Tag Archives: Leslie Nielsen

Camouflage (2000, directed by James Keach)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It’s strange to hear Leslie Nielsen drop an F bomb.

That was my main though I watched Camouflage.  Leslie Nielsen plays a hard-boiled private detective named Jack Potter who reluctantly takes on an apprentice named Matty McKenzie (Lochlyn Munro).  Mostly to get Matty, a failed stage actor, out of his hair, Jack sends him to handle a minor case in the small town of Beaver Ridge.  The minor case becomes a major case when it becomes clear that a murder is being planned.

Camouflage starts out like a typical Leslie Nielsen mockbuster, with Nielsen providing a ridiculous, Frank Drebin-style narration.  But the film itself develops into a dark comedy where Matty finds himself in a small town where everyone’s got secret.  Nielsen gives an almost-serious performance as Potter, playing him as a cynic with a tragic backstory and little patience for his protegee.  There’s a tonal imbalance between the moments of broad comedy and the more serious moments and the film doesn’t work as a result but it is interesting to see a post-Airplane! Leslie Nielsen playing things relatively straight.

One interesting thing about Camouflage is that it was written by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson but, in the final cut, the screenplay is credited to Reginald Perry.  (The small town setting is one that Thornton used frequently in his scripts and it’s easy to imagine him playing the role of Jack Potter in alternate version of this film.)  Camouflage reportedly sat on the shelf for quite a while before it was finally given a release and Nielsen’s narration often feels like it was something that was added in post-production to try to both bring the disjointed film together and to draw in the Naked Gun fans.  I have a feeling the story behind this film is probably more interesting than the film itself.

The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994, directed by Peter Segal)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Mad bomber Rollo Dillon (Fred Ward) has been hired by terrorists to bomb a major American institution.  Captain Ed Hocken (George Kennedy) and Detective Nordberg (O.J. Simpson) know that there’s only one man who can handle this job and his name is Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen).  Frank, however, has retired from Police Squad and promised his wife, Jane (Priscilla Presley), that he is through with police work.

At heart, Frank remains a cop.  He even dreams of shoot-outs.  When he tries to do police work without Jane noticing, it backfires on him.  Even though Frank lies and claims that he’s just having an affair, Jane leaves him.  Frank, with nothing better to do, goes into prison undercover to gain Rollo’s confidence.  After Rollo and Frank escape, Frank discovers that Rollo and his girlfriend (Anna Nicole Smith) is planning on bombing the Academy Awards!

The Naked Gun 33 1/3 is the weakest of the original Police Squad films, which is to say that it’s still pretty funny, even if some of the jokes no longer feel as fresh as they did in the previous films.  It opens with a brilliant send-up of the shoot-out from The Untouchables and it ends with a perfect parody of the Academy Awards.  (Pia Zadora singing This Could Be The Start Of Something Big is funny because it’s exactly the sort of thing that used to happen at the Oscars.)  It’s in the middle section that the film drags, though there are still things that made me laugh, like a flashback to Frank, Ed, and Nordberg in the 70s.  David Zucker did not return to direct this installment and his absence is definitely felt.

Leslie Nielsen is as funny as ever and he’s well-matched with George Kennedy and Priscila Presley.  (OJ Simpson’s presence is as awkward as ever.)  Fred Ward plays his villainous role straight, a smart move.  But then you’ve got Anna Nicole Smith, who was such a terrible actress that her presence in the film doesn’t even work as a joke.  Whenever Smith shows up, the film grinds to a halt.  It’s the worst type of stunt casting.

This was Leslie Nielsen final performance as Frank Drebin.  Even in a lesser film, he was still a comedic treasure.

The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Fear (1991, directed by David Zucker)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Frank Drebin is back!

Now separated from Jane (Priscilla Presley) and working in Washington D.C., Frank (Leslie Nielsen) finds himself investigating a bombing at the offices of Dr. Albert S. Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths), an advocate of renewable energy who has just been put in charge of America’s energy policies by President George H.W. Bush (John Roarke, who was better-known for playing Ronald Reagan on Friday’s).  With the help of Captain Ed Hocken (George Kennedy) and Officer Nordberg (O.J. Simpson), Drebin’s investigation leads him to Quentin Haspburg (Robert Goulet), an oilman who is plotting on replacing Dr. Meinheimer with a double.  It also leads him back to Jane, who is now working as an assistant to Meinheimer and being wooed by Hapsburg.

The Naked Gun 2 1/2 is a worthy sequel to the first Naked Gun.  It’s more plot-heavy than the first film and some of the jokes feel a little bit too familiar but it’s still a very funny film.  That’s largely due to Neilsen, Kennedy, and Presley, all of whom really commit to playing their absurd characters.  (Robert Goulet gives a game performance but he really can’t match Ricardo Montalban’s villainous turn in the first movie.)  Nielsen was probably the only actor alive who could keep a straight face even while hitting Barbara Bush in the face while opening a door and then struggling to eat lobster at a state dinner.  As was often the case with the ZAZ films (even though Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker didn’t have anything to do with the screenplay of the sequel), the funniest moments are also the most random and the stupidest.  I laughed a lot harder than I should have at Leslie Neilsen struggling with a very small towel that had been thrown against his face.  And don’t worry, O.J. Simpson fans.  Nordberg gets injured in this movie too.

Leslie Nielsen was one of those actors who could make anything funny.  Whether he was delivering his hard-boiled dialogue or doing absurd physical comedy with an absolutely straight face, it was impossible not to laugh when Leslie Nielsen was onscreen.  He was a true cinematic treasure.

 

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988, directed by David Zucker)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Let’s take a moment to appreciate Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen), a true American hero.

Even though Frank is just a Los Angeles cop, he still goes to the Middle East and disrupts a conference of America’s greatest enemies.  He beats up Fidel Castro.  He knocks out Gadafi and Yasser Arafat.  He cleans Gorbachev’s head.  (“I knew it!” he says as the birthmark disappears.)  He takes out Idi Amin and he sends the Ayatollah Khomeini through a window.  Thirty-seven years ago, this scene opened The Naked Gun and, after all that time, it is still funny because Leslie Nielsen plays it all with a straight face, delivering his silly lines without flinching.  It’s also interesting that none of the leaders taken down by Frank Drebin are around anymore.  Khomeini died just a few months after this film came out.  Gorbachev was the last to go, in 2022, by which time he was no longer an enemy.  Consider it the Frank Drebin Effect.  He’s making the world safe for democracy.

When Drebin returns to Los Angeles, he’s informed by Captain Ed Hocken (George Kennedy) that Police Squad has been put in charge of security for a visit from Queen Elizabeth (Jeanette Charles) and that Officer Nordberg (O.J. Simpson) is in the hospital and suspected of being a dirty cop.  The Mayor (Nancy Marchand) doesn’t want Los Angeles to be embarrassed by a police scandal before the Queen arrives so Drebin has 24 hours to exonerate Nordberg.  Drebin’s attempt to clear Nordberg’s name leads him to a shipping magnate (Ricardo Montalban) who has come up with a diabolical scheme to assassinate the Queen at a baseball game.  It also leads to love between Drebin and Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley).

Though Liam Neeson did a fine job in the recent reboot, there really is only one Frank Drebin and his name is Leslie Nielsen.  The original Naked Gun is nearly 40 years old and, even if some of the jokes are dated, it’s still laugh out loud funny.  Most of the credit has to go to Leslie Nielsen and ability to deliver even the most bizarre bits of dialogue with natural authority, gravitas and a straight face.  Whether he’s mumbling his way through the National Anthem, paying an informer for information, or hamming it up as an umpire, Nielsen is never less than hilarious.  By the end of the movie, it’s impossible to look at Nielsen without laughing.  Kennedy, Presely, and Montalban also generate their share of laughs.  John Houseman has a great cameo as an unflappable driving instructor.  (“Now, extend your middle finger.”)  As for OJ Simpson, he doesn’t seem to be in on the joke like the rest of the cast but he does frequently get injured and re-injured throughout the movie and there’s definitely some pleasure to be found in that.

(When Simpson died, director David Zucker said, “His acting was a lot like his murdering: He got away with it, but no one believed him.”  That sounds about right.)

Liam Neeson made for a fine Frank Drebin, Jr.  I hope he has many more adventures.  But the greatest Frank Drebin will always be Leslie Nielsen and the original Naked Gun will always be one of my favorite comedies.  Sometimes, it’s good just to laugh.

Thank you, David Zuker.

Thank you, Jerry Zucker.

Thank you, Jim Abrahams.

And most of all, thank you, Leslie Nielsen.

Holidays On The Lens: Santa Who? (dir by William Dear)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh no!  Santa Claus has amnesia!

That’s the premise behind this 2000 Christmas movie, which features Leslie Nielsen as the amnesiac Santa.  Having fallen out of his sleigh, Santa finds himself in Los Angeles.  When a reporter (Steven Eckholdt) comes across Santa, he does a story about him.  Santa becomes a mini-celebrity and gets a job as a department store version of himself.  While his elves search for him, Santa struggles to recover his memory.

It’s a cute little made-for-TV movie.  Leslie Nielsen as Santa?  Who could resist that?

Brad reviews THE NAKED GUN (2025), starring Liam Neeson!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

When I first saw that THE NAKED GUN was being rebooted with Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin, Jr., I must admit that I was quite skeptical. You see, the original THE NAKED GUN (1988) with Leslie Nielsen came out when I was 15 years old, and I remember watching it at the movie theater on a field trip with our high school’s Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) club. I loved it so much! I eagerly watched THE NAKED GUN 2 1/2 (1991) and NAKED GUN 33 1/3 (1994) at the theaters as well. To be completely honest, this series is one of my favorites of my “growing into an adult” years, and I didn’t want to see it screwed up. When the trailer was released a couple of months ago my reaction was cautious optimism as I must admit it looked quite funny, and I decided that I would go watch it in the theater when it came out. Well, tonight my wife and I headed to the Cinemark in Little Rock to see what director Akiva Schaffer and his crew had come up with…

In THE NAKED GUN (2025), dedicated Detective Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) follows in his father’s footsteps by leading Police Squad and causing an endless array of problems for Police Chief Davis (CCH Pounder). When a bank heist is staged by Sig Gustafson (Kevin Durand) in order to obtain a mysterious P.L.O.T. Device, Drebin teams up with his partner, Captain Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser), and the beautiful crime novelist Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) to investigate. Their subsequent probe leads them to tech mogul Richard Cane (Danny Huston) and his sinister plot to use the device to revert humanity to a base barbaric state as the balls drop on New Year’s Eve. With the help of his deceased father’s spirit that’s being housed in the body of a large owl, Drebin goes all out to foil Cane’s plans while simultaneously falling in love with Beth! 

I’m going to go ahead and alleviate any suspense and state that I love the new NAKED GUN movie. I laughed out loud throughout the entire film, including the end credits, and I wasn’t the only one as there were people in our showing that were laughing much louder than me. It was a fun “crowd experience,” and I’m so glad we caught it in the theater. Not every joke is funny, but in the tradition of the original series, they come so fast and furious that there’s a good chance the next joke will be hilarious. Liam Neeson does a great job as Frank Drebin, Jr., infusing the character with just the right amount of seriousness to allow the absurdity all around him to be played for laughs. I told a friend a few months ago that I’d be really impressed if Neeson was able to pull this role off, and I’m glad to report that he passes with flying colors. He doesn’t make you forget the comedic genius of Leslie Nielsen, but he’s darn good. And Pamela Anderson is perfect in the crime novelist / love interest role. I haven’t seen her in anything in a long time, but she’s truly hilarious in the film. After watching her performance, I honestly don’t think any actress could have done any better. The rest of the game cast, including Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston and Kevin Durand each have good moments that add to the fun. I also enjoyed some of the specific throwbacks to the original series, including brief appearances by Priscilla Presley, Weird Al Yankovic, and especially the stuffed beaver, which got a big laugh out of me, just like it did when I was 15! 

Overall, I had a great time at the movie theater with THE NAKED GUN (2025). Director Akiva Schaffer delivers a hilarious, 85 minute film that’s a worthy follow-up to the original Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker / Leslie Nielsen classics. What else could you ask for?!!

Brad’s Scene of the Day – THE NAKED GUN 2 1/2 (1991) – Richard Griffiths goes airborne!!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

In honor of actor Richard Griffiths, on what would have been his 78th birthday, and the impending release of the new NAKED GUN film starring Liam Neeson, I present this fun scene from THE NAKED GUN 2 1/2: THE SMELL OF FEAR. Enjoy my friends!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.25 “The Gift of Life”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, the third season comes to a close.

Episode 3.25 “The Gift Of Life”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on May 6th,1987)

Jonathan and Mark’s new assignment finds them working as bodyguards for a businessman named Richard Benson (Leslie Nielsen).  Richard is in charge of a company that pollutes the ocean.  He owns an apartment building were people people are forced to live with rats.  He makes no apologies for being greedy.  He has Jonathan and Mark accompany him to a parking garage so he can offer someone a bribe.

Eventually, Jonathan just comes straight out and says, “I’m angel.”  Jonathan did that a lot over the course of season 3 and it always kind of bothered me.  It was as if Jonathan decided he couldn’t be bothered to maintain his cover story.  Richard doesn’t believe in angels, though he does accept the Bible that Jonathan gives him.  Jonathan instructs him to read it before going to sleep.

That night, someone shoots Richard while he’s reading his Bible.  Jonathan and Mark appear to him and give Richard a tour of all the misery that he’s caused by being greedy and selfish.  Jonathan forces Richard to look at a dead seagull.  Richard is then allowed to relive the past seven days of his life so that he can do some good and have a chance to get into heaven.

Wow, that sounds intense, right?

And I guess it would be, except for the fact that it’s now impossible to watch Leslie Nielsen without laughing.  Before everyone rushes off to comment, I am fully aware that Nielsen spent decades as a dramatic actor before emerging as a comedy superstar.  I’ve reviewed a few of his serious films here on the site.  But the fact of the matter is that Nielsen’s comedy was so built around his deadpan delivery of absurd lines that even his serious performances leave you feeling as if everything’s building up to a punchline.  That’s the case here.  Jonathan, Mark, and Richard might be talking about environmental pollution and poverty but every scene leaves you wondering when Nielsen is going to say, “And don’t call me Shirley.”

Would the episode have worked better with someone else in the role of Richard?  Yes and no.  Another actor would not have left us waiting for punch lines that were destined to never come but the episode’s script would have still been incredibly heavy-handed.  Richard Benson has just died and Jonathan and Mark immediately show up and start yelling at him.  They make it clear that they don’t care if he goes to Hell or not.  That’s not a very good attitude for an angel to have.

Fortunately, Richard gets his second chance and he manages to survive a redo of the assassination attempt.  (Fortunately, he falls asleep with his Bible over his heart.  The Bible is thick and strong enough to stop the bullet so I’m going to guess that Richard was given a Catholic Bible as opposed to a wimpy Protestant one.)  And so, Richard goes on to be a better person and I imagine his company will end up going bankrupt as a result.

That’s it for Season 3!  Season 3 had some good episodes, like Codename: Freak.  It also had the worst episode of the show so far, Ghost Rider.  Next week, we’ll start Season 4!

Wrongfully Accused (1998, directed by Pat Proft)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Ryan Harrison (Leslie Nielsen) is a world-famous concert violinist who plays his instrument like Jimmy Page plays his guitar.  Harrison is invited to a party but when his host, Hibbing Goodhue (Michael York), is murdered, Harrison is wrongfully accused.  No one believes his story that the murder was committed by a one-eyed, one-armed, one-legged man.  Harrison is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.  Maybe he should have asked for a preemptive pardon but that would probably have been too ludicrous an idea for even a parody film like this one.  An accident on the way to prison allows Harrison to escape.  He must now prove his innocence while being pursued by the determined Fergus Falls (Richard Crenna).

Wrongfully Accused is the only film to be directed by comedy writer Pat Proft and it’s a parody film in the style of Airplane!  There are sight gags, movie references, and a lot of ridiculous dialogue delivered in deadpan fashion by Leslie Nielsen.  Richard Crenna does a decent impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones.  There’s a North By Northwest parody that involves a toy airplane.  It’s not that there weren’t enough funny moments, it’s just that there weren’t enough of them.  Most of the jokes instead felt uninspired, as if Proft just turned on his TV and tossed in a joke about whatever movie he saw being advertised.  It feels like the script was written by using parody movie mad libs.  One reason why Airplane! holds up  so well is because it genuinely loved disaster movies and there was a sense of innocence to even the wildest of the jokes.  Wrongfully Accused has some funny moments but there’s no real affection for the movie being poked fun at.  The Fugitive feels like almost too easy a target.  Leslie Nielsen and Richard Crenna score some laughs but even they sometimes seem to be just going through the motions.

As the old saying goes, dying is easy.  Comedy is hard.

Airplane! (1980, directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

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!