Although it failed to captivate critics and audiences alike amid its initial release, Mixed Nuts has all the makings of a holiday classic.
Marking the movie’s 30th anniversary, co-writer Delia Ephron reflected on its cult status to Deadline as she remembered her and late sister Nora Ephron‘s little-known 1994 Christmas film, “a great fun comedy that we wrote together” after the success of Sleepless in Seattle (1993).
“I do not believe it got good reviews,” she recently recalled. “I’m not someone who ever reads reviews, good or bad, so that’s not something I know what they said or anything, but I certainly know that it wasn’t initially a hit.”
Delia Ephron added, “But that is the weird thing with movies. They’re not, and then suddenly, they get this cult following of people who absolutely love them. And then I look at them again and I think, well, I really love this. For me and movies, it’s like having a kid or something. You love all sorts of things about it because you have all sorts of memories connected.”
Co-written and directed by Nora Ephron, who died at age 71 in 2012, Mixed Nuts follows the employees of suicide-prevention hotline Lifesavers as they find out they’re evicted from their Venice Beach office on Christmas Eve, while a serial killer stalks the neighborhood.
Anthony La Paglia, Juliette Lewis, Liev Schreiber, Adam Sandler, Steve Martin, Rita Wilson and Madeline Kahn in Mixed Nuts (1994) (TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection)
The script was based on the 1979 French play and subsequent 1982 film Le père Noël est une ordure (Santa Claus Is a Stinker). “We just loved it,” said Delia Ephron. “It was just eccentrically strange and French, and it was just after Nora had directed Sleepless in Seattle, so basically, she could do whatever she wanted ’cause it was such a big hit.
“And also, our childhood had a lot of Christmas in it. So we liked to find things, like in You’ve Got Mail, books were this major thing in our family and children’s books were huge. So, that was very special for us to make Meg Ryan’s character own a bookstore,” she added. “And then in this case, we really had strong feelings about Christmas. Our family, we grew up in Beverly Hills and my parents were Jewish, but there was a lot of assimilation, so we had a big Christmas tree in addition to all our Jewish traditions. So, we had feelings about it, so that was important.”
With the sisters putting a Venice Beach twist on the original French plot, they were ready to cast. “We just wanted Steve Martin, and that was just the beginning,” said Delia Ephron.
Steve Martin and Rita Wilson in Mixed Nuts (1994) (TriStar/Courtesy Everett Collection)
“Once you had Steve Martin, then Adam Sandler’s in it, and that’s really cuckoo,” she noted. “It was just one great comedian after another signing onto this thing, and so, we were all very happy. It was a happy set.”
The cast was rounded out by Rita Wilson, Juliette Lewis, Liev Schreiber, Anthony LaPaglia and the late Madeline Kahn. The film was also stacked with cameos from Rob Reiner, Garry Shandling, Jon Stewart, Parker Posey and a young Haley Joel Osment.
Mixed Nuts features an iconic soundtrack of Christmas tunes by Carly Simon, Eartha Kitt and The O’Jays, as well as a hilarious original song by Sandler. “I listen to that album at Christmastime, I do,” said Delia Ephron, crediting her sister with curating the music.
Despite all the ingredients for an instant Christmas classic, the film grossed only $6.8 million after it opened Dec. 21, 1994, an upset following Sleepless in Seattle‘s nearly $228 million haul. Mixed Nuts currently has a 13% Tomatometer and 47% Popcornmeter score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Director Nora Ephron and cinematographer Sven Nykvist on the set of Mixed Nuts (1994) (TriStar/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Still, the movie holds strong for fans, with one on RT calling it “total insanity and GREAT fun” and another crowning it “one of the most underrated movies.” One reviewer urged audiences to “just enjoy it for what it is — a goofy, funny, weirdly ridiculous comedy with an insane amount of star power” that “will live in your heart forever,” and those are all reactions from this holiday season.
“I was completely shocked that you wanted to do an anniversary of this,” admitted Delia Ephron. “But you know what people say, it’s not why you do it really. You do it cause you’ve fallen in love with the material and you think the actors are wonderful and it’s very magical. It’s a lot of moving parts of the movie and you just don’t know. But you’re not the first person who’s written me a letter about it, I mean a good letter.”