'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' (1990) Retrospective Act 1.

by Dave Scrimgeour and Kevin McCluskey

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Golden Harvest presents
A Limelight Production
in association with
Gary Propper

A Steve Barron film
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Starring
Judith Hoag
Elias Koteas

Based on characters created by
Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird

Music by
John Du Prez

Production Designer
Roy Forgre Smith
Executive In Charge Of Production
Thomas K. Gray
Executive Producer
Raymond Chow
Co Producer
Graham Cottle

Story by
Bobby Herbeck
Screen Play by
Todd W. Langlen and Bobby Herbeck

Produced by
Kim Dawson, Simon Fields, David Chan

Directed by
Steve Barron

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Dave
This film has that 80’s New York look, doesn’t it?


Kev
It’s brilliant, isn’t it?  The Twin Towers, all that kind of stuff.

"Welcome to New York, New York."

Dave
It has a grittiness.


Kev
Yes.  It's the grain of that film stock that you just don’t get anymore.  And that’s probably my favourite looking film stock.  What I mean is, there's a period of, particularly American, TV and films from around the mid '70s to around the mid '80s, that has a certain aesthetic quality to it that I just love.  And I'm sure that's in no way, shape, or form influenced by the fact that it's what I grew up on.


Dave
Yeah.  It’s totally recognisable as the 80s.  It’s not meant to be glamorous looking at all.


Kev
No.  And even stuff that’s “gritty” now, has that glamorous, Hollywood sheen to it, doesn’t it?  It’s like it’s too perfect.  Everything has that high def sort-of perfection.


Dave
Yeah, whereas this is like actually being out there on that street.


Kev
Totally.  I don’t know if it’s even just the lighting that’s different with films these days or something, or the way that digital cameras capture light.


Dave
There’s definitely something, yeah.


Kev
Like I said, it's probably is something as simple as the characteristics of whatever film stock was readily available back then.  And it's this level of knowledge and insight that shows you why I am not a film maker.


Dave
Well, yeah.  I think you don’t get that feeling of being there, in that city for example, these days.


Kev
No, definitely not.

"Welcome to New York, New York."

​Dave
And that’s what I mean, it doesn’t look pretty.  It’s not a pretty film, is it?


Kev
No, you’re right.  It’s not pretty at all.


Dave
It has great opening music though.


Kev
The soundtrack is really good, man.  It’s John Du Prez, isn’t it?  Who oddly enough was a frequent Monty Python collaborator and also did the theme tune to ‘One Foot In The Grave’ with Eric Idle, which was always one of my favourites.  That blew my tiny mind when I found out it was the same guy. 


Dave
The soundtrack is great.  And they still keep the cartoony element, by having stuff like these comedic robberies happening.


Kev
Yeh, there’s enough humour in this as well, isn't there?  I think, looking back on it now, that people tend to forget that this was a proper indie film, you know what I mean?  It wasn’t a big budget release.


Dave
No.  This was a sleeper hit.


Kev
Exactly.  That woman’s reaction to having her TV stolen off her balcony is fantastic.


Dave
Everything here is great.  The grittiness, the dirtiness of the streets and the alleyways.....


Kev
Yeh, this is pre, Borat 2 star, failed Just For Men ambassador and ol' melty head himself, Rudy Guianni’s clean-up of New York.  The fact that a lot of it is filmed in the dark meant that, when you got a pirate copy of stuff like this back in they day, you couldn’t see anything because the sreen was just black and you were constantly squinting at the TV.


Dave
Haha, yeah.  Toshishiro Obata.  He’s done well for himself in films.  He was kind-of a heavy, in everything.

The community centre has beefed up its security a bit since my days.

Kev
He’ll be one of those guys that got work because he really was a good martial artist then, yeh?


Dave
Oh yeah.  Seemingly he was a real teacher.


Kev
And here's Judith Hoag


​Dave
Yes, Judith Hoag.  She’s got the April O’Neil yellow coat.  That was about the only thing they kept in from that character though.

'Walk Of Shame'

Kev
Yeh, that’s the little signifier, right there, of her being April O’Neil.  I still buy her more as April O’Neil than Megan Fox, I have to say.


Dave
Oh yeah.


Kev
Nothing against Megan Fox, per se (if you're reading this, Megan), but it’s just that Judith Hoag is the big screen April O’Neil to me.  'Cause I'm old.


Dave
Seemingly she also made complaints about the violence in the film, and that’s why she didn’t get back to do the second one.


Kev
Ah right.  That’s interesting.  It’s not like she had an awful lot of meal tickets at the time.


Dave
She admitted in an interview that she was a bit of a pain in the arse.  And there’s Sam Rockwell.

Justin Hammer built a weapons dealing empire off the back of this kind of petty thievery.

Kev
Yep.  An early Sam Rockwell.  Now, if there’s nothing else that makes this film a “classic,” the fact that Sam Rockwell is in it does.  


Dave
Yeah, he’s a good actor.


Kev
Good use of darkness in this mugging scene here, so that you’ve got your big reveal later.


Dave
Ha, ha!  That boy's feet, just sticking up in the air.


​Kev
Ha,ha, yeh.  Oh, that’s right, I’m forgetting about the sai at the start here.  This is what kicks a lot of the story off, isn’t it?

"I'm gonna sweeng, from the chan-da-lee-ee. From the chan-da-lee-ee-ee."

Dave
Yeah.  Funny how the cops didn’t notice it, just lying there though, eh?  Golden Harvest, there you go.


Kev
That’s a name you don’t hear anymore.


Dave
No, it's Orange Sky Golden Harvest these days, since the merger.  And Steve Barron, eh?


Kev
Yeh, Steve Barron.  The actual build-up to the full reveal is great.  That darkness, the little bit of the eyes under the manhole cover, and then you finally get to see them all, one by one here.  Interesting that they used the font from the cartoon series as the title here, but didn't use it on the promo materials.  And then, like you say, you’ve got the bits of the humour here to make it appealing to a younger audience.


Dave
Even then, you’ve still got the grimy background, with the dirty sewers and stuff.


Kev
Yeh, the sewers look great.  They actually look like proper sewers, and not a studio set.


Dave
That’s what I mean.


Kev
I suppose you’re right, with how gritty this looks and the “violence” of the rest of it, you probably needed that humour to offset that.


Dave
If it was prettier, they wouldn’t have complained about it.  It’s because of the grittiness they complained.  If it had a glossiness, it would’ve been fine.  But as a viewer, you didn’t want that glossiness to it.


Kev
No, it’s because a lot of the charm of it, is through that grittiness.  That grit through the fact that it wasn’t a particularly big budget movie.

"Welcome to New York, New York."

​Dave
Yeah.  How many times did you watch this film as a kid? I probably watched it near enough every other day.  I still know the dialogue inside out.


Kev
If we were off on school holidays, I used to get up early and put stuff like this on while I was having my bowl of Frosties or whatever I was having, before I did anything else that day.  And I’m still a huge fan of the Henson puppeteering here.  I'd much rather have that than the CG from the newer films personally.  And judging by the reaction to The Child in The Mandalorian over the past year or so, I reckon I'm not alone in feeling that way.


Dave
As one of the guys in the suits said, even though you know they’re not real, they’re still more believable as characters.


Kev
Totally.  I suppose they’ve got a real, physical, presence as well, don’t they?  Because they’re actually there on set.


Dave
And this would’ve been cut out of the original theatrical version because of the censorship, Michelangelo swinging the nunchaku.


Kev
Yeh, they cut everything with the nunchaku out over here, didn’t they?  You’re right, there was that parent group that flipped their lid over the nunchaku.


Dave
No, it was because of Bruce Lee.  They’re not even in any of the original cuts of the Bruce Lee movies over here.  They were in the later cuts, yeah, but not the original versions.


Kev
Ah, right.  And there was always that fear, about kids mimicking these films with their nunchaku.  I wonder if I’ve still got my nunchaku.  I definitely had them somewhere.  My Dad got them for me from somebody in his work.  As you did back then.  So yeh, totally unfounded, irrational fear.


Dave
I mean, you’ve got to commend them, that’s some amount of work they’ve put into these costumes.

Master Of Puppets.

Kev
Those costumes are amazing, man.  I remember reading at the time, in all the papers and magazines and stuff, about how the actors were pretty much dying of dehydration from being under the studio lights in those costumes.  And as we’ll probably talk about more later, when we actually come to them, how on earth do you do those fight scenes, as well as they’re done in this, with those costumes?  That’s insane.


Dave
They had one of the best stunt teams in Hong Kong for them, that’s how.


Kev
True.  It’s like we’re saying about CG, these days people seem to just say, “Oh, we’ll just CGI that.  It’s easier.”  Whereas these guys were actually having to physically perform inside those costumes.


Dave
It takes it too far out.  They take things too far.


Kev
Yeh.  They’re able to do anything.


Dave
And you become disinterested when it becomes too removed.


Kev
Yeh, you don’t have the same tethering to reality almost.


Dave
Exactly, because as they say, a movie inherits a certain reality to its own world.  You want to believe in the world that it’s set in.  Even the faces have got their own individual character.


Kev
They do, man.  You’re right.  The shapes of the faces and the mouths are slightly different.  The eyes are all slightly different as well.


Dave
Now this is Michelan Sisti as the pizza delivery guy here.  He was also the actor in the Michaelangelo suit.

Michelan Sisti gets in on a pizza the action. (Dad jokes from a man who has fathered no children)

Kev
Oh, was it?  So they actually gave him a days filming out of the suit.


Dave
They all got a bit part like this.  Look at that seedy looking motel in the background.


Kev
The seedy motel, the black bin-bags full of rubbish, classic old-school New York vibes.


Dave
Total 80’s, isn’t it?  Because this was filmed around ’89.


Kev
Yeh, it must’ve been ’88/’89.  I wonder if they received any contribution towards the budget from Dominos for this lovely, subtle piece of product placement?


Dave
Surely they did.  I think the thing with this movie is, some of the actors did the voices as well as played the Turtles in costume, but some were played by different actors.


Kev
Right enough, 'cause it was Corey Feldman doing the voice of Donatello, wasn't it?  And Feldman was still a pretty big deal in '90.  You're still only three years removed from 'The Lost Boys' at that point.


Dave
That's true.  How Raphael got into the cinema unnoticed, dressed like that, is beyond me, but.....

"It's Clobberin' Time."

Kev
Ha, ha!  It’s like the Ben Grimm thing, from the Fantastic 4, isn't it?  When he used to go out in public, undercover, with the trench-coat and the hat on as well.


Dave
I suppose, this bit coming up here, is probably one of the bits where they would have complained about the violence.  But this is a classic scene.  It looks like that guy went over his own foot, not Raphael's.  He clearly took a dive there.


Kev
He should be playing in the Premiership, taking dives like that.


Dave
I know.


Kev
Enter Elias Koteas.  Kasey Jones.

'The Mighty Ducks' (1992)

Dave
Yes!  I suppose this bit could be construed as being a bit strong, considering he’s hitting people with a hockey stick, but it didn’t seem violent at the time, did it?

​
Kev
No, I don’t remember thinking it seemed overly violent when we were young.  Then again, we grew up on a healthy diet of Arnie films.


Dave
We did.  That's true.  Koteas was always compared to a young Robert DeNiro, physically.  He suits Kasey Jones, because of that rough look he has.


Kev
Yeh.  I can see the DeNiro comparison.  I like Koteas.  He’s a really good actor.  I loved him in 'Fallen.'


Dave
It’s a pity his career never really took off to the extent it should have.


Kev
He’s become a “character actor,” hasn’t he?


Dave
Yeah.


Kev
They definitely made a point of putting in bits of humour “for the kids” as well, didn’t they?


Dave
Oh yeah.

"No one cared who I was until I put on the mask."

​Kev
Do you understand cricket?


Dave
No.


Kev
No, me neither.  Being from the UK, we should probably understand cricket.  


Dave
Well, we're Scottish.

​
Kev
Yeh, that’s different from being English, isn’t it?


Dave
Yeah.  That’s Josh Pais, the Raphael actor in this scene here.

"You talkin' to me?" About Indy Ref 2.

Kev
Oh, the dude in the back of the taxi?


Dave
Yeah.  He did Raphael's voice.  He was also in 'Joker' recently as well.  They’ve definitely gone for that, urban New York look here.  That’s the first thing that strikes you, from the opening scene.  And all this totally sets the tone for the movie.


Kev
Yeh, man.  You’re right.  Even with those first couple of establishing shots, they really set the tone for the rest of the film.


Dave
Yeah.  And it doesn’t change.  Some films can start off one way and then they go all over the place.


Kev
Or they start off really gritty, then become really light-hearted by the end of it, but no, you’re right, this maintains that same grittiness that underpins it.


Dave
It’s all because they probably weren’t over-thinking what they were doing.  They were just doing it.


Kev
Yeh, you’re right.  They probably didn’t have a massive pre-release, focus group, test screening program.


Dave
No.  They had the freedom to make the movie they wanted to make, and that’s why it worked so well.


Kev
Yeh, it was a low budget indie flick, where they probably couldn’t afford all that back and forth, both time and money-wise, so they just did what they could with what they had, in the time they had it, and put it out.

"Welcome to New York, New York."

​Dave
Yeah, they were probably thinking they’d get something of an audience, but they weren’t expecting the massive audience that they got.  They probably knew they’d get the people who already liked the Ninja Turtles in, but thought that’d be about it.


Kev
I mean, like ‘Batman’ the year before, this was the same, it was everywhere, you know what I mean?


Dave
This and ‘Batman’ really put the comic book movies on the scene, because this was one of the top ten movies of the year in America in 1990.


Kev
And was it not, at one point, the most profitable independent movie ever made?


Dave
It was.  Judith Hoag is a great April O’Neil actually, isn’t she?


Kev
Yeh, she’s really good.  She’s got that kind-of, Lois Lane type of feisty journalist thing about her.


Dave
Yep.


Kev
I always thought the guy who played Danny’s dad was good as well.


Dave
Yeah.  Jay Patterson.

If you peel that protective film off properly, you might actually see a bit more out of that window, Chuck.

Kev
Is that his name?  He’s really convincing in that role.


Dave
He is, isn’t he?  He’s a good supporting character actor.


Kev
And he’s got that great bald head, with the hair round the back and sides.  It’s not a glamorous look.  Again, it’s like what you said about it being gritty and tethered in reality somewhat.  Not everyone looks like a "movie star" in this.


Dave
Yeah, he’s a very 80’s looking character.


Kev
These characters look like real people.


Dave
This is a nice little introduction to Shredder.  He must be in the DLA.  He’s got quite a few TVs.

Sliver (1993)

Kev
Yeh.  Definitely.  And it’s interesting that the knife doesn’t smash the screen, it just goes into it.  It cracks it, but it just sits there in it.  They don't make 'em like that anymore.  Must've been American-made.


Dave
Yeah.  Nice legs on April though.


Kev
That was always one of the things that people commented on about her at the time, were her “pins.”  Get the dads in the cinema.


Dave
The chief is quite like Captain Barbara from the Spidey TV series, isn’t he?


Kev
He is actually, yeh.  


Dave
I wonder just how many times those shots of those locations have been used in films?  What’s good about this, is that the story moves along really nicely.  It just jumps from one scene to the next and it carries the story.  It doesn’t build up to the next action scene, the action scenes just become part of the story, naturally.


Kev
I suppose it’s like we were saying, that the lack of budget probably meant that they had to use their fight scenes quite sparingly because they couldn’t afford to do a lot of them, but they are woven into the story really well because of that.


Dave
Yeah.  Ha, ha!  Did you hear that comment?  I think that would’ve got a few complaints from the company, that Sony payments line.


Kev
Ha, ha, yeh.  I really like The Foot outfits.  They look good, man, with the lenses and the red bandanas.

"Bring out the gimp(s)."

Dave
Yeah, you’re right.  It’s quite smart, the outfit for The Foot, isn't it?  They look decent.  They're alright actually.  Ouch!


Kev
Yeh, guys hitting a women like that, the way that Foot guy's just slapped April, in what is essentially a kid's film?  I don’t know if you’d get away with that so much these days, man.  That’s not happening.  And as we were saying earlier; the choreography of this fight scene, considering what that guy is wearing, is unreal.


Dave
It’s brilliant.  It’s quick, it’s fast, and it’s brutal.


Kev
Now, what you’re saying about fight scenes, that one there is quite snappy.  It’s just bang, bang, bang.  It’s in and it’s out, but it gives you a taster of what’s to come later.  And when you're watching these films as a kid, your attention span only really holds from fight scene to fight scene.  Well, mine certainly did, anyway.


Dave
Yeah, that’s it like.


Kev
So they have to be peppered throughout the film enough to maintain your interest.  And that, combined with the humour as well, is enough to hold your attention as a kid.


Dave
And the music.  The background music is nice and serious as well.


Kev
Totally.  A bit of Harrison Ford love there.  "Why don't I ever dream of Harrison Ford?"


Dave
Yeah, I know, eh?


Kev
I suppose, in 1990, he would’ve been at the peak of his box office and sexiest man alive power.


Dave
He probably was, yeah.  What with the three Indiana Jones movies.

Straight Up Sewa Side.

​Kev
Yeh, he had them under his belt, plus three Star Wars films, and he was kind-of heading into that Air Force One period of his career as well by that point.


Dave
I think, when he hit the 90s, he was still popular, but he wasn’t quite making the big massive blockbusters anymore.


Kev
Yeh, he didn’t have a franchise at this point, did he?


Dave
He was about to do the series of Jack Ryan movies, to be fair.  They were pretty big.


Kev
Yeh, right enough.  


Dave
This is a nice, low budget bit coming up here, but it’s quite good.  I heard Charlie Cox say in an interview that the goo in the Ninja Turtles is the same as Daredevil.


Kev
Yeh, ‘cause all this is just Eastman and Laird spoofing Daredevil.  You’ve got the goo, you’ve got The Foot, as opposed to The Hand, Splinter instead of Stick, and all that kind of stuff.  But it’s kind-of weird because their original Turtles stuff was really violent as well, so they kind-of spoofed it but kept a really similar tone to it.


Dave
Yeah, yeah.


Kev
I bought a really good reprint of some of those early Eastman and Laird comics at one point in a big, over-sized trade, but I don’t know what happened to it.


Dave
That’s nice use of the flat, black background to accentuate the puppetry.

Shadow. Puppet. Theatre.

Kev
Yeh, that's brilliant.  I also like the fact that Raphael’s picking his teeth with his other sai now.  The one that he’s just got back.  Ha, ha!  I always thought that their den looked quite cozy, actually.  Like it was a nice place to hang-out.


Dave
Even the background shots are great.  Just the run-down buildings and stuff.
 
 
Kev
Definitely.  Late 80’s, post Ronald Reagan, going into the 90’s, recession New York.


Dave
One of these areas that’s probably been gentrified now.


Kev
Yeh.  It probably costs you ten bucks for a vegan, gluten-free, sustainably sourced, latte there now.


Dave
Oh, yeah.  I suppose that’s the thing with the more modern movies, everything has been gentrified, and they just reflect that.


Kev
Yeh, you’re right.  The New York of 2020 isn’t the New York of 1990.


Dave
Definitely not.  I’ve not noticed many mistakes, but I’m sure there’s a couple coming up when they leave the apartment.  I’ll need to look out for them.  Even April’s apartment is quite run-down looking.


Kev
Yeh.  It’s not a fancy apartment.

Not one of them lifted a dirty plate, used can or bottle before bailing. Piss-poor guests. -1 star in the Tokyo Dome.

Dave
It maybe reflects someone who works a lot.  Someone who doesn’t put much time into her apartment.


Kev
I reckon so.  And even where it’s located, it’s not like that Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw thing, where it’s this beautiful little apartment with the stoop and everything.  I don’t know how many kids would’ve got a James Cagney joke in 1990.  That must've been one that was thrown in there for the parents.  Or even the grandparents.


Dave
Yeah.


Kev
See?  I even like that line, “He worries.”  It's so simple, but it shows that parental concern Splinter has for them.


Dave
Yeah, definitely.  I’m sure this is where Leonardo’s sword gets caught on the wall here, I’m sure it is.


Kev
Oh yeh.  Ha, ha!


Dave
Ha, ha!  I’m pretty sure a wooden or metallic sword wouldn’t bend like that.  We’re half an hour in.  It doesn’t even feel like half an hour though, does it?

Ben-Day Sword-Hilt.

Kev
No, man, not at all.  You’re right, it’s really snappy.  It’s a nippy script.


Dave
It carries the story nicely along.  It’s continuous.


Kev
There are no lulls in it at all, are there?


Dave
No.  There are scenes where there are dialogue and things, but it’s not like it’s overrun.


Kev
And they’ve put enough humour in those dialogue scenes as well, just to keep them moving.


Dave
Yeah, and to contrast with some of the darkness in it.


Kev
Little bit of classic New York slapstick there, with the guy hearing the scream coming out of the storm drain.  This is a really simple story of them being kids without their dad now, and they don’t know what to do, or who to turn to, so they go back to the only other “adult” they know, in April O’Neil.

The urban legend about sewer alligators has got this poor guy shitting himself.

(D) & (K)

​Next: Act. 2  The Fall and Rise of the Turtles.