One of my all-time favorite comedies is the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker 80’s classic, RUTHLESS PEOPLE! I’ll never forget watching it with my mom when I was a teenager. She laughed so hard, which made it loads of fun for me! I’ve been a fan of Danny DeVito ever since. As a matter of fact, DeVito is turning 81 today, which means he’s only a month older than my dad. Enjoy my friends!
Tag Archives: Jerry Zucker
Airplane! (1980, directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker)
Airplane!, which may be the funniest movie ever made, has made me laugh every time that I’ve watched it. And I’ve watched it a lot!
Whenever I’m getting ready to travel for my day job, I watch Airplane! Whenever I’m going to Baltimore or West Virginia for the holidays, I watch Airplane! Whenever I’m in a bad mood and I need something lighten me up, I watch Airplane! Whenever I’m in a good mood and I want to be in an even better mood, I watch Airplane!
I can’t remember how old I was when I first saw Airplane! but I know I wasn’t yet ten. While a lot of the humor went over my head at that young age, it did not matter because I laughed at all the sight gags, like the heart hopping around on the doctor’s desk and the line of passengers waiting to “calm down” the hysterical woman. I laughed when Ted Stryker (Robert Hays) and Elaine (Julie Haggerty) got covered in seaweed while making out on the beach. I laughed at the people dying while listening to Ted’s story, even though I didn’t fully understand that it was because of Ted boring them to death. I loved it when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar got annoyed with the kid in the cockpit, even though young me really didn’t know who Kareem was other than he was a basketball player. Otto the autopilot was the coolest character around. Stephen Stucker’s Johnny made me laugh with his nonstop energy. “Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive.” “And don’t call me Shirley.” “It looks like I picked the wrong time to stop sniffing glue.” Every time I heard them, I laughed at all of those lines. I didn’t have to understand why Lloyd Bridges was suddenly upside down. I just knew it was funny.
As I got older and rewatched the film, I started to pick up on the humor that earlier went over my head. I traveled to Turkey when I was twelve and our tour guide spent an hour telling us that Midnight Express was not a fair representation of her country. After that, I suddenly understood why Captain Oveur (Peter Graves) wanted to know if Joey had ever been to a Turkish prison. I came to appreciate Julie Hagerty and Lorna Patterson as the two flight attendants. Airplane! still made me laugh but I came to understand that it was also a love story. What adolescent boy watching Airplane! didn’t want to be Robert Hays, not only landing the plane but also getting kiss Julie Hagerty at the end of the movie?
And then, as I learned more about the movies, I realized that Airplane! was a pitch perfect parody of the disaster genre and I came to understand the brilliance of casting actors like Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and especially Leslie Nielsen in this film. From the first time I saw the movie, Nielsen always made me laugh because he had the best lines and he delivered them with deadpan perfection. But, as I got older, I came to understand that Nielsen was doing more than just saying funny things. He was sending up his entire career. I’m a part of the generation who grew up laughing at Leslie Nielsen the comedy superstar and it’s always strange for me to see him in one of his older, serious roles. I have Airplane! to thank for that.
There’s so much to say about Airplane! I could write a thousand words just talking about my favorite jokes and one-liners or how much I enjoyed Stryker’s flashbacks. It’s my favorite movie and one that still makes me laugh even though I know all of the jokes by heart. (I’ve always thought Howard Jarvis waiting for Stryker to return to the taxi was one of the best, though underrated, jokes in the movie.) Airplane! is close to 50 years old and it’s still just as funny today as when I first saw it.
In fact, I think I’ll go watch it right now!
RUTHLESS PEOPLE (1986) – In remembrance of Jim Abrahams
It made me sad when I saw that writer/director Jim Abrahams had passed away on November 26, 2024 at 80 years of age. Growing up in the 1980’s, Mr. Abrahams is responsible for some of my favorite comedies. AIRPLANE, TOP SECRET, and THE NAKED GUN would not exist without Jim Abrahams. As much as I love all of those movies, my personal favorite film that Jim Abrahams co-directed is RUTHLESS PEOPLE. I remember when our family rented this film and watched it in the ‘80’s. We thought it was so funny. I specifically remember my mom laughing out loud on multiple occasions as the ridiculous scenario played out. That was a fun movie night in the Crain household.
RUTHLESS PEOPLE is about a rich businessman named Sam Stone (Danny DeVito) who truly hates his wife Barbara (Bette Midler), and hatches a plan to kill her so he can inherit her money. Unfortunately he runs into a couple of problems. First, his mistress Carol (Anita Morris) knows about the plan, so she and her dimwitted boy toy Earl (Bill Pullman) want to film Sam dumping his wife’s body so they can blackmail him for millions. Second, before Sam can execute his plan, Barbara is kidnapped and held for a ransom of $500,000 by Ken and Sandy Kressler (Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater). It seems that Sam stole Sandy’s idea for the spandex miniskirt, screwed them out of millions with a handshake deal, and then kept the money for himself. This seems like an answer to prayer at first for Sam because they threaten to kill Barbara if he doesn’t meet their needs or if he calls the police or the media. After saying no to their demands, and then immediately calling the police and the news, Sam realizes that they don’t want to kill her when they keep coming back with lower demands. Sandy tells Barbara that Sam refuses to pay even $10,000 for her safe return. Eventually the kidnappers and Barbara join together to try to take the unfaithful and unethical Sam for everything he’s worth!!
RUTHLESS PEOPLE is one of my favorite comedies of the 1980’s. It has such a great cast. Danny DeVito and Bill Pullman are especially hilarious and have some of the film’s best lines. At the time the movie came out in 1986, DeVito was already established as a master of comedy, so Pullman’s performance as Earl, the dumbass Sonny Crockett wannabe, was the real revelation to me. Pullman made his film debut in RUTHLESS PEOPLE, and I never see him to this day that I don’t think of his character Earl’s excitement over the prospect of his newfound blackmail money:
“And then we’re off, to Haiti!”
“It’s Tahiti, you moron!”
One of the most interesting things about RUTHLESS PEOPLE is just how different it is from the directing trio’s (Zucker / Abrahams / Zucker) other popular films like THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE and AIRPLANE. Those films are based on non-stop visual and verbal gags. I love those films, but this is quite different. The comedy of RUTHLESS PEOPLE is based on the story itself, which is a comedy of confusion, coincidence, and character. I know it’s awesome because I still think of the film often. “Give the bag to bozo” and “a little poke in the whiskers” are phrases I’ll remember up to the point I go to my grave.
Even though the film is almost 40 years old, if you’re looking for a laugh, I don’t think you can do much better than RUTHLESS PEOPLE.
Spring Breakdown: Top Secret! (dir by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker)
“How silly can you get?” Val Kilmer sings in the 1984 film Top Secret! and the answer would appear to be very silly. Extremely silly. Nonsensically silly. Unbelievable silly. So silly that it transcends all formerly known types of silliness. In other words, this is a very silly film but that’s okay because it’s meant to be silly.
Some people, I know, would probably argue that Top Secret! doesn’t really qualify as a Spring Break film but I have to disagree. Like any good Spring Break film, a good deal of Top Secret! takes place on the beach and Val Kilmer plays Nick Rivers, a singer who is obviously meant to be a parody of the type of singers who used to regularly appear in the beach party movies of the 60s. Nick’s number one hit song is Skeet Surfin, which celebrates the sport of skeet shooting while on a surf board. The movie opens with hundreds of handsome young men jumping on surf boards while holding rifles. I honestly don’t know whether skeet surfing was every an actual sport but I certainly hope that it was because it looks like it would have been a lot of fun. Certainly, it would perk up the Olympics.
Of course, Nick is not the only person in the film whose life is connected to the beach. Hillary Flammond (Lucy Gutteridge) spent much of her youth shipwrecked on a beach with Nigel (Christopher Villiers). Unfortunately, one day, Nigel went out to sea to search for help and he never returned. Hillary was eventually rescued. That’s certainly a sadder trip to the beach than Nick’s but still, a beach is a beach.
Hillary and Nick’s paths cross when Nick is invited to perform at a cultural festival in what, in 1984, was known was East Germany. Hillary is a member of the Resistance while her father, Dr. Paul Flammond (Michael Gough), is being held prisoner by the government and is being forced to design the type of secret weapons that are always at the heart of espionage adventures like this one. When Nick and Hillary meet, it’s love at first sight. Nick gets involved in the plan to save Hillary’s father and to thwart the insidious plans of the East German government. He also finds the time to sing a lot of songs.
The plot of Top Secret! isn’t really easy to describe. That’s largely because there really isn’t a plot in a conventional sense. Instead, there’s just one joke after another. The dialogue is purposefully nonsensical. The visuals are full of odd details. The jokes are frequently hilarious and, because they’re so fast and relentless, they’re also next to impossible to adequately describe. Much of the visual humor simply has to be seen to be understood and appreciated. For instance, it may sound slightly humorous to say that a scene features a stern-looking army officer answering a giant phone but you have to actually see the film to truly understand just how brilliantly Top Secret! pulls off the gag.
Of course, what really makes the film is work is Val Kilmer, who is young, handsome, and incredibly likable in the role of Nick. Kilmer delivers every bizarre line with a straight face and an enthusiastic earnestness that makes him the perfect center for all the craziness raging around him.
How silly can you get? Watch Top Secret! and find out!
4 Shots From 4 Films: From Russia With Love, Zardoz, Highlander, First Knight
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
This edition of 4 Shots From 4 Films is dedicated to Sean Connery, on the occasion of his 85th birthday!
4 Shots From 4 Films
From Russia With Love (1963, directed by Terrence Young)
Zardoz (1974, directed by John Boorman)
Highlander (1986, directed by Russell Mulcahy)
First Knight (1995, directed by Jerry Zucker)
Embracing the Melodrama Part II #85: Ghost (dir by Jerry Zucker)
Along with it being a part of my series of melodramatic film reviews, there are actually two reasons why I recently watched Ghost.
First off, this 1990 film was nominated for best picture and it’s long been my goal to watch and review every single film ever nominated for best picture.
Secondly, my Aunt Kate absolutely loves this movie. Ever since she first found out that I obsessively love movies, she has recommended that I watch this movie. And she hasn’t been alone. A lot of people both in and outside of my family have recommended this film to me. And, since I tend to be a bit of a contrarian know-it-all, I originally assumed that any film loved by that many people had to be terrible. However, because I love mi tia, I decided to watch Ghost.
I have to admit that I started to laugh when I saw Demi Moore sitting at her pottery wheel because I’ve seen that scene parodied in so many different TV shows and movies. As soon as a shirtless Patrick Swayze sat down behind her and joined his hands to hers to help shape a ceramic phallic symbol, I started to giggle. As Unchained Melody played in the background, I wanted to be snarky. But then I realized something. If you can manage watch the scene without comparing it to all the parody versions, it actually works. Patrick Swayze looked good and he and Demi Moore had the type of amazing chemistry that more than made up for the fact that neither one of them was a very good actor. (That said, Patrick was very good at projecting decency and Demi was very good at crying and that’s really all that Ghost required.) And, if the scene has proven easy to parody, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a very sincere scene. It’s so sincere that it’s even willing to risk coming across as being silly.
Of course, the entire film isn’t just Demi, Patrick, and a pottery wheel. There’s also Whoopi Goldberg as a fake medium-turned-real-medium and Tony Goldwyn as the best friend who turns out to be a sleazy villain. And, of course, there’s the cartoonish demons who pop up every once in a while so that they can literally drag the recently deceased down to Hell.
Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) is the world’s most unlikely New York City-based banker. He owns a beautiful apartment with his girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore) but he has commitment issues. He can’t bring himself to say that he loves Molly. Instead, he just says, “Ditto.” And, from the minute he first utters those words, you know that his habit of saying “Ditto,” is going to be an important plot point. Anton Chekhov told us that any gun introduced during the first chapter must be fired by the third chapter. Ghost tells us that any “Ditto” uttered during the first 10 minutes must be repeated by the end of the first hour.
Sam’s best friend and co-worker is Carl (Tony Goldwyn). At the start of the film, Sam and Carl have a sweet bromance going and some of the best scenes are just the two of them acting like guys. (There’s a fun little scene where they freak out a group of strangers on an elevator.) Goldwyn is so likable as Carl that it’s actually genuinely upsetting to discover that he’s arranged for Sam to be murdered. (Why? It all involved a lot of financial stuff that basically went right over my head. Greed is not only the root of all evil but it leads to narrative confusion as well.) When Sam dies, he comes back as a ghost but nobody can see him but his fellow ghosts. Vincent Schiavelli has a great cameo as a very angry subway ghost who teaches Sam how “life” works when you’re dead.
(Of course, Schiavelli isn’t on screen for too long because he’s almost too angry for the world of Ghost.)
Eventually Sam discovers that only one living person can communicate with him. Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) is a fake medium who is just as shocked as anyone to discover that she can speak with the dead. Whoopi won an Oscar for her performance here and she’s certainly does bring some needed humor and life to Ghost. With Swayze, Moore, and Goldwyn all giving extremely and sometimes overly dramatic performances, you’re happy to have Whoopi there.
Ghost is designed to appeal to your emotions and it succeeds in doing just that. If you look at the film logically, you’re missing the point. In many ways, the film is undeniably silly but I still got some tears in my eyes when I heard that “Ditto.”
Through the Shattered Lens 