I didn’t plan on watching Never on Tuesday because the movie never made it to DVD, and because Nicolas Cage goes uncredited in it as the “Man in the Red Sportscar”; but I found the entire film on Youtube here so decided to at least watch the Cage-relevant scenes (really just one scene).
Summary: The movie is about two guys who want to go to California to woo (screw) “hot” women who end up getting into a car accident along the way, colliding with (surprise!) a beautiful young woman (played by Claudia Christian). While stranded on a desert highway, the friends each try to win the woman’s affection and have many fantasies about sexual encounters with her. They also meet up with an assortment of strange characters before they eventually find their way home.
It looked like a pretty standard 80s TnA movie. But what’s not standard about it is the number of high profile actors that go uncredited in the film. (I confess I didn’t watch most of it, but I zipped through the entire thing and stopped to identify actors I recognized.)
The list includes:
- Nicolas Cage
- Peter Berg (credited)
- Emilio Estevez
- Gilbert Gottfried
- Cary Elwes (Princess Bride)
- Charlie Sheen
- Judd Nelson
The man in the red sportscar
I could describe the absurd scene for you here, but why not just watch it yourself. It’s not very long:
You may very well be wondering, how did this bizarre character / performance even come about? Well, according to the director of the film, Adam Rifkin it went something like this:
The way it worked with Nicolas Cage is, he was given free rein to do whatever he wanted. That was the caveat. He said he’d do it if he could do whatever he wanted. So, he came, with a big rubber nose, that he wanted applied, and he wanted to play this insane character, which we thought was hilarious.
Now, there’s an uncut version of his scene that needs to be unearthed, from somewhere, where he says way more crazy things. That is not the version that ended up in the final film, sadly. But, now, I wish we could find it, because it’s really really bizarre. But that’s the story of how his character ended up in the film and became such a weird character.
Source
Firsts for Nicolas Cage character in a film (as man in red sportscar)
- Giant, ridiculous nose.
- Breathy, wavering falsetto voice. (Although he started working on this in Peggy Sue Got Married.)
- Truly terrible bowl-cut style haircut
- Wearing a red iZod rain jacket hoodie.
- Driving a pretty nice sports car.
Summary: Leave it to Cage to roar up, say a few lines, and somehow steal the show. It’s a good reminder why he would eventually be the original trendsetter in Gone in 60 Seconds that would later birth the copycat Fast and Furious movie franchise.
yeti speak... 
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