My Best Friend's Birthday

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Clarence (Tarantino) meets Misty (Crystal Shaw).
Clarence (Tarantino) meets Misty (Crystal Shaw).

My Best Friend's Birthday (1987) is an unfinished black and white independent film by Craig Hamann and Quentin Tarantino, shot during their younger days while working at the now shuttered Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California. The project started in 1984, when Hamann wrote a short 30-40 page script about a young man who continually tries to do something nice for his friend's birthday, only to have his efforts backfire. Tarantino became attached to the project as co-writer and director, and he and Hamann expanded the short script into an 80 page script. 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.

The original cut was about 70 minutes long but due to a fire only 36 minutes of the film survived. The 36 minute cut has been shown at several film festivals. It has never been officially released. Elements of My Best Friend's Birthday were reused by Tarantino in his later films; most notably in his script for Tony Scott's 1993 film True Romance, which among other things contained a more developed version of the Clarence character, a call-girl character reminiscent of the one in My Best Friend's Birthday, and the famous "Elvis monologue" which Tarantino originally performed for the film himself. Tarantino has referred to this film as his "film school". Although the film was by his own admission very poorly directed, the experience gained from the film helped him in directing future films.

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    The films of Quentin Tarantino
    Directed: My Best Friend's Birthday • Reservoir Dogs • Pulp Fiction • Four Rooms • Jackie Brown • Kill Bill • Grindhouse • Inglorious Bastards • The Vega Brothers
    Written: True Romance • Natural Born Killers • From Dusk Till Dawn
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