Retracing his steps

FOR his thesis at the American Film Institute, writer-director Randall Miller returned to his childhood in Pasadena, when his mother sent him kicking and screaming to cotillion.

His award-winning 1990 short, “Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School,” continues to be screened to this day.

“No matter what I did in my career, people would always hire me off of the short,” said Miller. “It was a touchstone for people. They have been telling me for years, ‘You should do something with that short.’ Disney, at one point, wanted to make a Little Rascals-type of thing.”

But it wasn’t until three years ago that Miller decided to revisit the film that launched his career. “My dad passed away,” he said. “My wife and [writing] partner, Jody [Savin], her mom had passed away before that. We have little kids. So we went back and looked at the short with completely different eyes and said, ‘It’s interesting to see how our lives go in completely different directions than you can ever possibly imagine.’ ”

The feature version, also called “Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School,” opens Friday. Miller and his wife financed the low-budget production with the equity on their Pasadena home. Though it was made for less than $5 million in just 20 days, Miller was able to attract a stellar cast.

Robert Carlyle plays Frank, a shy Pasadena bread maker still mourning his wife’s suicide. One day while driving on the old 99 highway near Gorman, he comes across a horrific car crash. Inside the mangled car, he finds a dying man (John Goodman) -- a convict just released from jail who, 40 years earlier, made a date with a girl at the cotillion to return to Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School that very day.

The dying man is actually Steve, the protagonist of the short film. Before he expires in the ambulance, Steve persuades Frank to go to the class that night to see whether the girl, Lisa, shows up as planned.

Frank doesn’t find Lisa but discovers a group of equally lonely men and women looking for companionship. Attracted to a troubled young woman named Meredith (Marisa Tomei), Frank decides to enroll in the dance class.

“MARILYN Hotchkiss” arrives in theaters in time to play off the popularity of the documentary “Mad Hot Ballroom” and the ratings success of the ABC series “Dancing With the Stars.”

“It is just coincidence,” said Miller. “We made the movie a while ago [2004]. The fact that it’s coming out now was really just fortuitous.”

Miller believes the rise in the popularity of ballroom dancing is because it’s one of the few activities in which people can meet and mingle, with no pressure to go further.

“I am not a big member of clubs or anything,” said Miller. “Jody and I both thought about this, ‘If either one of us passed away, where would you even go to find someone to spend the rest of your life with?’ I don’t go to bars. There used to be places people could go to. The Internet made it impersonal. It’s great for people to communicate with each other, but it eliminates the whole going out and meeting people.”

With ballroom dancing, not only do people meet, they also can actually touch. “It’s sort of formal,” he said. “It forces you out of your shell in a way. It’s not lurid. It’s not that kind of thing. I understand why in the ‘40s and ‘50s it was very popular. It’s a nice convention if you think about it.”

“Marilyn Hotchkiss” is the first film that Scottish actor Carlyle has made in America. Miller and his wife had admired Carlyle’s work in such films as “Trainspotting,” and approached his agent and quickly got a yes.

“What happened was that a lot of American actors wanted to work with Robert Carlyle,” Miller said. “Marisa Tomei really wanted to work with Robert.”

And so did Goodman. “He’s a beautiful guy,” he said of Carlyle. “The only problem was trying to listen to him, he spoke so gently and softly. I don’t have the best ears in the world.”

Goodman also liked the script and the fact that “Randy and his wife, they hocked everything and they believed in it so much that it had to go right somehow.”

Miller said that there was some debate over casting actor Elden Henson in the role of Samson, one of Frank’s co-workers. Henson had played young Steve in the original.

“Various people involved said, ‘You can’t do that. It will cheapen the movie,’” said Miller. “But I thought it was the one thing that could bring the whole back story into the future and really connect the two periods.”

Henson said working on the new version was “very cool.” He remembered nothing but “good things” about working with Miller and “how good he was to me as a kid. And as soon as I read the script, it kind of fit. The idea of life being unexpected, things coming full circle and revisiting that sort of magical time in your past.”