Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke give sexploitation cinema a queer spin in 'Drive-Away Dolls'
Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke's “Drive-Away Dolls" signifies both the much-awaited return of Coen to narrative filmmaking and the giddy revival of a long-dormant spirit of ’70s B-movie filmmaking
NEW YORK (AP) — Scripts of all kinds sit in the drawers of Ethan Coen’s home, some to be returned to, some forever abandoned. When writing with his brother Joel over many years, the absurd narrative paths they’d venture down would inevitably lead to strange mental roadblocks.
“Sometimes partial scripts would stop in mysterious places,” Coen says. “‘Fargo’ we started writing many, many years before we made it and then we stopped at page 70 with ‘Carl is humping the escort.’ Then the rest of that page is blank. OK, what happens next?”
One script that sat dormant for many years was a screenplay Coen wrote not with his brother, but Tricia Cooke, Coen’s wife and an editor of many of the Coens’ best films. The script, titled “Drive-Away Dykes,” was nearly produced two decades ago. A lesbian road-trip comedy, the movie — a playfully R-rated, unabashedly queer romp — channeled the spirit of long-ago sexploitation cinema.
Penned around 2002, the project was shopped years ago with Allison Anders to direct and, at various points, had actors including Holly Hunter, Christina Applegate, Chloë Sevigny and Selma Blair attached. But the financing never came through. Into a drawer “Drive-Away Dykes” went.
