Nobody's Fool (1994 film)

Donald "Sully" Sullivan is a stubborn old reprobate living in the New York State village of North Bath. He freelances in the construction business, usually with his dim-witted friend Rub by his side. He is often at odds with Carl Roebuck, a local contractor, suing him at every opportunity for unpaid wages and disability. Sully's one-legged lawyer Wirf is inept, and his lawsuits are repeatedly dismissed. As a way to irritate him, Sully openly flirts with Carl's wife Toby (which she enjoys). He is a regular at the Iron Horse Saloon, where he has drinks and plays cards with Wirf, Carl, Rub, Jocko the town pharmacist, and Ollie Quinn, the town's Chief of Police.

A running joke is the repeated theft of Carl's snowblower. Sully steals it to get back at Carl for his latest failed lawsuit. Carl steals it back, placing it in the yard at his construction business guarded by his doberman pinscher dog. Sully, after drugging the dog, steals it a second time. Carl takes it back a final time and leaves the dog, who is now skittish due to his drugging, at Sully's childhood home for him to find.

Sully is a tenant in the home of the elderly Miss Beryl, his 8th grade teacher, whose banker son Clive Jr. urges her to kick him out and sell the house. Family complications develop for Sully with a visit from Peter, his estranged son who is a jobless professor at odds with his wife. While he and Sully reconstruct their relationship, Sully begins a new one with his young grandson, Will. Peter's sudden everyday presence does not sit well with Rub, who quits working with Sully. Meanwhile, Clive Jr. is on the verge of a lucrative deal to build an amusement park in North Bath. However, the deal falls through when the promoter turns out to be a con man, and Clive Jr. skips town in shame since he used his bank's resources to help finance the amusement park.

Sully is jailed for punching a police officer who has been hassling him, Sully has bad luck. His regular horse racing trifecta wins, but because he was in jail, he missed making the bet. But his son and grandson warm up to him, and he rebuilds his relationship with Rub. Then Toby leaves Carl, mostly due to his womanizing, and invites Sully to run away with her to Hawaii. Sully accepts, then realizes he cannot leave his grandson and declines. Miss Beryl, as a gift, pays the back taxes on Sully's long-abandoned family home. His son gives him a winning ticket for the missing trifecta, which he had bet in his father's absence. In the end, Sully decides to remain in North Bath because of his family obligations.

The setting for both the book and film, the fictional^[4] North Bath, New York, is based on the real Village of Ballston Spa, New York, in Saratoga County, New York, just east of Gloversville, where Russo grew up.^[5] The real Ballston Spa was overshadowed by neighboring Saratoga Springs, just as North Bath was eclipsed by the fictional Schuyler Springs. Nobody's Fool was filmed in the Hudson Valley city of Beacon, which was paid a $40,000 location fee for services and inconveniences. Production began in November 1993 and concluded in February 1994. The Iron Horse Bar, located on N. 7th Street in Hudson, NY, is now the Governor's Tavern; and the Diner is now The Hudson Diner on Warren Street, just around the corner in Hudson.^[6]

Bruce Willis reportedly agreed to a substantial pay cut to appear in the film, accepting the SAG-AFTRA scale of $1,400 per week at a time when the actor was earning roughly $15 million for his action movies, since Willis was very eager to star alongside Paul Newman. Fearing that Willis' fame as action star could lead people into the film with false expectations, the film wasn't advertised with him and his name does not appear in the opening credits, only in the closing credits.^[7]