Preview
In 1985, people didn’t know what they were missing out on. The screenplay that Eric Stoltz was working with for Back to the Future had edgier comedy. While the Fox era screenplay has its own merits, the Stoltz version is superior. I don’t want to spell out everything since the 1984 shooting script is available online for free, so I will abbreviate the merits (especially since the Stoltz cut might get released as promised by producer Bob Gale). There is a detention scene that plays out like a high school version of MacGyver. It’s more creative and realistic than the amplifier scene which was exclusive to the Fox version. In Stoltz’s version, the skateboard thievery is established in the ‘80s, which makes the ‘50s theft more amusing. In comedy, you often have a set-up followed by a pay-off. BTTF is known for this except for the skateboard snatching. Then again, Eric’s version of Marty McFly was more of a rebel as befitting a teen movie.
There is a running gag about Marty admitting that Mr. Strickland was right when he told him that it’s not his day. The first time that Marty meets Doc Brown results in two witty lines when Doc leaves – the first one is from Doc to an old pedestrian which leads to the second one being said by Marty to Suzy (the original name of Jennifer). Marty has two witty one-liners when he has dinner with his family in the ‘80s. This contrasts rather nicely with Marty having to behave himself when he later dines with his other family members in the ‘50s. Unlike the Fox version, he isn’t interrupted when asking Doc if he’s wearing a suit like a pop group called Devo. Doc refuses to tell Marty how he injured his head. Marty finds out in 1955 when he sees him talking to a woman at a house party. She hits him on the head with a beer bottle. Marty thinks that 1955 isn’t a good year when he listens to a song on the radio after escaping from the farm. When being a peeping Tom, George looks at a nude Lorraine instead of a semi-nude one.
When awaking in her bedroom, Marty goes into detail about why his nightmare was bad. When Marty first tells Doc that he’s from the future, Doc thinks that Marty is making a sales pitch. Marty describes hair gel as crap. He doesn’t know what teens do for fun in the ‘50s. He asks Doc, who asks him what they do in the ‘80s. Marty says sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Doc says no comment. When Marty tries to tell him about his fate, Doc says he hates fortune tellers. When asked if George invited Lorraine out, Marty says he’s tried everything but scaring him. He inadvertently inspires himself to do so. He tells George that he is in the Twilight Zone. Marty then claims to receive a transmission from Battlestar Galactica about a Klingon who wants George to escort Lorraine to the dance. During the chase, it’s 3-D (not the little boy) who talks about inventing roller boards.
When George tries to hit the body bag, he accidentally punches a tree. Marty pretends that he’s hungry so that he can write a letter in Lou’s Cafe. After Lorraine tells him that she will let her kids do whatever they want, he demands to have her statement in writing. This dialogue scene was recreated with Fox in Back to the Future Part II, which confirms a joke that Eric Stoltz made in 1989 that you have to watch the sequel to find out why he was fired because “the professor and the kid” go back to the time when Eric was in the cast. In Eric’s version, Lorraine asks Marty what his parents are like, he says he’s reached the conclusion that he doesn’t know anything about them. There’s more suspense when George is trapped in a phone booth. George tells Lorraine that he will write a science fiction story based on how they first met. When Marty is guitaring on prom night, he dances like Little Richard, Elvis, Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson.
When he returns to 1985, there is comic timing in how Marty reacts to his modern circumstances. He says “All right!” when seeing his surroundings before saying it again when he turns on the radio to hear a modern rock tune, but he cursively exclaims when his engine fails to start. Last but not least, Biff is more intimidating as a villain. In the cafe, he hits George in the chin instead of slapping him. Before he tries to r@pe her in Doc’s car, Biff tells Lorraine that Marty’s debt will be collected out of her @ss. This was definitely going to be a PG-13 film before Steven Spielberg decided that BTTF was going to be a film that the cast of The Goonies would be allowed to watch. In terms of the soundtrack, the downside to the Eric edit is that Marty hears Papa Loves Mambo on the ‘50s radio instead of Mr. Sandman. The upside is that Marty doesn’t wake up to the contrived sound of Back in Time on the ‘80s radio.
Speaking of music, it’s obvious that Eric’s Marty had a different sensibility to Fox’s Marty. After the ‘80s dinner scene, there was a scene in Marty’s room where he puts his record label submission form into the trash can. This wasn’t seen in Fox’s version although it was in the 1985 shooting script. There were supposed to be posters of rock stars, but there were no notations in both scripts as to who they were. Given the tape that Marty used on George in the scripts, Van Halen should have been the choice but then David Lee Roth left the band in 1985. Ironically, this didn’t stop the makers of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in 1987.
It’s difficult to believe that Michael J. Fox was the first choice when Steven Spielberg had met Tom Cruise during the making of Risky Business in the second half of 1982. By August 1984, Cruise had finished working with Ridley Scott on Legend. Another more plausible choice than Fox was C. Thomas Howell because he starred in Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘50s-set The Outsiders. Cruise was also in this. The downside was that Howell’s bicycle chase in E.T. would have been in people’s minds if they saw him in the skateboard chase in BTTF. August 1984 marked the release of two films where Howell reunited with Patrick Swayze from The Outsiders. Besides Grandview, U.S.A. (August 3), there was Red Dawn (August 10). The latter began filming three weeks after the former in 1983. Red Dawn had Lea Thompson whereas Grandview, U.S.A. had Jennifer Jason Leigh. Both actresses were candidates for the Lorraine McFly role in BTTF. In 1986, Eric Stoltz became Jennifer’s boyfriend.
Much has been made about Eric’s method acting but nobody ever talks about how awkward that it must have been for him to go from Claudia Wells being cast as his girlfriend to Melora Hardin being cast. In the June 1985 issue of a magazine called Teen Set, Eric got a two page feature where it was reported that his method acting was so extreme that he went as far as to apply for a driver’s license in the name of Marty McFly. Spielberg reportedly thought that this was too far, and he wasn’t going to tolerate not being able to call Eric by his real name. Interestingly, there was nothing said about Eric being fired for being comedically lacking. In Alex Tresniowski’s 2000 Michael J. Fox biography, there is a quote from executive producer and second unit director Frank Marshall about Eric: “Actually, the director Bob Zemeckis began to worry that the part wasn’t written right.”
For Universal Pictures, Eric Stoltz was going to prove to be a tough sell since Cher played his mother in Mask despite the fact that they were seeing each other at the time. Before Mask, she rejected the Jamie Lee Curtis role in Grandview, U.S.A. because CBS Theatrical Films wouldn’t cast Eric as the lover played by C. Thomas Howell. In 1985, Cher dated Val Kilmer. Like BTTF candidate Matthew Modine, Val was born in 1959 but he looked young enough to be cast as Marty McFly. However, casting Val would have drawn comparisons because the Johnny B. Goode scene is uncannily similar to the Tutti Frutti scene in Top Secret! (1984). As for Stoltz, his previous collaboration with Lea Thompson (The Wild Life) was not a box office success by the time that BTTF began filming in November 1984.