Second Sight (film)

Second Sight is a 1989 comedy film from Warner Bros., starring John Larroquette, Bronson Pinchot, Stuart Pankin and Bess Armstrong. In the film, a paranormal detective Larroquette, a psychic Pinchot and a nun Armstrong search the streets of Boston, Massachusetts for a missing person who has allegedly been kidnapped.

Second Sight was being produced around the time of the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike, which led to problems with both the script and the cast. Filming was done in Boston, Massachusetts. Bronson Pinchot spent about three months meeting with psychics to research for the part, largely with one who was retained by writer Patricia Resnick as a technical advisor for the film. Pinchot said he found that most of them were very straightforward, intelligent and normal people, unlike the quirky and weird character he planned to play Pinchot said the research was nevertheless helpful in determining how to play the part differently than actual psychics. Pinchot was directed to other psychics by actress Shirley MacLaine, who is well known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation a photo of MacLaine was hung in the bedroom wall of Pinchots character as an homage. In the middle one of his research sessions, Pinchot collapsed, which doctors said was due to exhaustion but the films psychic technical advisor believed was due to his response to the extrasensory perception and hypnosis he had been exposed to over a long period of time.One psychic Pinchot talked to would randomly begin speaking in tongues repeatedly during conversations, which the psychic said was the result of a spiritual sensation he could not explain Pinchot said the encounter was helpful in establishing his character. During one scene in the movie, Pinchot is in the office of a man who is in another location and has to urinate, and as a result Pinchots psychic character begins squirming as if he has to use the bathroom. Pinchot said this scene was inspired by a visit he had with a psychic who used to get drunk whenever she was near somebody who was drunk at a party. The character wears slippers throughout the movie because when Pinchot met psychic Peter Hurkos during his research, they went out to lunch and Hurkos wore sandals because he forgot to put on his shoes. ...

Source: Wikipedia