View image: Harvey Keitel as a prison priest on the set of "It's Pat" with Gene and Dean Ween. Unfortunately, this framing device got cut!
In my review of "You, Me and Dupree," (which, to meet Sun-Times deadlines I had to write immediately after seeing the movie Monday night), I mentioned several indications that the movie had undergone some drastic cutting and revisions. I wrote:
Even more perplexing are the laborious set-ups for gags that are missing their payoffs -- the most notable being an entire character (Mandy, the love of Dupree's life for a few scenes) who never actually shows her face onscreen. We keep waiting for the punchline, but there isn't one. It seems she has simply been cut out of the movie (wait for the DVD, kids!). Perhaps, at one time, she was Annie, the fifth-or sixth-billed character supposedly played by Amanda Detmer, whom I do not recall ever showing up for work.Since writing those words, I have Googled, I have investigated, and I can't find any reports on what happened. It's unusual to see somebody with such prominent billing and so little screen time (though, undoubtedly, other examples exist). Usually, somebody who has been cut out of the movie would also be removed from the credits -- though still get paid. (That's what happened when we had to cut Harvey Keitel's priest scenes out of "It's Pat," although he was great in 'em.)
I asked Anne Thompson and she said she had no idea what had happened. I asked David Poland and he said he'd spotted Amanda Detmer (a favorite of his) in the opening wedding scenes, but didn't know why she went away. It's clear from the way "Mandy's" scenes are shot, that her face is deliberately being shielded from view. But why? I'm throwing it out there to all you knowledgable cinephiles and voracious readers out there. Anybody know what the deal is?
My theory is that this movie will be part of the trilogy. It's like how Samuel L. Jackson was credited in the Phantom Menace but never really did anything until the later series. The second part of this theory is that somehow snakes are involved.
JE: Aha! All will be revealed in "You, Me and Dupree 3"!
It might have been only a ruse to get bloggers talking and posting about the film. Hm, then which came first, the ad campaign, or the movie?
Well, there was an Annie, who was the wife of Seth Rogen's character. She appears in Rogen's last scene, when Matt Dillon's character knocks on his door for a place to stay. I thought this Annie was Detmer, but I can't be sure because I've never seen Detmer before seeing this movie.
JE: That's part of what mystifies me. Detmer is billed right after Rogen as "Annie," but she barely appears in the movie -- and in the scene you mention she's barely glimpsed, out of focus as I recall, in the background while Rogen stands in the front doorway of his house, refusing to let Matt Dillon come in. So, now I'm thinking my original hypothesis is wrong and that BOTH "Annie" and "Mandy" got cut out of the picture. Now that the movie has opened, IMDb has much more extensive credits listed, but still no "Mandy"...
Having just suffered through the movie (it was a date, she picked, and she was even more sorry than me, I think)...
Sorry. Sidetracked.
Anyway, I can confirm Annie is Seth Rogan's character's wife. Never in focus that I can recall, only in the very background of the scene mentioned above. And, I too, noticed that Mandy is never seen, either in the (to my eyes very jarring) cut involving the leg and butter, or in the subsequent car chat.
I figured as I watched that it was going to be some kind of muse-type metaphorical character, never seen but always tantalizing Dupree (and the audience) just out of reach. A symbol more than a woman, thus the missing face.
Turned out I was giving the film too much credit, obviously.
Searching for more info, I find that YM&D was one of the "20 Highest Paid Spec Screenplays" (according to wikipedia.)
I looked for a little info on the "first-time" screenwriter Mike LeSieur.
"Creative Screenwriting" magazine has some sort of feature that doesn't have a link, but in light of your review and above post, I thought you would find the teaser blurb interesting:
"On his first produced credit, Mike LeSieur finds out that collaboration can result in a richer script, and a little less pressure on those production rewrites."
http://www.creativescreenwriting.com/current.html
JE: How sad.