Franken recalls movie he wanted to make in 1980s
Published 11:03 am Monday, February 16, 2015
ST. CLOUD — As “Saturday Night Live” celebrates its 40th anniversary, former cast member Al Franken is recalling a movie he’d hoped to film in his home state but didn’t.
Franken is now a U.S. senator. But in the early 1980s, between SNL stints, Franken and his fellow cast member from Minnesota, Tom Davis, penned a screenplay called “Datenight.” It was set in the central Minnesota city of St. Cloud and chronicled the adventures of teens and adults over the course of a single Saturday night. Franken and Davis gave themselves roles as band members in town for a one-night gig.
But the city didn’t cooperate. Then-mayor Sam Huston and then-Police Chief Woody Bissett felt the adult content in the R-rated movie wouldn’t reflect the image of St. Cloud they wanted to portray. So while the story remained set in St. Cloud, it was filmed in a Chicago suburb instead.
The filming location wasn’t the only change.
“The studio made all kinds of decisions we didn’t agree with,” Franken said. “Originally, we wanted to set it during a blizzard. The blizzard would have been kind of a character. We had a chase scene with a kid on a snowmobile, and a snowplow would have been involved with that. The studio didn’t like it. So we didn’t do that part. And this was pre-’Fargo,’ but we wanted to have everybody in the film have Minnesota accents. They nixed that, too.”
The film was eventually renamed “One More Saturday Night” and released in 1986. It failed to get much notice.
“There are still some things in it I’m delighted with,” Franken said. “I think it got one good review. When I read that, I thought, ‘Great. Somebody finally gets it.’ But it really didn’t get reviewed that much at all. The studio made some moves that were really odd. I don’t know who they gave it to in the publicity department. But they did some artwork that did not reflect the sensibility of the film. And that was irritating.”