Pretty Woman (1990)

Pretty Woman is a funny, beautifully photographed, old-fashioned yet modern romantic love story.

Julia Roberts plays Vivian, a Hollywood hooker who shows lonely, self-made millionaire Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) – a stranger in town – how to get back to Beverly Hills.

Naturally, she stays for the weekend and what begins as just another business proposition turns to real fairy-tale affection.

She loosens him up. He gives her a sense of value, self-confidence, and a limitless expense account. It’s miraculous what an American Express card can do . . .

Director Garry Marshall borrows his ideas shamelessly but has the wit and visual style to make it all seem fresh.

Some of the dialogue is hilarious, like when arguing whores on the sidewalk stars of Hollywood Boulevard establish territorial imperatives with lines like “I got the Ritz Brothers all the way to Carole Lombard – you go work up by Esther Williams!”

One of the highest-grossing pictures of 1990, Pretty Woman succeeded in making the “date movie” popular again. Not bad for a film originally conceived as a depressing look at prostitution in Los Angeles, as based on the original script entitled 3 Thousand.

Audiences swoon over the last scene in the film, in which Edward shows up outside Vivian’s apartment with flowers and they kiss on the fire escape. That uplifting finale wasn’t initially part of the plan, though, and the original ending was much darker.

The original script concluded with Vivian being tossed out of a car as the driver threw money on top of her and drove away, leaving her in a dirty alley. She and Edward did not end up together.

Edward Lewis
Richard Gere
Vivian Ward
Julia Roberts
James Morse
Ralph Bellamy
Philip Stuckey
Jason Alexander
Kit De Luca
Laura San Giacomo
Barney Thompson
Hector Elizondo
David Morse
Alex Hyde-White
Elizabeth Stuckey
Amy Yasbeck
Bridget
Elinor Donahue
Susan
Judith Baldwin
Howard
Bill Applebaum
Carlos
Billy Gallo

Director
Garry Marshall

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