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102-448: Raising Arizona is a 1987 American crime comedy film written, directed and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen . It stars Nicolas Cage as H.I. "Hi" McDunnough, an ex-convict, and Holly Hunter as Edwina "Ed" McDunnough, a former police officer and his wife. Other members of the cast include Trey Wilson , William Forsythe , John Goodman , Frances McDormand , Sam McMurray , and Randall "Tex" Cobb . The Coen brothers set out to work on

204-489: A Texas bartender who is having a love affair with his boss’s wife. When his boss discovers the affair, he hires a private investigator to kill the couple. It was the directorial debut of the Coens and the first major film of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld , who later became a director, as well as the feature-film debut of McDormand. The film's title is derived from Dashiell Hammett 's novel Red Harvest (1929), in which

306-441: A frequent collaborator following his performance as Gale Snoats. The script took three and a half months to write. A send-up of the screwball comedy , the film was influenced by the works of director Preston Sturges and writers such as William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor (who was known for her Southern literature ; "She also has a great sense of eccentric character," Ethan Coen told one interviewer). Joel and Ethan showed

408-536: A "long, late- night tracking shot from one end of the Neon Boot bar to another actually tracks along the surface of the bar itself - and when there is a drunk passed out on the bar, the camera simply lifts up and flies over him, then continues on its route." Pauline Kael called it "a crude, ghoulish story with thriller themes", but was effusive about the performance of M. Emmet Walsh as Loren Visser (private detective). Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert each gave it

510-411: A 99-minute run time. Unusual for such an exercise, the "Director's Cut" is some 3 minutes shorter than the original 1985 theatrical release. The Coens reduced the run time with tighter editing, shortening some shots and removing others altogether. Additionally, they resolved long-standing rights issues with the music; the original theatrical version of the film made prominent use of The Four Tops ' " It's

612-416: A Hollywood feature went from $ 20,000 in 1914 to $ 300,000 in 1924. Silver and Ursini stated that the earliest crime features were by Austrian émigré director Josef von Sternberg whose films like Underworld (1927) eliminated most of the causes for criminal behavior and focused on the criminal perpetrators themselves which would anticipate the popular gangster films of the 1930s. The groundwork for

714-451: A botched attempt to kidnap Abby, Marty offers Visser $ 10,000 to kill Abby and Ray. Visser tells Marty to go fishing and he will call him when it is done. Visser breaks into Ray's home and steals Abby's gun. Visser shows Marty photos of the murdered couple, one of which Marty secretes in the safe while retrieving the $ 10,000. Visser shoots Marty with Abby's gun, drops the gun and grabs the money but forgets his cigarette lighter as he leaves. It

816-478: A broader category called "film type", mystery and suspense as "macro-genres", and film noir as a "screenwriter's pathway" explaining that these categories are additive rather than exclusionary. Chinatown would be an example of a film that is a drama (film type) crime film (super-genre) that is also a noir (pathway) mystery (macro-genre). The definition of what constitutes a crime film is not straightforward. Criminologist Nicole Hahn Rafter in her book Shots in

918-505: A change signaled by films like Chinatown (1974) and The Wild Bunch (1969) noting that older genres were being transformed through cultivation of nostalgia and a critique of the myths cultivated by their respective genres. Todd found that this found its way into crime films of the 1980s with films that could be labeled as post-modern , in which he felt that "genres blur, pastiche prevails, and once-fixed ideals, such as time and meaning, are subverted and destabilized". This would apply to

1020-538: A coherent story." Writing for The New York Times , Vincent Canby wrote, "Like Blood Simple , it's full of technical expertise but has no life of its own ... The direction is without decisive style." Julie Salamon of the Wall Street Journal wrote that the Coen Brothers "have a lot of imagination and sense of fun—and, most of all, a terrific sense of how to manipulate imagery," but "by the end,

1122-575: A conservative era. For crime films, this led to various reactions, including political films that critiqued official policies and citizen's political apathy. These included films like Missing (1982), Silkwood (1983), and No Way Out (1987). Prison films and courtroom dramas would also be politically charged with films like Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Cry Freedom (1987). While films about serial killers existed in earlier films such as M (1931) and Peeping Tom (1960),

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1224-459: A convenience store while buying diapers, leading to a chase with police and a pack of dogs that he manages to outrun. As Ed and Nathan Jr. sleep, Hi decides to leave his family to join Gale and Evelle in a bank robbery. The next morning, Smalls approaches Nathan Sr. and reveals himself as a bounty hunter . When Nathan Sr. rejects Smalls' offer to bring back Nathan Jr. for $ 50,000, Smalls decides to do

1326-475: A convenience store, then forget him again during the bank robbery. A dye pack explodes in their stolen money sack, covering them and the getaway car interior with blue dye. The distraction allows Smalls to capture the baby before Hi and Ed arrive. In the ensuing struggle, Ed grabs Nathan Jr. while Smalls severely beats Hi. Hi pulls the pin from one of the hand grenades clipped to Smalls' vest, causing them all to explode and kill Smalls. Hi and Ed sneak back into

1428-454: A crooked shell" and portrayed gangsters who showcased the "romantic mystique of the doomed criminal." The 1940s formed an ambivalence toward the criminal heroes. Leitch suggested that this shift was from the decline in high-profile organized crime, partly because of the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and partly because of the well-publicized success of the FBI. Unlike the crime films of the 1930s,

1530-428: A desert mobile home , and Hi works in a machine shop. They want children, but Ed is infertile and they cannot adopt due to Hi's criminal record. Hi and Ed learn of the quintuplet sons born to regional furniture magnate Nathan Arizona. They kidnap one of the babies, whom they believe to be Nathan Jr., intending to start a family. Soon afterward, Hi's former cellmates Gale and Evelle Snoats escape from prison and visit

1632-494: A downpour at night, discussing Abby's bad marriage to Ray's boss Julian Marty. They have sex at a motel. Private detective Loren Visser takes photos of the tryst and delivers them to Marty. When a caller informs the couple they are being watched, Abby grabs some belongings, including a pistol Marty gave her. Ray goes to the bar to demand his back pay from Marty, who tells Ray that Abby will betray him as she did Marty, and when confronted will say, "I haven't done anything funny." After

1734-484: A film described as "crime/ action " or an "action/crime" or other hybrids was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir stated that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews and rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Leitch, stated that

1836-535: A force of nature ... I don't know if I'd rush headlong into employing him for a future film." Raising Arizona was initially released in the US, three dates; A New York City premiere on March 6, 1987, a limited release on March 13, 1987 and a nationwide release on April 17, 1987. The film was also released in Argentina on March 25, 1987 before it was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival . Despite

1938-491: A locker of the Hollywood Athletic Club. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) consolidated a tendency to define criminal subculture as a mirror of American culture. The cycle of caper films were foreshadowed by films like The Killers (1946) and Criss Cross (1949) to later examples like The Killing (1956) and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Leitch wrote that these films used the planning and action of

2040-684: A mobster known as The Snapper Kid. Regeneration (1915) was an early feature-length film about a gangster who saved from a life of crime by a social worker. These two early films and films like Tod Browning 's Outside the Law (1920) that deal with the world of criminal activity were described by Silver and Ursini as being gangsters "constrained by a strong moral code". Stuart Kaminsky in American Film Genres (1974) stated that prior to Little Caesar (1931), gangster characters were in films were essentially romances . European films of

2142-409: A period of 8 weeks in the fall of 1982. The film spent a year in postproduction and was completed by 1983. Blood Simple was Frances McDormand's screen debut. All Coen brothers films are co-produced and co-directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, although Ethan was credited as the sole producer and Joel the sole director until 2004. The Coens share editing credit under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes. While

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2244-465: A positive review on At the Movies . In his review, Ebert wrote: "A lot has been written about the visual style of “Blood Simple,” but I think the appeal of the movie is more elementary. It keys into three common nightmares: (1) You clean and clean, but there’s still blood all over the place; (2) You know you have committed a murder, but you are not sure quite how or why; (3) You know you have forgotten

2346-535: A psychopathic personality." Drew Todd in Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society described the character as different than films featuring rebellious characters from the 1940s and 1950s, with a character whose anger is directed against the state, mixed with fantasies of vigilante justice. Films like Dirty Harry , The French Connection and Straw Dogs (1971) that presented a violent vigilante as

2448-470: A remake of The Defiant Ones (1958). The cycle generally slowed down by the mid 1970s. Prison films closely followed the formulas of films of the past while having an increased level of profanity, violence and sex. Cool Hand Luke (1967) inaugurated the revival and was followed into the 1970s with films like Papillon (1973), Midnight Express (1978) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979). When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, he ushered in

2550-413: A robbery todramatize the "irreducible unreasonableness of life." The themes of existential despair made the these film popular with European filmmakers, who would make their own heist films like Rififi (1955) and Il bidone (1955). Filmmakers of the coming French New Wave movement would expand on these crime films into complex mixtures of nostalgia and critique with later pictures like Elevator to

2652-410: A rude yet affectionate mode of comedy". Richard Corliss of Time referred to the film as "exuberantly original". Rita Kempley of The Washington Post gave a positive review, stating that it was "the best kidnapping comedy since last summer's Ruthless People ". On the film review television show Siskel & Ebert & the Movies , critic Gene Siskel said the film was as "good looking as it

2754-420: A savior. By the mid-1970s, a traditional lead with good looks, brawn and bravery was replaced with characters who Todd described as a "pathological outcast, embittered and impulsively violent." Hollywood productions began courting films produced and marketed by white Americans for the purpose of trying to attract a new audience with blaxploitation film. These films were almost exclusively crime films following

2856-841: A small detail that will eventually get you into a lot of trouble." The film grossed $ 2.7 million worldwide. Its first big public viewing was the USA Film Festival in Dallas, followed by the Sundance Film Festival, where it received the Grand Jury Prize. The brothers took the film to the Toronto Film Festival, Cannes, and the New York Film Festival. They were very proud of their film, particularly in light of having raised

2958-402: Is a style of crime film that originated from two cinematic precursors: the gangster film and the gentleman thief film. The essential element in these films is the plot concentration on the commission of a single crime of great monetary significance, at least on the surface level. The narratives in these films focus on the heist being wrapped up in the execution of the crime more or at as much as

3060-580: Is arrested by a Polish-American police officer who is unamused by the ethnic jokes he tells; and Nathan Jr. becomes a high school football star with Hi and Ed anonymously watching and encouraging him. Later he dreams of an elderly couple with a large, wholesome family, and wonders whether this was a vision of him and Ed, or of Utah. The Coen Brothers started working on Raising Arizona with the idea to make it as different as possible from their previous film, Blood Simple , by having it be far more optimistic and upbeat. The starting point of scriptwriting came from

3162-423: Is different just as crime are different than horror, science fiction and period drama films. Rafter also suggested that Westerns could be considered crime films, but that this perception would only be "muddying conceptual waters." The history of the crime film before 1940 follows reflected the changing social attitudes toward crime and criminals. In the first twenty years of the 20th Century, American society

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3264-434: Is funny" and that "despite some slow patches" he recommended the film, giving it a "thumbs up". Writing for The New Yorker , Pauline Kael wrote that " Raising Arizona is no big deal, but it has a rambunctious charm". Negative reviews focused on a "style over substance" view of the film. Variety wrote, "While [ Raising Arizona ] is filled with many splendid touches and plenty of yocks, it often doesn't hold together as

3366-499: Is revealed that Visser doctored photos of the sleeping couple to appear that they had been shot. Ray discovers Marty's body, accidentally discharging Abby's gun when he steps on it. He puts the gun in Marty's pocket and the body in his car. Marty is still alive, albeit barely. Ray begins to bury Marty in a shallow grave when Marty aims the gun and pulls the trigger three times, falling on an empty chamber each time. Marty screams as Ray takes

3468-538: Is written by Carter Burwell , the second of his collaborations with the Coen brothers . The sounds are a mix of organ , massed choir, banjo , whistling , and yodeling . Themes are borrowed from the "Goofing Off Suite" , originally recorded by Pete Seeger in 1955, which includes an excerpt from the Chorale movement of Ludwig van Beethoven 's Symphony No. 9 and "Russian Folk Themes and Yodel". Credited musicians for

3570-659: The American Film Institute 's 100 Years...100 Laughs list, and 45th on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" list. Raising Arizona was released in the United States on March 13, 1987. Convenience store robber Herbert ("H.I." or "Hi") McDunnough meets police officer Edwina ("Ed") when she takes his mugshot after each of several arrests in Tempe, Arizona . He learns that Ed's fiancé has left her and proposes after release from prison. They marry and move into

3672-640: The British Board of Film Censors or conveyed mostly through narration. Box-office receipts began to grow stronger towards the late 1960s. Hollywood's demise of the Hays Code standards would allow for further violent, risqué and gory films. As college students at the University of Berkeley and University of Columbia demonstrated against racial injustice and the Vietnam, Hollywood generally ignored

3774-500: The Continental Op muses: “This damned burg's getting me. If I don't get away soon I'll be going blood-simple like the natives.” Stylistically, the film has been noted for its blending elements of neo-noir, pulp crime stories, and low-budget horror films . In 2001, a director's cut was released, the same year that it was ranked No. 98 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills . Texas bartender Ray and housewife Abby drive through

3876-503: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935), promoted bigger budgets and wider press for his organization and himself through a well-publicized crusade against such real world gangsters as Machine Gun Kelly , Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger . Hoover's fictionalized exploits were glorified in future films such as G Men (1935). Through the 1930s, American films view of criminals were predominantly glamorized, but as

3978-1045: The Western film as they lack both the instantly recognizable or the unique intent of other genres such as parody films. Leitch and Rafter both write that it would be impractical to call every film in which a crime produces the central dramatic situation a crime film. Leitch gave an example that most Westerns from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to Unforgiven (1992) often have narratives about crime and punishment, but are not generally described as crime films. Films with crime-and-punishment themes like Winchester 73 (1950) and Rancho Notorious (1952) are classified as Westerns rather than crime films because their setting takes precedence over their story. Alain Silver and James Ursini argued in A Companion to Crime Fiction (2020) that "unquestionably most Western films are crime films" but that that their overriding generic identification

4080-495: The gangster film as both a genre on its own terms and a subgenre of the crime film. In these films, the gangster and their values have been imbedded through decades of reiteration and revision, generally with a masculine style where an elaboration on a codes of behavior by acts of decisive violence are central concerns. The archetypal gangster film was the Hollywood production Little Caesar (1931). A moral panic followed

4182-612: The 1940s films were based more on fictional tales with gangsters played by Paul Muni in Angel on My Shoulder (1946) and Cagney in White Heat (1949) were self-consciously anachronistic. Filmmakers from this period were fleeing Europe due to the rise of Nazism. These directors such as Fritz Lang , Robert Siodmak , and Billy Wilder would make crime films in the late 1930s and 1940s that were later described as film noir by French critics. Several films from 1944 like The Woman in

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4284-689: The 1980s had an emphasis on the serial nature of their crimes with a larger number of films focusing on the repetitive nature of some murders. While many of these films were teen-oriented pictures, they also included films like Dressed to Kill (1980) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and continued into the 2000s with films like Seven (1995), Kiss the Girls (1997), and American Psycho (2000). In an article by John G. Cawelti titled " Chinatown and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films" (1979), Cawleti noticed

4386-600: The 1990s with films like Wild at Heart (1990). Quentin Tarantino would continue this trend in the 1990s with films where violence and crime is treated lightly such as Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Natural Born Killers (1994) while Lynch and the Coens would continue with Fargo (1996) and Lost Highway (1997). Other directors such as Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet would continue to more traditional crime films Goodfellas , Prince of

4488-498: The American crime film which began rejecting linear storytelling and distinctions between right and wrong with works from directors like Brian de Palma with Dressed to Kill and Scarface and works from The Coen Brothers and David Lynch whose had Todd described as having "stylized yet gritty and dryly humorous pictures evoking dream states" with films like Blood Simple (1984) and Blue Velvet (1986) and would continue into

4590-478: The Arizona home to return Nathan Jr. but Nathan Sr. catches them. Nathan Sr. sympathizes with their motives and decides not to report them to the authorities. Learning that Hi and Ed are considering a divorce, he suggests that they think about it first. While sleeping beside Ed that night, Hi has a series of prophetic dreams. Gale and Evelle return to prison, having realized that they are not ready for society; Glen

4692-522: The City (1980), Q & A (1990), and Casino (1995). Other trends of the 1990s extended boundaries of crime films, ranging from main characters who were female or minorities with films like Thelma and Louise (1991), Swoon (1991), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Bound (1996) and Dolores Claiborne (1996). Every genre is a subgenre of a wider genre from whose contexts its own conventions take their meaning, it makes sense to think of

4794-538: The Coen brothers. Blood Simple was also the first feature-film score for Burwell, and after his work on this film, he became a much-in-demand composer in Hollywood. As of 2024, he had scored 16 of the Coen brothers' films. The score for Blood Simple is a mix of solo piano and electronic ambient sounds. One track, "Monkey Chant", is based on kecak , the " Ramayana Monkey Chant" of Bali . In 1987, seven selections from Burwell's Blood Simple score were released on

4896-445: The Coens was respectful, but turbulent. When he arrived on-set, and at various other points during production, Cage offered suggestions to the Coen brothers, which they ignored. Cage said that "Joel and Ethan have a very strong vision and I've learned how difficult it is to accept another artist's vision. They have an autocratic nature." Randall "Tex" Cobb also gave the Coens difficulty on set, with Joel noting that "he's less an actor than

4998-476: The Coens' most disciplined movie, but it's one of their most purely entertaining." On Metacritic , the film has a weighted average score of 69 based on 23 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. David Denby of New York wrote that the film was a "deranged fable of the New West" which turned "sarcasm into

5100-457: The Coens’ next two films before embarking on his own directorial career... It is no small miracle—and a testament to the Coens themselves—that so many exceptional talents connected so early in their respective careers." The film was referenced in a 1992 episode ( Master Ninja II ) of the cult satirical sci-fi TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 as well as a 2017 episode (" Backfire ") of

5202-794: The Gallows (1958), Breathless (1960) and Shoot the Piano Player (1960). Following the classical noir period of 1940 to 1958, a return to the violence of the two previous decades. By 1960, film was losing popularity to television as the mass form of media entertainment. Despite To The crime film countered this by providing material no acceptable for television, first with a higher level of onscreen violence. Films like Psycho (1960) and Black Sunday (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film. Prior to these films, violence and gorier scenes were cut in Hammer film productions by

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5304-660: The Mirror: Crime Films and Society (2006) found that film scholars had a traditional reluctance to examine the topic of crime films in their entirety due to complex nature of the topic. Carlos Clarens in his book Crime Movies (1980), described the crime film as a symbolic representation of criminals, law, and society. Clarens continued that they describe what is culturally and morally abnormal and differ from thriller films which he wrote as being more concerned with psychological and private situations. Thomas Schatz in Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and

5406-600: The Same Old Song " (1965); the Coens had replaced it with Neil Diamond 's " I'm a Believer " (1966) for the 1995 U.S. home video edition on VHS. The Director's Cut reinstated the Four Tops track. Universal Home Video released a DVD version of the film in 2001, and again in 2005 as part of a DVD box set titled The Coen Brothers Collection . A Blu-ray edition was released in 2011 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment . In 2016, The Criterion Collection released

5508-516: The Studio System (1981) does not refer to the concept of crime film as a genre, and says that "such seemingly similar "urban crime" formulas" such as the gangster film and detective film were their own unique forms. Thomas Leitch, author of Crime Films (2004) stated that the crime film presents their defining subject as a crime culture that normalizes a place where crime is both shockingly disruptive and completely normal. Rafter suggested

5610-464: The TV series Designated Survivor . Some audio extracts of this film are used in the song "Quotation For Listening", by On Thorns I Lay on their album Egocentric , released in 2003. The original MCA Home Video VHS tape and LaserDisc was released on October 10, 1985, with a 96-minute running time. The film was released on Universal Pictures Home Entertainment VHS for a second time in 1995 with

5712-461: The Window , Laura , Murder, My Sweet and Double Indemnity ushered in this film cycle. These works continued into the mid-1950s. A reaction to film noir came with films with a more semi-documentary approach pioneered by the thriller The House on 92nd Street (1945). This led to crime films taking a more realistic approach like Kiss of Death (1947) and The Naked City (1948). By

5814-454: The bank robbery scene from the 1995 thriller Heat . Actor Simon Pegg described the film as "a living, breathing Looney Tunes cartoon" during a BFI screening. Pegg's friend and frequent collaborator Edgar Wright has stated that Raising Arizona is his favorite film of all time. Likewise, Spike Lee put Raising Arizona on his "Essential Films" list. The film is recognized by American Film Institute : The score to Raising Arizona

5916-496: The basic idea of the movie is a good one and there are talented people in the cast, what we have here is a film shot down by its own forced and mannered style." Later writings about the film have been generally positive. Both the British film magazine Empire and film database Allmovie gave the film five stars, their highest ratings. Allmovie's Lucia Bozzola wrote, "Complete with carefully modulated over-the-top performances from

6018-486: The best way to skirt complexities of various films that may be defined as crime films as works that focus primarily on crime and its consequences, and that they should be viewed as a category that encompasses a number genres, ranging from caper films , detective films, gangster films, cop and prison films and courtroom dramas. She said that like drama and romance film, they are umbrella terms that cover several smaller more coherent groups. The criminal acts in every film in

6120-601: The box office. The success of the film and its sequel The Godfather Part II (1974) reinforced the stature of the gangster film genre, which continued into the 1990s with films Scarface (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Untouchables (1987), Goodfellas (1990) and Donnie Brasco (1997). Dirty Harry (1971) create a new form of police film, where Clint Eastwood 's performance as Inspector Callahan which critic Pauline Kael described as an "emotionless hero, who lives and kills as affectlessly as

6222-473: The character Ed for Holly Hunter. The character of Leonard Smalls was created when the Coen Brothers tried to envision an "evil character" not from their imagination, but one that the character would have thought up. His name is widely thought to be a reference to the character of Lennie Small, from John Steinbeck 's novella Of Mice and Men . John Goodman was drawn to characters of "great feeling, [guys] who could explode or start weeping at any moment" and became

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6324-431: The character of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle who Leitch described as a "tireless, brutal, vicious and indifferent" in terms of constraints of the law and his commanding officers. The film won several Academy Awards and was successful in the box office. This was followed in critical and commercial success of The Godfather (1972) which also won a Best Picture Academy Award and performed even better than The French Connection in

6426-741: The completed script to Circle Films, their American distributor for Blood Simple . Circle Films agreed to finance the movie. The Coens came to the set with a complete script and storyboard. With a budget of just over five million dollars, Joel Coen noted that "to obtain maximum from that money, the movie has to be meticulously prepared". Raising Arizona was shot in ten weeks. Many crew members who had worked with Joel and Ethan on Blood Simple returned for Raising Arizona , including cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld , co-producer Mark Silverman, production designer Jane Musky, associate producer and assistant director Deborah Reinisch, and film composer Carter Burwell . The relationship between actor Nicolas Cage and

6528-429: The continual breakdown and re-establishment of borders among criminals, crime solvers and victims, concluding that "this paradox is at the heart of all crime films." Rafter echoed these statements, saying crime films should be defined on the basis of their relationship with society. Leitch writes that crime films reinforce popular social beliefs of their audience, such as the road to hell is paved with good intentions ,

6630-435: The couple. They persuade Hi to shelter them and tempt him to return to his former criminal life. That night, Hi has a nightmare of monstrous biker Leonard Smalls. Hi's foreman Glen visits with his large and unruly family the next day. Glen and wife Dot offer parenting advice amid their children's misbehavior, but when Glen suggests that he and Hi exchange wives , Hi punches Glen in the face. That night, Hi succumbs to robbing

6732-412: The crime film was following changing attitudes towards the law and the social order that criminals metaphorically reflect while most film were also no more explicitly violent or explicitly sexual than those of 1934. White Heat (1949) inaugurated a cycle of crime films that would deal with the omnipresent danger of the nuclear bomb with its theme of when being threatened with technological nightmares,

6834-554: The criminal psychology and are characterized by and emphasis on the crime unfolding often though montage and extended sequences. The genre is sometimes used interchangeable with the term "caper". The term was used for the more dramatic films of the 1950s, while in the 1960s, it had stronger elements of romantic comedy with more playful elements as seen in films like The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Topkapi (1964). Leitch described combining genres as problematic. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing

6936-456: The cult following of their later films, such as The Big Lebowski , in 2000 Ethan Coen described their second feature as "the last movie [we] made that made any significant amount of money". On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes , the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 63 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A terrifically original, eccentric screwball comedy, Raising Arizona may not be

7038-680: The decade ended, the attitudes Hollywood productions had towards fictional criminals grew less straightforward and more conflicted. In 1935, Humphrey Bogart played Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role Leitch described as the "first of Hollywood's overtly metaphorical gangsters." Bogart would appear in films in the later thirties: Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and The Roaring Twenties (1939). Unlike actor James Cagney , whose appeal as described by Leitch "direct, physical, and extroverted", Bogart characters and acting suggested "depths of worldly disillusionment beneath

7140-401: The end of the decade, American critics such as Parker Tyler and Robert Warshow regarded Hollywood itself as a stage for repressed American cultural anxieties following World War II. This can be seen in films such as Brute Force , a prison film where the prison is an existential social metaphor for a what Leitch described as a "meaningless, tragically unjust round of activities." By 1950,

7242-591: The entire cast, Raising Arizona confirmed the Coens' place among the most distinctive filmmakers to emerge from the 1980s independent cinema", while Caroline Westbrook of Empire declared it a "hilarious, madcap comedy from the Coen brothers that demonstrates just why they are the kings of quirk". Bilge Ebiri considers Raising Arizona to be "the Coens' masterpiece — their funniest movie, and quite possibly their most poignant as well". The Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland placed its bank robbery scene second on their list of "the 5 best bank robberies in film history", behind

7344-417: The film a score of 83 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Janet Maslin wrote: "Black humor, abundant originality and a brilliant visual style make Joel Coen's Blood Simple a directorial debut of extraordinary promise. Mr. Coen, who co-wrote the film with his brother Ethan, works in a film noir style that in no way inhibits his wit, which turns out to be considerable." She cites

7446-524: The film include Ben Freed (banjo), Mieczyslaw Litwinski ( Jew's harp and guitar ), and John R. Crowder (yodeling). Holly Hunter sings a traditional murder ballad , " Down in the Willow Garden ", as an incongruous "lullaby" during the film. Selections from Burwell's score to Raising Arizona were released on an album in 1987, along with selections from the Coens' sole previous feature film, Blood Simple . The tracks from Raising Arizona constitute

7548-466: The film on Blu-ray and DVD, featuring a new 4K digital transfer supervised and approved by Barry Sonnenfeld and the Coens, along with various new special features. In 2024, The Criterion Collection released the film on 4K Ultra HD for the first time as a combo pack which includes the 2016 Blu-ray disc as well. Carter Burwell wrote the Blood Simple score , the first of his collaborations with

7650-429: The film was only a modest box-office success, it was a huge critical success. It holds a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 111 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The critical consensus reads: "Brutally violent and shockingly funny in equal measure, Blood Simple offers early evidence of the Coen Brothers' twisted sensibilities and filmmaking ingenuity." Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned

7752-435: The film with the intention of making a film as different from their previous film, the dark thriller Blood Simple , as possible, with a lighter sense of humor and a faster pace. Raising Arizona received mixed reviews at the time of its release. Some criticized it as too self-conscious, manneristic, and unclear as to whether it was fantasy or realism. Other critics praised the film for its originality. The film ranks 31st on

7854-461: The film, which showed "a man dragging a shovel alongside a car stopped in the middle of the road, back towards another man he was going to kill" and "a shot of backlit gun holes in a wall." The trailer featured actor Bruce Campbell , playing the Julian Marty role, and was shot by recent film school graduate Barry Sonnenfeld . After completing the trailer, the Coens began exhibiting it with

7956-720: The first ten tracks on a 17-track CD that also features selections from the Blood Simple soundtrack . AllMusic gave the album a rating of [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] (4.5 out of 5). Crime comedy film Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identified crime film as one of eleven super-genres in his Screenwriters Taxonomy , claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres.  The other ten super-genres are action, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, war and western. Williams identifies drama in

8058-483: The fun feels a little forced." Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune wrote that "the overlooked form peels away from the slight, frail content, and the film starts to look like an episode of Hee Haw directed by an amphetamine-crazed Orson Welles ". Roger Ebert wrote a negative review, stating the film "stretches out every moment for more than it's worth, until even the moments of inspiration seem forced. Since

8160-462: The funds using their self-made trailer. In The Atlantic , Christopher Orr writes: "It all began here, and not merely for the Coens themselves. Blood Simple was the first feature starring Joel Coen’s soon-to-become wife, Frances McDormand ; the first scored by Carter Burwell , who’s collaborated—often, as here, magnificently—with the Coens on all their subsequent scores; and the first shot by cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld , who also worked on

8262-536: The gangster films of the early 1930s were influenced by the early 1920s when cheap wood-pulp paper stocks led to an explosion in mass-market publishing. Newspapers would make folk heroes of bootleggers like Al Capone , while pulp magazines like Black Mask (1920) helped support more highbrow magazines such as The Smart Set which published stories of hard-edged detetives like Carroll John Daly 's Race Williams. The early wave of gangster films borrowed liberally from stories for early Hollywood productions that defined

8364-520: The genre has been popular since the dawn of the sound era of film. Ursini and Silver said that unlike the Western, the horror film, or the war film, the popularity of crime cinema has never waned. Blood Simple Blood Simple is a 1984 American independent neo-noir crime film written, edited, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen , and starring John Getz , Frances McDormand , Dan Hedaya , and M. Emmet Walsh . Its plot follows

8466-412: The genre represents a larger critique of either social or institutional order from the perspective of a character or from the film's narrative at large. The films also depend on the audience ambivalence towards crime. Master criminals are portrayed as immoral but glamourous while maverick police officers break the law to capture criminals. Leitch defined this as a critical to the film as the films are about

8568-566: The genre with films like Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932). In comparison to much earlier films of the silent era, Leitch described the 1930s cycle as turning "the bighearted crook silent films had considered ripe for redemption into a remorseless killer." Hollywood Studio heads were under such constant pressure from public-interest groups to tone down their portrayal of professional criminals that as early as 1931. Jack L. Warner announced that Warner Bros. would stop producing such films. Scarface itself

8670-526: The growing rage against the establishment spilled into portrayal police themselves with films like Bullitt (1968) about a police officer caught between mob killers and ruthless politicians while In the Heat of the Night (1967) which called for racial equality and became the first crime film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture . The French Connection (1971) dispensed Bullitt ' s noble hero for

8772-400: The gun and finishes burying him. Ray tries to explain to Abby that he "cleaned it all up." Abby says, "I haven't done anything funny," which leads to an argument. Visser telephones but does not speak when Abby picks up. She assumes and tells Ray that it was Marty. Ray places her gun on a table as he leaves. Bartender Meurice tells Ray about a phone message Marty left regarding money stolen from

8874-403: The hope of persuading investors to help fund the full-length feature film. Daniel Bacaner was one of the first people to invest money in the project. He also became its executive producer and introduced the Coens to other potential backers. The entire process of raising the necessary $ 1.5 million took a year. The film was shot in several locations in the towns of Austin and Hutto, Texas over

8976-517: The idea of the character of Hi, who has the desire to live a regular life within the boundaries of the law. To create their characters' dialect, Joel and Ethan created a hybrid of local dialect and the assumed reading material of the characters, namely, magazines and the Bible . In contrast to Blood Simple , the characters in Raising Arizona were written to be very sympathetic. The Coens wrote

9078-441: The job anyway and threatens to sell the baby on the black market . Glen returns to fire Hi, revealing his inference that Hi and Ed kidnapped Nathan Jr. Glen threatens to turn them in unless they agree to give the baby to him and Dot. Overhearing this, Gale and Evelle overpower Hi and kidnap Nathan Jr. themselves. Hi and Ed resolve to rescue him. Gale and Evelle grow attached to Nathan Jr. The two nearly leave him behind while robbing

9180-445: The law is above individuals, and that crime does not pay. The genre also generally has endings that confirm the moral absolutes that an innocent victim, a menacing criminal, and detective and their own morals that inspire them by questioning their heroic or pathetic status, their moral authority of the justice system, or by presenting innocent characters who seem guilty and vice-versa. Crime films includes all films that focus on any of

9282-498: The main gangster Jody Jarrett fights fire with fire. These themes extended into two other major crime films by bring the issues down from global to the subcultural level: The Big Heat (1953) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) which use apocalyptical imagery to indicate danger with the first film which the film persistently links to images of catastrophically uncontrolled power and the "traumatic consequences" of nuclear holocaust and Kiss Me Deadly literally features an atom bomb waiting in

9384-405: The only or first gangster film following the fall of the production code, The Godfather (1972) was the most popular and launched a major revival of the style. The film followed the themes of the genres past while adding new emphasis on the intricate world of the mafia and its scale and seriousness that established new parameters for the genre. The heist film, also known as the "big caper" film

9486-434: The release of the early gangster films following Little Caesar , which led to the 1935 Production Code Administration in 1935 ending its first major cycle. As early as 1939, the traditional gangster was already a nostalgic figure as seen in films like The Roaring Twenties (1939). American productions about career criminals became possible through the relaxation of the code in the 1950s and its abolition in 1966. While not

9588-442: The safe - Marty's cover for the $ 10,000 he paid Visser. While burning the doctored photos, Visser realizes that Marty kept one, and that he left his lighter. His attempt to break into the safe is thwarted by Abby, who thinks Ray damaged the safe and realizes Marty might be dead. She has a nightmare of Marty warning her that Ray will kill her as well. She confronts Ray, who tells her Marty was still alive when he buried him. Ray opens

9690-449: The safe and discovers the doctored photo. He goes to Abby's apartment to warn her. Visser kills Ray with a rifle shot from a rooftop across the street. Abby smashes the lightbulb and hides in the bathroom. Visser enters the apartment and searches Ray for the lighter, and finds Abby has climbed out of the window into the next apartment. She stabs him with Ray's knife, pinning his hand to the sill. As she backs away, Visser empties his gun into

9792-536: The silent era differed radically from the Hollywood productions, reflecting the post-World War I continental culture. Drew Todd wrote that with this, Europeans tended to create darker stories and the audiences of these films were readier to accept these narratives. Several European silent films go much further in exploring the mystique of the criminal figures. These followed the success in France of Louis Feuillade 's film serial Fantômas (1913). The average budget for

9894-410: The success of Shaft (1971) which led to studios rushing to follow it's popularity with films like Super Fly (1972), Black Caesar (1973), Coffy (1973) and The Black Godfather (1974) The films were often derivations of earlier films such as Cool Breeze (1972), a remake of The Asphalt Jungle , Hit Man (1972) a remake of Get Carter (1971), and Black Mama, White Mama (1973)

9996-407: The three parties to a crime: criminal, victims, and avengers and explores what one party's relation to the other two. This allows the crime film to encompass films as wide as Wall Street (1987); caper films like The Asphalt Jungle (1950); and prison films ranging from Brute Force (1947) to The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Crime films are not definable by their mise-en-scene such as

10098-399: The wall, then punches through it to remove the knife. Returning to her apartment, Abby picks up her gun and shoots Visser through the bathroom door. She says, "I'm not afraid of you, Marty," and Visser, lying wounded, laughs and responds, "Well, ma'am, if I see him, I'll sure give him the message." After writing the screenplay, the Coen brothers shot a preemptive dummy theatrical trailer for

10200-450: The war in narratives, with exceptions of film like The Green Berets (1968). The crime film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) revived the gangster film genre and captured the antiestablishment tone and set new standards for onscreen violence in film with its themes of demonizing American institution to attack the moral injustice of draft. This increase of violence was reflected in other crime films such as Point Blank (1967). Leitch found

10302-532: Was delayed for over a year as its director Howard Hughes talked with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America 's Production Code Office over the films violence and overtones of incest. A new wave of crime films that began in 1934 were made that had law enforcers as glamourous and as charismatic as the criminals. J. Edgar Hoover , director the Bureau of Investigation (renamed

10404-400: Was under intense social reform with cities rapidly expanding and leading to social unrest and street crime rising and some people forming criminal gangs. In this early silent film period, criminals were more prominent on film screens than enforcers of the law. Among these early films from the period is D.W. Griffith 's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) involving a young woman hounded by

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