Four Rooms

For the Channel 4 television programme, see Four Rooms (TV programme).

Four Rooms
Directed by	Allison Anders Alexandre Rockwell Robert Rodriguez Quentin Tarantino
Written by	Allison Anders Alexandre Rockwell Robert Rodriguez Quentin Tarantino
Produced by	Lawrence Bender
Starring	Tim Roth Madonna Valeria Golino David Proval Jennifer Beals Antonio Banderas Tamlyn Tomita Quentin Tarantino Paul Calderón Marisa Tomei Bruce Willis Kathy Griffin
Cinematography	Rodrigo García Buillermo Navarro Phil Parmet Andrzej Sekuła
Edited by	Margie Goodspeed Elena Maganini Sally Menke Terry Rawlings
Music by	Combustible Edison Esquivel
Production company	A Band Apart
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release date	December 25, 1995 (1995-12-25)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$4 million
Box office	$4,257,354

Four Rooms is a 1995 anthology comedy film telling four stories set in the fictional Hotel Mon Signor in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve. Tim Roth stars as the main character of the frame tale; he also appears to some degree in all four stories.

The movie was directed by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino with each of them directing one "room" of the film.

Background

It was Alexandre Rockwell who came up with the idea of a portmanteau film set in a hotel. However, the film was originally intended to be Five Rooms, with a contribution from Richard Linklater, but Linklater withdrew before production began.

The role of Ted the Bellhop was written with Steve Buscemi in mind.

Plot

The film is set on New Year's Eve, and starts with Sam (Lawrence), the previous bellhop of the Hotel Mon Signor, telling his replacement, Ted (Roth), about the job.

The opening credits pay homage to the cartoons of The Pink Panther Show, and features scat singing. The film does not actually end until half way through the closing credits.

Honeymoon Suite - The Missing Ingredient

• Written and directed by Allison Anders

Ted assists a number of unusual women with their luggage, which he takes up to the Honeymoon Suite. He learns they are a coven of witches, attempting to create a potion to reverse a spell cast on their goddess (De Cadenet) 40 years ago. In order to create the potion, each witch must place an ingredient into a large cauldron in a ritual. However, one of the witches (Skye) has still to retrieve her ingredient - semen - which she is told she must retrieve in one hour. The witch manages to seduce an initially reluctant Ted and has sex with him in the cauldron. After he leaves, the witches complete the ritual and the goddess is seen emerging from the cauldron.

Ted's phone call with the party guest

At the end of the segment, a guest from a hotel room party (Bender) calls Ted at the front desk to get some ice. He is unsure about which floor the room is on, but eventually directs Ted to room 404.

Room 404 - The Wrong Man

• Written and directed by Alexandre Rockwell

Upon arriving at room 404, Ted finds himself in the middle of a fantasy hostage situation between a husband and wife. Siegfried (Proval), the husband, maniacally accuses Ted (whom he calls Theodore) of having slept with his wife, Angela (Beals). At gunpoint, Ted is made to participate in the scenario, with uncertainty about what is real and what is part of the fantasy. At one point, Ted is stuck in the bathroom window, and the party guest from the beginning of the episode appears in the window above, and utters the word "ice" before being sick. Eventually, Ted escapes just when a different party guest (Paul Skemp) appears, looking for room 404 and is greeted by Siegfried in the same manner as Ted was at the beginning of the episode.

Uncertainty of room number

It is not fully clear if these events take place in room 404 or in room 409. The party guests' room is on the above floor, which suggests Siegfried's room is indeed room 404. However, Siegfried answers the phone at one point, which, as revealed in the next segment, is a call connecting to room 409. Adding to this uncertainty, the room door reads "40-", with a faint outline of what appears to be a missing "4" or "9".

Room 309 - The Misbehavers

• Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez

A husband (Banderas) and wife (Tomita) go out to a New Year's Eve party and leave their two children, Juancho and Sarah (Danny Verduzco and Lana McKissack), in the hotel. Ted is paid $500 to keep an eye on the children by the stern father, who orders them not to misbehave. As Ted is responsible for the entire hotel, he is unable to actually stay in the room with the children, but instead instructs them to stay in the room and watch television. After Ted leaves, the children soon begin to squabble and proceed to both explore and vandalize the room, and manage to explode a bottle of champagne in the process. They call Ted for toothbrushes, at which point he arrives and attempts unsuccessfully to put them to bed by putting ointment on their eyelids. After they wash their eyelids and summon him back to the room once more, Ted arrves at a scene of mass chaos: the walls of the bedroom have been scribbled with lipstick, Juancho has a cigarette in his mouth, Sarah has the bottle of champagne in her hand, the television is set to an adult channel, and the children have found the corpse of a dead prostitute (Vonne) stuffed under the mattress. While Ted tries to quell the chaos in the room, Sarah stabs him in the leg with a syringe when he repeatedly uses the word "whore" and Juancho accidentally sets the bedroom on fire with his cigarette. At this point, the children's father arrives, carrying his passed-out wife, and, looking around the room, asks Ted, "Did they misbehave?"

Ted's phone call with Betty

After the events of room 309, an unsettled Ted calls his boss, Betty (Griffin), to quit for the night, as his shift has ended. After a prolonged conversation with Margaret (Tomei), Ted gets Betty on the phone and quits, but a call from the Penthouse comes in. Betty reasons with Ted and convinces him to tend to their needs, due to the importance of continued Hollywood business to the hotel.

Penthouse - The Man from Hollywood

• Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

The penthouse is currently being occupied by the famous director Chester Rush (Tarantino) and a group of his friends, which includes Angela from The Wrong Man. The party requests a block of wood, a doughnut, a ball of twine, three nails, a club sandwich, a bucket of ice, and an extremely sharp hatchet (Rush specifically requests a hatchet "as sharp as the Devil himself"). After getting acquainted with Chester and his friends, Ted is asked to take part in a challenge: Chester's friend Norman (Calderón) has bet he can light his Zippo cigarette lighter ten times in a row. If he succeeds, Norman will win Chester's car, but if he fails, Norman's pinky will be cut off. Ted is asked to act as a "hatchet man" and cut off Norman's pinky, should he fail. Ted initially tries to leave, but Chester persuades him to stay by offering $100 up front and another $1,000 if he performs his assigned role. Norman's lighter fails on the first try, and Ted chops off the finger, sweeps up all the money, and leaves the penthouse. While the credits are rolling, Chester and company are seen frantically getting ready to take a screaming, agonizing Norman to a hospital.

Film and television references

This segment references the Jerry Lewis film The Bellboy.

The plot is an extended reference to an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, itself adapted from Roald Dahl's "Man from the South".

Cast

Segment 1 Honeymoon Suite	Segment 2 Room 404	Segment 3 Room 309	Between the final two segments	Segment 4 Penthouse
Tim Roth as Ted the Bellhop
Valeria Golino as Athena	David Proval as Siegfried	Antonio Banderas as Man	Kathy Griffin as Betty	Quentin Tarantino as Chester Rush
Madonna as Elspeth	Jennifer Beals as Angela	Tamlyn Tomita as Wife		Jennifer Beals as Angela
Alicia Witt as Kiva	Paul Skemp as Real Theodore	Lana McKissack as Sarah	Marisa Tomei as Margaret	Paul Calderón as Norman
Sammi Davis as Jezebel	Lawrence Bender as Long Hair Yuppie Scum	Danny Verduzco as Juancho	Julie McClean as Left Redhead	Bruce Willis as Leo (uncredited)
Lili Taylor as Raven		Patricia Vonne as Corpse	Laura Rush as Right Redhead
Ione Skye as Eva	Quinn Thomas Hellerman as Baby Bellhop	Salma Hayek as TV dancing girl	Amanda de Cadenet as Diana	Kimberly Blair as Hooker (uncredited)

Crossovers between rooms

The four segments are shown chronologically, except for The Misbehavers, the events of which both precede and succeed the events of The Wrong Man.

There some linkage between the four segments:

• In The Wrong Man, Ted recalls the witches' ritual in The Missing Ingredient with the expression "weird voodoo thing".
• Ted can be seen with the two cherries from The Missing Ingredient at the beginning of The Misbehavers.
• The strange telephone call in The Wrong Man appears to be from Sarah in The Misbehavers.
• Angela appears in both The Wrong Man and The Man from Hollywood.
• When calling his boss, just before the beginning of The Man from Hollywood, Ted recalls the events of the first three segments.

Reaction

Critical reception

The film did not fare as well with critics as it did with the film's audience, receiving a 14% "Rotten" rating from Rotten Tomatoes but a 'fresh' 72% from moviegoers. James Berardinelli of ReelViews described the film as "one of 1995's major disappointments". Hal Hinson of the Washington Post said the film "asserts itself as a goof so laboriously and aggressively that you almost feel pinned back in your seat". Most reviews agree that "The Misbehavers" the best of the rooms. The film fared better with audiences with a solid 'B-' rating from Box Office Mojo and a 'B' rating from Yahoo!. It has become somewhat of a favorite for fans of Tarantino and Rodriguez alike.

Madonna won the 1995 Razzie award for Worst Supporting Actress for her part in "The Missing Ingredient".

Box office

The film grossed $4,257,354 in only 319 theaters.

Soundtrack

Untitled

The soundtrack to Four Rooms features a score composed and performed by contemporary lounge music band Combustible Edison, co-produced by Mark Mothersbaugh. Additional music is by Juan García Esquivel.

Track listing

1. "Vertigogo (Opening Theme)" (Combustible Edison) – 2:35
   • Tracks 2-11 from The Missing Ingredient:
2. "Junglero" – 1:54
3. "Four Rooms Swing" – 2:11
4. "Theme From 'Bewitched'" (Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller) – 1:01
5. "Tea and Eva In The Elevator" – 0:55
6. "Invocation" – 1:26
7. "Breakfast At Denny's" – 3:57
8. "Strange Brew" – 0:27
9. "Coven Of Witches" – 0:59
10. "The Earthly Diana" – 0:36
11. "Eva Seduces Ted" – 2:10
    • Tracks 12-17 from The Wrong Man:
12. "Hallway Ted" – 0:31
13. "Headshake Rhumba" – 0:41
14. "Skippen, Pukin, Siegfried" – 0:29
15. "Angela" – 0:46
16. "Punch Drunk" – 2:57
17. "Male Bonding" – 3:06
    • Tracks 18-25 from The Misbehavers:
18. "Mariachi" – 0:29
19. "Antes De Medianoche" – 2:45
20. "Sentimental Journey" (Written by Bud Green, Les Brown and Ben Homer, performed by Esquivel) – 2:39
21. "Kids Watch TV" – 2:03
22. "Champagne and Needles" – 2:06
23. "Bullseye" – 1:01
24. "Harlem Nocturne" (Written by Earle Hagen, performed by Esquivel) – 2:30
25. "The Millionaire's Holiday" – 2:13
    • Tracks 26-29 from The Man from Hollywood:
26. "Ted-o-vater" – 0:39
27. "Vertigogo (Closing Credits)" – 5:33
28. "'D' In The Hallway Credits" – 0:25
29. "Torchy" – 0:16

External links

• Four Rooms at IMDb
• Four Rooms at AllMovie
• Four Rooms at Rotten Tomatoes