WITH NANCY ALLEN, DENNIS FRANZ, FRED CARUSO, BILL MESCE JR.
The Projection Booth yesterday posted a three-hour podcast centered around Brian De Palma's Blow Out, including new interviews with Nancy Allen, Dennis Franz, producer Fred C. Caruso, and Bill Mesce Jr., the latter having won the Take One magazine screenwriting contest for what was known at the time as Personal Effects. The first hour of the podcast features the show's hosts, Mike White and Rob St. Mary, discussing many facets of Blow Out with Jamey Duvall of Movie Geeks United. At about the 49-minute mark, the Mesce interview begins. Mesce says he was never a De Palma fan, but knew he was a stylist, so instead of focusing on plot, he wrote what he thought was a very De Palma-esque script. However, he laughs that with this one, De Palma decided to do a non-De Palma-esque movie. Ultimately, Mesce says, De Palma's film kept a few lines of his dialogue, and that the closest to an entire scene of his that was kept was when Sally goes to visit Manny in order to get the negatives of the photos he took.The Fred Caruso interview begins around the 1:36 mark. Caruso tells the podcast that it was his idea to include the Mummers Parade in the film's final act, as well as the fireworks going off in the background. Caruso says there was a big question from the studio and producer George Litto about whether Nancy Allen's character should die at the end. But De Palma said, look, that's the ending. If they like it, fine, if not, so be it. He also mentions that De Palma drew his own storyboards and had his entire office filled with them, from the first scene to last.
The Nancy Allen interview begins around the 2:06 mark. She talks about the heart and warmth that John Travolta brought to what on the page was a very dark piece. She also talks about how she and editor Paul Hirsch thought Travolta had to save the girl, but "John and Brian said nope, that's not happening." She also talks about the remake of Carrie (which she doesn't seem to have seen at the time of the interview), saying she is not a fan of remakes. She doesn't see the point unless you can somehow make it better, and doesn't think that is possible with Carrie. She and Paul Verhoeven did a Q&A after a screening of Robocop last year, and when someone brought up the upcoming remakes of that film and last year's remake of his Total Recall, Verhoeven said, "It's very depressing. I should be dead." Allen laughed and said she really gets that. Allen also confirmed that it was really her scream in Blow Out.
At about the 2:42 mark, there is a conversation with Dennis Franz, who at first says he does not remember much about Blow Out, having only watched it once around the time it was first released. But after the host mentions some things, Franz begins to remember a little more, including the fact that it was shot in Philadelphia, where Franz met his future best friend, who happened to be De Palma's driver at that time. Franz recalls De Palma calling him as Dressed To Kill was in theaters, saying, "Looks like we have a hit on our hands." De Palma asked Franz if he was interested in a part in this new thing he was working on. After listing off some of the potential roles, De Palma laughed. "Why are you laughing?" Franz asked him. De Palma said he had this character named Manny Karp. Franz immediately said, "I'll take it. You're laughing about him, I like the name, I'll take it." Franz told the podcast that once De Palma starts a job, he crawls into his shell and focuses, while Allen, who De Palma was married to at the time, enjoyed being social and having people over, which weighed on De Palma a little bit after long days on the set.
Updated: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 4:58 PM CST
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Scott Tobias 
Brian De Palma's Blow Out will be screened at the 
At left is one of two unused designs created by