, filmed on a bridge in Los Angeles with 200 extras, where John abandons his motorbike (which by the way he really couldn’t ride, he tried really hard but was always wobbling all over the place) and jumps in Railsback The Cowboy’s truck. Railsback remembers, “John had the biggest heart and was just such a giving man, which is so important to what the work was about. He was just such a giver. It was one of the happiest times in my life. From the very first moment, John was so gracious; he hugged me, a big bear hug.

  “It’s hard to explain but he had a gift, and his gift was life. He had so much fun, we would just improvise things, things would come up and he would just let me go with it.

  He was a very special man and I just loved him very much. He had an incredible mind. There is so much I can say about John, I just loved being around him. That smile of his, that laugh of his, totally infectious.

  “Many times couldn’t make it through the scene because of laughing and banter, back and forth which is just so contagious, his mind was just born with this gift. You look
at Planes, Trains and Automobiles, he would do so many different emotions, he would get you on so many depths, he was a great actor, he made you want to laugh and cry. I don’t think there is anything John couldn’t do.

  “I can’t remember how it came up but we started talking about things we were watching in our trailers and we talked about our favourite films. I can’t remember who brought it up first but I was talking about my favourite film Soldier in the Rain with Steve McQueen and Jackie Gleason, a black and white film and that was his favourite film too! Paramount was the picture and he wanted to remake Soldier in the Rain and so did I, I was going to do Steve McQueen’s part and he was going to do Jackie Gleason. It was a drama, god we loved that film.

  “During that scene I said to him before hand, ‘you don’t care what I say to you do you?’ He said ‘no’. That’s when I say in the film ‘Jump up on here Slim’, he laughed and it just took off from there.”

  On one of the takes where John was filming on the bridge he went to sit and wait in his trailer, everyone forgot to tell him they were going home. So they had cleared the whole bridge of 200 extras and John was still sitting patiently in his trailer. His driver, Frankie Hernandez, said to him, ‘Everyone has gone’, John thought that was a joke and continued to sit there, as he recalled on a tv interview with David Letterman.

  John added to his trusty team whilst on this film by hiring Bob Crane Jr to do some publicity. John and Crane had hit it off well at a previous meeting, and later John would employ Crane to be his personal assistant. John was building a trusted team around him, Hernandez would call them the “Chongos” which means “monkeys”. Other members of the Chongos included Silvio Scarano as John’s personal dresser, Ben Nye Jr for makeup and for a while, Dione Taylor for hair.

  Later that year John would also do a cameo in Little Shop of Horrors, a musical film led by Rick Moranis about a giant man-eating plant, John played Wink Winklinson - the crrrraaazzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyyy radio show host.

  John loved kids shows, of course he was originally doing a lot of children’s entertainment and was pretty much a big kid himself. At the end of 1985 he briefly featured in the first ever Sesame Street movie, Follow That Bird, he was literally at the end, playing a state trooper arresting Sam and Sid Sleaze (Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty) who had kidnapped Big Bird. That was kind of John’s in on Sesame Street. Caroll Spinney (Bird Big and Oscar the Grouch himself) told me, “we were lucky on Sesame Street, we never really had to approach the big stars, they usually came to us, especially if they had kids and their kids wanted to see them on the programme”. I imagine John adored being on set, he was childlike without being childish - he must have felt like a kid at Christmas.

  In 1986 John had a days filming with Spinney in a scene between John’s SCTV character, Yosh Shmenge, Oscar the Grouch and Oscar’s pet worm Slimey. Slimey was learning clarinet by mail, but being the 100th customer Yosh turned up to give a personal lesson and a plaque from the Shemenge Musical Institute! Spinney remembers that John and the makeup department would move the fake mole around on his head, just ever so slightly. In fact one of the puppeteers kept his mole as a souvenir!

  After shooting they all went to eat at a little Italian just over the road from the studio. Spinney remembers John ate spaghetti and meatballs and they chatted about all kinds of subjects, including John telling Spinney that he always thought he was going to die young.

  Big Bear Chase Me

  Imagine being chased.

  Now imagine you are being chased through a wood.

  It is raining heavily and you are trying to navigate your way through trees, over roots, through the terrain debris littered on the floor.

  Imagine that the thing that is chasing you weighs over 800 pounds, has four legs, claws like razors, and a guttural roar that makes the ground beneath your feet shudder.

  Your heart is pounding, it’s leaping out of your chest and you can hear it thumping in your head.

  You slip a little.

  Looking over your shoulder you can see the beast advancing. Your brow covered with sweat. You are literally running for your life.

  Anyone who put themselves in this situation on purpose would - have to be a little crazy, or very dedicated to their art.

  That’s exactly what John did, in one of the most memorable scenes in The Great Outdoors, and he was terrified.

  Go south west of Yosemite National Park, California and it won’t be long before you hit Bass Lake Lodge, a 1940s resort that was the location for another John Candy and John Hughes classic, The Great Outdoors filmed in 1987.

  Director, Howard Deutch (who had previously worked for Hughes when he directed Pretty In Pink), had not met John prior to The Great Outdoors, which was originally going to be called Big Country. Hughes had convinced Deutch that he should direct the film. John was excited to play the part of Chester ‘Chet’ Ripley, a sweet family man wanting to take his wife and kids on a holiday that would get them back to nature. Stephanie Faracy played his wife, Connie, and Chris Young and Ian Giatti would play their sons, Buckley and Ben respectively. After reading the script John was convinced his character should have a beard covering his face, after Deutch discussed this with Universal, the feedback was “he can’t have that beard, you can’t see his face!” Hughes advised Deutch he would have to be the one to tell John the bad news, “Candy was really upset about it, ‘this is my character and now this movie will always be a black spot on my soul’. He was pissed. We got off to a very rocky start because he was unhappy. However he never ever leaked that into his work, he never had an attitude, he was a fantastic person and one of my favourite people I have ever worked with. He was just an amazingly sweet man, the funniest, you can just imagine, but generous, generous, generous and always very giving to the other actors and me and everyone, but he was upset about the beard!”

  The holiday for the Ripleys, although maybe a little more rustic than they remembered (Chet and Connie went there for their honeymoon), was going ok until out of the blue Connie’s sister turns up with her arrogant investor husband and twin girls. So John is reunited with his old pal and Second City Alumni, Dan Aykroyd who plays his brother in law, Roman Craig, co-starring Annette Bening playing his wife, Kate, along with Hillary and Rebecca Gordon as their twin daughters, Cara and Mara - who to be fair, could give the Grady daughters in The Shining a run for their money. Aykroyd really pushed to get the part and Hughes was thrilled he wanted to be involved. According to Deutch, Candy, Hughes and Aykroyd were all very similar: “Candy was from Canada and John (Hughes) from Chicago but they were definitely kindred spirits and they both had this sense of blue collared glory to them, they adored Aykroyd – he wanted to be a cop. Those were their sort of people, they enjoyed smoking cigarettes and hanging out, it was everything to them, that is what they loved.”

  Dan and John (Candy) got on so well, they adored each other, you would think with their improv background they may have continually gone off script, however according to Deutch they were very professional and stuck to script as much as possible. In fact Aykroyd even helped with some of the rewrites for the third act which “needed some work”.

  Back to the film: For Chet this is his worst nightmare, he wanted a quiet family holiday which has now been gatecrashed by his arrogant and materialistic in-laws. Many hijinks ensue along the way, Chet accidently being dragged around the lake on water skis (he didn’t even want to water ski, he wanted to rent a pontoon boat only to be berated by Roman), late night stories of a bald-headed bear (bald headed as Chet had come face to face with it on a previous visit, taken a shot and blown the hair off its head), an extremely persistent bat, pesky raccoons that seemed to torment Chet, meeting a host of crazy characters including ‘Lightning Rod Reg’ - a man that had been struck by lightning 66 times in the head! Not to mention conquering the old 96er, ‘a 96-pound prime aged beef steak’ that if ordered and consumed in its entirety (including the gristle and fat), the restaurant would grant your whole party a free bill.

&n
bsp; As the story unfolds it turns out Roman made a bad investment, is totally broke and was hoping to hit Chet up for some money. The brother in laws never really got on; however on a stormy night when the twins go missing, the two are brought together through adversity.

  The twins fall down a mineshaft and can’t get out, Chet and Roman discover them, Chet encourages Roman to go down the hole to comfort his girls, whilst he goes to get some rope. Meanwhile, Roman finds out there is dynamite in the hole and manages to get the two girls out. Unbeknownst to Chet, he goes back, throws down the rope and much to his surprise helps the bald-headed bear out of the shaft, only to be chased through the woods by him.

  The bear was played by Bart the Bear and John was terrified of him, however as Deutch explained to me they needed to work together, “There was one time when I had to do a shot where there was a bear in the shot (the big bear chase me lead up) and he (John), was afraid of the bears, but I had to get a shot of them both. I told him we need to do it but it will only take thirty seconds, he did it but he was mad at me. There was no CGI in those days, he had to do it for real.” I bet John had never run so fast in his life! Of course Bart the Bear was well trained by Doug and Lynne Seus who have worked as animal trainers in Hollywood for years, they rescued Bart and his sister after the bear’s mum was killed. I was hoping to get an interview with them about working with John, I was never able to but they did send me a statement saying that “John was so very kind to us, the lowly bear trainers in the ‘prop department’. We can't say enough good words about him. A beautiful human being.” That was typical of John, everyone on set loved him, he gave everyone the same amount of respect and love, he was always such a sweet Canadian boy at heart.