Jean-Luc Godard wanted Norman Mailer to write and star in a modern adaptation of King Lear, with Mailer playing a mob boss called Don Learo. Cannon Films offered to finance a movie of Mailer's novel as part of the deal.

Mailer shot one scene of the Lear film, then walked. Godard kept Mailer's brief footage, edited in Mailer's angry voicemail messages, and released his avant-garde King Lear in 1987 - the same year Cannon released Death Wish 4: The Crackdown.

And this thing.

In Norman Mailer's TOUGH GUYS DON'T DANCE (1987), a blocked writer wakes up from a chaotic two-week drinking bender to find a pool of blood in his car. This kicks off a bizarre neo-noir mystery involving a severed head and local police corruption.

Ryan O'Neal plays the writer. Also featured are Isabella Rossellini, Lawrence Tierney, and a score by Angelo Badalamenti the year after he did Blue Velvet. Mailer won the Razzie for Worst Director.

One scene has outlived everything else: O'Neal on a bluff above the dunes, camera spiraling, repeating "oh man, oh God" while his world comes apart. The internet has spent twenty years calling it the worst line reading ever given by an actor.

It was Mailer's idea. The crew begged him to cut it. He regretted not listening to them.