My Best Friend's Birthday Clarence ( Quentin Tarantino ) meets Misty (Crystal Shaw) Directed by Quentin Tarantino Produced by Quentin Tarantino

Craig Hamann

Rand Vossler Written by Quentin Tarantino

Craig Hamann Starring Quentin Tarantino

Craig Hamann

Crystal Shaw

Allen Garfield

Al Harrell

Brenda Hillhouse

Linda Kaye

Stevo Polyi

Alan Sanborn

Rich Turner

Rowland Wafford Cinematography Roger Avary

Scott McGill

Roberto A. Quezada

Rand Vossler Edited by Quentin Tarantino Distributed by Super Happy Fun Release date 1987 ( )







Running time 70 minutes (original version)

36 minutes (remaining version) Country United States Language English Budget $5,000 (estimated)[1]

My Best Friend's Birthday is a partially lost black-and-white amateur film directed, edited, co-written, co-produced and starring Quentin Tarantino.[2][3][4]

Plot [ edit ]

A young man continually tries to do something nice for his friend's birthday, only to have his efforts backfire.

Cast [ edit ]

Quentin Tarantino as Clarence Poole

Craig Hamann as Mickey Burnett

Crystal Shaw as Misty

Allen Garfield as entertainment magnate

Al Harrell as Clifford

Brenda Hillhouse as wife

Linda Kaye as ex-girlfriend

Stevo Polyi as DJ

Alan Sanborn as Nutmeg

Rich Turner as Brandon Turner

Rowland Wafford as Lenny Otis

Production [ edit ]

The film was made while Tarantino was working at the Video Archives, now closed, in Manhattan Beach, California.[4] The project started in 1984, when Hamann wrote a short 30- to 40-page script.

Tarantino became attached to the project as co-writer and director, and he and Hamann expanded the script to 80 pages. On an estimated budget of $5,000, they shot the film on 16mm over the course of the next four years. Hamann and Tarantino starred in the film, along with several video store and acting class buddies, and worked on the crew, which included fellow Video Archives employees Rand Vossler and Roger Avary. It is the most overtly comedic film that Tarantino has made. In an interview with Charlie Rose (available on the Region 1 Collector's Edition DVD of Pulp Fiction), he referred to it as a "Martin and Lewis kind of thing."

The original cut was about 70 minutes long, but due to a film lab fire, only 36 minutes of the film still exist.[3] The surviving footage has been edited together and shown at several film festivals.[citation needed] Several actors in this film later appeared in Tarantino's other films Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Kill Bill.

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]



