A few more factors in ISHTAR'S failure:
 
1. Beatty's films usually played with his image as Casanova.  But this
was ridiculous.  Posing Warren Beatty as a charmless guy with no appeal
for women didn't wash.  It also wasn't funny, especially when dragged out
for an hour and three quarters.  It looked like very sophomoric humor:
"Oh, rich.  Let's make dorky Hoffman the sexy one and Beatty the one who
can't get to first base."  It's an idea that never should have gotten out
of story conference and the fact that it did just reminded people of how
much clout this duo had to put its ideas, no matter how dumb, on the screen.
 
2.  Reminders of Beatty's reallife womanizing were everywhere current in
May 1987 when the film opened.  Ten days before, the Gary Hart-Donna Rice
story exploded onto the nation's front pages.  Beatty's close association
with Hart--as fund-raiser and campaign strategist was certainly
well-known.  Beatty had even drafted Hart's speech to the Democratic
National Convention in 1984.  Now here was Hart caught acting like Warren
Beatty and going down in flames as a result.  Not a felicitous month for
any Beatty movie to open, never mind one pretending he was practically a
virgin.  Both men summed up an attitude toward women that was no longer
acceptable in 1987 (Reagan era or not).
 
3. Beatty has always needed a strong female lead to play off
against.  His only other male buddy movie--THE FORTUNE (1975, Mike
Nichols this time rather than Elaine May, which paired him with
Nicholson--was similarly a critical misfire and commercial flop.
 
Dennis Bingham
 
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