Tucker: The Man and His Dream is one of the more lauded films of Francis Ford Coppola's from the 1980s. The backstory for the project dates all the way to Coppola's childhood, when his father invested in the Tucker car company, an innovative post-war upstart promising a car with a number of novel design features. Shortly after, Coppola would contract polio, leaving him bedridden and isolated for months, during which he developed a fascination with inventors and innovators, chief among them Preston Tucker.
Coppola would carry this fascination with Preston for life, first playing with the idea for a biopic about him while studying in UCLA's film program, and later buying the rights to Preston's life story. During Coppola's heyday in the 1970s, the filmmaker conceived as the biopic as a "Brechtian musical" that would critique the stifling of creative spirit in corporate America, ultimately ending when "Tucker dies and Tucker's car dies with him." It would fit the bill for Coppola's '70s output, given The Godfather's (1972) own sly critique of corporate America and the generally dark spirit of the filmmaker's output during that decade, with films like Apocalypse Now (1979) and The Conversation (1974).
But Coppola's career would get derailed by way of his over-budget flop One From the Heart, an ambitious musical that tanked his production company American Zoetrope, put him in the bad graces of major studios, and ultimately sunk him into filing for personal bankruptcy protection three times over. On top of all of that, Coppola's critical reputation was floundering, and he became hounded by a reputation as a former genius whose movies were all style and no substance. While he had success with an adaptation of S.E. Hinton's Rumble Fish in 1983, it barely bettered his position in the Hollywood system.
Regardless, Coppola tried and tried to make his musical about Preston Tucker, even going as far as contracting Leonard Bernstein to write the music in the early 1980s. The project didn't materialize then either.
Enter George Lucas, Coppola's former protege who had become one of the most powerful men in Hollywood thanks for the successes of his Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. Lucas agreed to attach himself to his old friend's film, but required that Coppola drop the musical component of the film and make it an uplifting story. Coppola happily complied, and got to work on a very different film than, as he has said in interviews, he could have made at the height of his powers.
What resulted was an uplifting tale about opportunity and the American dream in the vein of Frank Capra (the filmmaker known for It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1936)). Interestingly, Coppola was at one point in talks with Capra about producing the film, but they disagreed about whether the story was one about Tucker's success or failures.
Critics appreciated Tucker, but it barely registered at the box office. Despite the attachment of Lucas, a dazzling starring performance by Jeff Bridges, and a Golden Globes nod for Martin Landau's supporting performance, Tucker gained little notice amongst the filmgoing public.
