The Mean Season
| The Mean Season | |
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Theatrical poster
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| Directed by | Phillip Borsos |
| Produced by | David Foster Lawrence Turman |
| Screenplay by | Leon Piedmont |
| Based on |
In the Heat of the Summer by John Katzenbach |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Lalo Schifrin |
| Cinematography | Frank Tidy |
| Edited by | Duwayne Dunham |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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103 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $4,300,000 (USA) |
The Mean Season is a 1985 American crime-thriller film directed by Phillip Borsos and stars Kurt Russell, Mariel Hemingway, Richard Jordan, Richard Masur, Joe Pantoliano and Andy García. The screenplay was written by Leon Piedmont, based on the novel In the Heat of the Summer by John Katzenbach.
The film was named after the term of the same name that refers to a pattern of weather that occurs in Florida during the late summer months. In order to achieve accuracy for the scenes that take place in the busy newsroom, the filmmakers used Miami Herald reporters as on-set consultants and extras and shot in the actual newsroom as opposed to recreating it on a soundstage.
Malcolm Anderson is a reporter for a Miami newspaper, who is burned out from years of covering the worst crimes in the city. He promises his girlfriend Christine that they will move away from the city, but he ends up covering a series of grisly murders by a serial killer who calls him telling the reporter that he will kill again. The lines between covering the story and becoming part of it are blurred.
Veteran crime reporter for the Miami Herald newspaper John Katzenbach wrote the novel, In the Heat of the Summer, based on his years of experiences and of stories told to him by fellow reporters he knew. He tried to examine what he described as “the nature of reporting and the ambiguity and ambivalence of the job. There's a fundamental dilemma in, on the one hand, thinking 'How can I intrude on these people at the moment of exquisite agony?' and, on the other hand thinking 'My God, I'm sitting on a terrific story!'”
Producer David Foster who was also a graduate of the journalism school at the University of Southern California, was given Katzenbach’s manuscript and agreed to bring it to the big screen along with fellow producer Lawrence Turman. The film was named The Mean Season after the term of the same name that refers to a pattern of weather that occurs in Florida during the late summer months. Hot mornings with sticky weather lead into violent thunderstorms that blow in from the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico in the afternoon. However, the rain doesn't alleviate the heat and only makes things hotter that evening. This cycle repeats every day for a month.
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