10 Things to Know About 'Heartbreakers' (1984)

10 Things to Know About Heartbreakers

10 The Film Received an X-Rating Before Cuts

Heartbreakers received an X-Rating when first submitted to the MPAA. The X-Rating was for a three-way sex scene involving stars Peter Coyote, Nick Mancuso, and Carol Wayne. Director Bobby Roth could not have been more disappointed in the cuts telling reporters in a pre-release interview:

“The things that made the scene worthwhile emotionally and intellectually aren’t there anymore. I was told that the intensity of the scene was too strong. As a filmmaker, I always thought you wanted your film to be strong.”

9 $900.00

To say that Heartbreakers didn’t make much money would be an understatement. Heartbreakers played one week at a theater in Del Mar, California and earned only $900.00. A booking agent when told that the film was only playing for one week replied:

“Thank God!”

8 Peter Coyote Insisted on Changes to the Script

Peter Coyote was never comfortable as a leading man. That is according to director Bobby Roth who struggled with Coyote throughout the production. One thing that Roth enjoyed about this struggle however, was how Coyote challenged him to make the script more relatable. Coyote did this by challenging Roth to defend the script decisions he made, to justify certain dialogue choices.

Coyote’s challenges to the director led to a full page of the final scene of the film being torn out and thrown away. It sounds rough, but Roth insisted to reporters that the back and forth with Coyote made the movie better.

7 Coyote had to See Heartbreakers Twice Before He Felt Comfortable Being a Leading Man

Peter Coyote struggled with his confidence throughout Heartbreakers, often insisting that his co-star Nick Mancuso, being more conventionally handsome than Coyote, should be the lead instead of Coyote himself. According to director Bobby Roth, it wasn’t until Coyote saw the film a second time that he felt comfortable with his performance.

6 Development of Heartbreakers Took More Than a Year

It wasn’t director Bobby Roth’s first film, he’d received tremendous reviews for his first two features, Independence Day and The Boss’s Son. But, neither of those films made money. And the last of the two was released in 1977. So, it was a while before Roth was able to get back to making movies. And getting back to work meant raising money and that made the layoff take even longer.

It was a full 15 months before Roth was able to scrape together $2.1 million dollars for a budget for Heartbreakers. In the end, Australian television producer, Bob Weis, eager to break into the indie film world, put the final financial package together with a group of Australian investors. It’s unknown however, if the movie made or lost money. The box office was low but foreign pre-sales and cable television might have been enough to, at the very least, pay back investors.

5 Those MPAA Worms

The MPAA has always been a den of thieves, indebted to big studios, and unwilling to compromise with filmmakers with no financial means to impress the MPAA. Thus, when director Bobby Roth was told that he needed to cut 40 seconds out of the films pivotal menage a trois, a scene that is far more emotionally intense than it is erotic, Roth was apoplectic.

According to Roth he asked MPAA representative Richard Heffner why it was okay for Indiana Jones to show a man’s heart torn out of his chest but not two men and a woman sharing an emotionally intense sexual affair? Heffner’s wormy response:

“I’m not here to discuss other movies.”

4 It’s Based on a Real Event in Bobby Roth’s Life

No, not the threeway. I don’t think… I’m actually not sure. Anyway, no, it’s based around what happened in the final scene. So, spoiler alert: The film ends in a scene between Coyote and Mancuso of complete emotional honesty.

According to Roth, he and his closest friend were working on a film. The friend was leaving the project because he’d fallen for Roth’s then girlfriend. The seeming end of their friendship at hand, Roth broke down and cried. Then his friend cried, and the two shared a moment of complete emotional honesty that society typically discourages among men.

3 Tangerine Dream and Otis Redding

If any money was spent on Heartbreakers it must have gone to the music. Tangerine Dream, the ubiquitous 80s synth soundtrack kings performed the score and the film licensed the Otis Redding classic, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” for an important scene.

2 The Final Film in the Career of Carol Wayne

Carol Wayne found fame as Johnny Carson’s busty assistant in his classic Art Fern sketches on The Tonight Show. However, in 1980, the Tonight Show was shortened from 90 minutes to an hour and Carson began doing fewer and fewer sketches, leaving Wayne struggling for work. She found work on game shows as a presenter but little steady work.

Heartbreakers provided a poignant coda for her career. The three-way sex scene with Coyote and Mancuso features Wayne delivering a raw, honest monologue about the struggles of a woman in Hollywood in her 40s.

Less than one year later, Wayne died under mysterious circumstances while vacationing in Mexico with a boyfriend. Her death was suspicious for many reasons and went under-investigated by Mexican authorities who never questioned her male traveling companion and ruled her death a drowning despite her having been in calm, shallow water at the time of the death.

1 Released on Blu-Ray and DVD in 2022 by Vinegar Syndrome’s Sub-label, Fun City

The movie was treated to a fresh 2K restoration sourced from the original 35mm interpositive. Critics were quick to laud the final product as a standout achievement for its vintage, featuring a crisp preservation of natural film grain along with impressive textures and details characteristic of early-80s film stock.

The palette remains satisfying, even with slight green-heavy hues, while the contrast and encoding stay reliably consistent. It’s widely considered to be the definitive HD presentation of the feature.

This revitalized version finally delivers the film to contemporary viewers in high-def, truly showcasing the stunning cinematography of Michael Ballhaus and the electric energy of early-1980s Los Angeles.