The new episode of TCM's The Plot Thickens: The Devil's Candy delves into that opening steadicam shot of The Bonfire Of The Vanities. The episode is titled "Wire Without a Net," after a chapter in Julie Salamon's book, and features new interviews with Larry McConkey, Aimee Morris (DeBaun), and Chris Soldo, as well as voices from Salamon's original tapes: Melanie Griffith, Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis, Tom Wolfe.

Production designer Richard Sylbert and the McCoy apartment on Stage 25 of the Warner Bros. lot. Copyright © 1991 Warner Bros., Inc.

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Episode 2: Reaching for the Stars – and Paying the Price
Tom Hanks signs on to play amoral stockbroker Sherman McCoy, and he’s so beloved that nobody recognizes how wrong he is for the part. There's immediate pushback against Bruce Willis as the other male lead, since his role was written as British. But the hardest decision comes when the director insists that a Jewish judge be played by a Black actor, to soften the film’s racial tensions.

On how Salamon got invited to the set …

JULIE SALAMON: I was working as a film critic back then. [Brian De Palma and I] met. We’d meet from time to time when he was in New York to talk about movies, and I had told him that I was interested in doing this kind of a book, similar to what Lillian Ross had done with Picture many years before in the ‘50s, following John Huston around. And when he signed on to do Bonfire, he thought that might be a good movie to do it on, and you know he was a little bit of a bomb thrower. He kind of like to rustle feathers in Hollywood, and I guess he thought I would be the person to do it. You know, obviously I think he might have thought differently if he would have known how the movie was going to end up, but without him, it wouldn’t have happened.

On what Salamon’s access ultimately inspired …

BEN MANKIEWICZ: She didn’t just have access. It’s what she did with the access. Like, other people have had access and bungled it or created something ordinary, so I mean part of the reason that we talk about this movie is because of what Julie did with it. And I’m not just trying… She already likes me, I think.

SALAMON: It’s true.

MANKIEWICZ: But I think that’s really critically important. … If [all] Hollywood directors and producers take away from The Devil’s Candy is that, oh, we can’t grant access like that, they’re missing the point. Then this would just be a blockbuster movie that disappointed. Now there’s an interesting story around it. … I think the lesson ought to be that it ought to happen more. …

SALAMON: Obviously there are gossipy elements to it, but for me I love seeing how things work and the organism. And making a movie is just such a huge, complicated enterprise — and to have access to all of it. And the truth is I was as interested in the sound guy that used coconuts to make the sound of horses’ hooves going as the movie stars. It was just riveting for me.

On whether Bonfire could ever be adapted into a successful movie …

SALAMON: Tom Wolfe said it right from the get-go. He always described his books as this series of slices of life, and interestingly enough, I’m sure that if somebody had been wanting to adapt it today, they would have done it as a limited series for television, which it’s probably more suited to because then you can really delve into all those individual characters. … I was actually on some kind of panel a few weeks ago, a podcast, where they were talking about The Bonfire of the Vanities, and that book itself has become a hot potato in a different way now because of all of the racial stuff in it that just today would be much harder to adapt for all kinds of sensitivities. Even though I think Tom Wolfe was doing a satire, I think it would be extremely difficult to adapt today for probably the same reasons that it was difficult to adapt 30 years ago, but with a 2021 variation on it. So, yeah, I think the book itself was really tough. On the other hand, I think it would make a terrific miniseries with all these great character actors playing those roles.

Bobbie Wygant: Do you have deep regrets about letting Julie Salamon on the set?

Brian De Palma: Oh, no, no, no, not at all. I mean, my idea was to show exactly what... See, I got asked so many questions over the years about how movies are made. And I used to get the impression from the press that it was like we were living in, you know, Hollywood of Louis B. Mayer. I mean, the way we were making movies, and what we had to go through, was something that they had not been able to see, basically, in the way that they talked to us or what they read about. So I said, well, somebody, you know, you've got to really make a movie and really show what goes on and be as honest as possible. And, it's...

Wygant: She was!

De Palma: Yeah, she was as honest as possible. And, though I've not read the book because it's such a painful experience for me, because it was such a difficult movie... but, I think it's important that people know how the contemporary director works with the studio and the writers and the actors and how movies are made. Right down to the press junket!

Wygant: [laughing] Indeed. Well, I'll tell you, I've been hanging around movies for 25 years, and I learned a lot from that book. I really did.

De Palma: Great.

Wygant: And I enjoyed reading it.

Meanwhile, season two of The Plot Thickens, “The Devil’s Candy,” which will go behind the scenes of the notorious 1990 Warner Bros. flop The Bonfire of the Vanities, arrives June 29 via a production partnership with Campside Media.

The title comes from the best-selling 1991 book written by Julie Salamon, who was a journalist embedded in the production; she’ll co-host the seven-episode podcast with Mankiewicz. The movie, based on the sensational 1987 novel by Tom Wolfe, was directed by Brian De Palma and starred Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith and Bruce Willis.

“There have been plenty of lemons in movie history, but none that have been so meticulously recorded,” Mankiewicz says. “Julie Salamon’s book was a gift to film lovers, film students and perhaps most critically, movie executives. She lays out a blueprint for what will go wrong if you lose your way. We’re thrilled to bring her book and her recordings to life with this season of the podcast.”

The Bonfire of the Vanities will make its TCM premiere July 5, kicking off a selection of De Palma films. It will be followed by Obsession (1976), Sisters (1972), Blow Out (1981) and Body Double (1984).

Here's the description from The Plot Thickens itself:

The Bonfire of the Vanities was one of the best-selling novels of the 1980s and had all the makings for a hit motion picture: a dark comedy with heart and bite, an A-list director and a star-studded cast. So what went wrong? Beginning June 29th, come with us onto the closed set and hear actual recordings of Brian De Palma, Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith and others, as they set about making one of the most anticipated films of its time, only to have it end up a cautionary tale for the ages.