THE HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS (1980)




Too Many Knights in the Same Old Town

Washington Post, The (DC) - May 20, 1980

Author: Gary Arnold

The Hollywood Knights," the motleyest imitation yet of "American Graffiti," illustrates how rapidly decay can set in after a concept is generally recognized as appealing in Hollywood. The idea of "American Graffiti" was rejected by every major studio (and some twice) before finally being shot for the paltry sum of $800,000 and released successfully in 1973.

Its success inspired a popular TV series, "Happy Days," which then became the model for increasingly strained spinoffs and imitations. "American Graffiti" no doubt paved the way for fitfully interesting theatrical disappointments like "American Hot Wax" and "The wanderers." The derivative trail seemed to come to a dead and last summer when George Lucas himself collabrated on "More American Graffiti," a misbegotten sequel to his original triumph. With "The Hollywood Knights," Floyd Mutrux, the director of "American Hot Wax," seems determined to wear out the welcome of a once-amusing nostalgic device once and for all.

"Knights" relies on a soundtrack full of golden oldies to evoke the ostensible setting. Beverly Hills on the Halloween night, 1965. The members of a car club, the Hollywood Knights, cruise in and out of their favorite meeting place, a drive-in diner called Tubby's that is scheduled to close the following day, victimized by uptight residents and urban renewal.

The jerky, threadbare continuity is devoted to savoring the antics of the most irrespressibly clowish Knights, notably an obnoxious campus cutup called Newbomb, embodied by a smirky galoot named Robert Wuhl. Sort of a cheerless, vague reminder of Dick Shawn, Wuhl betrays the ill effects of too many appearances as a facetious would-be escort on Chuck Barris' "The Dating Game." He already resembles stale comic goods in his movie debut. Moreover, he appears so old for the role that one is left with the impression that Newbomb must have been repeating the 12th grade since about 1950.

Evidently destined for a career as the slimiest lounge comedian in Las Vegas, Newbomb celebrates this farewell Halloween by repeatedly humiliating other subspecies: Gailard Sartain (who played The Big Bopper in "The Buddy Holly Story") and Sandy Helberg as stoogy patrolmen; Leigh French and Richard Schaal as adulterous upper-middle-class hypocrites; Stuart Pank as a fat adolescent mama's boy. The Newbomb repertoire relies all too heavily on stinky chestnuts: food-chuckling, mooning, flatulence, even the old flaming dog doo on the front porch. He's got a handful of hot ones, does Newbomb.

The derivative ineptitude of Mutrux's burlesque humor is epitomized in his borrowing of the sight gag from the cover of the National Lampoon's High School Yearbook Parody. You'd think that moving pictures might do more with the idea of a pantyless cheerleader than a still photograph could, but Mutrux is so imprecise and inattentive that the forgetful (or exhibitionistic) cute isn't even caught from wittly revealing, decisive angles. Mutrux canan barely be trusted to get a laugh out of can't miss, pie-in-the-face situation.

Mercifully, not every Knight is supposed to be a card. There are subdued subplots dealing with a member about to join the Army (and presumably perish in Vietnam) and another (Tony Danza of "Taxi") at odds with his girlfiend (Michelle Pfeiffer), a carhop with dreams of a Hollywood career. Although it comes as a welcome change of emphasis, the "serious" motif is as superficial and perfunctory as the farce. Nothing takes hold within this spastically facetious, centrifugal filmmaking context. Moreover, the dialogue tracks seem so poorly recorded or mixed that the conversation is often reduced to incomprehensible static.

Mutrux is probably a genuine child of pop culture, and he showed some comic aptitude in "American Hot Wax." He's backpedaling in "Holloywood Knights," a disgraceful trifle predicated on an idea whose time has passed. Far from showing continued promise, Mutrux has now identified himself as a kind of untutored, remedical-school imitator of George Lucas.

SPRING FEVER (1982)


TWO VERY FORGETTABLE FLICKS DEBUT

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - March 9, 1983

Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer

Regarding two of the new films that opened over the weekend, let me just say this: If I had more time, I would have been briefer:

"SPRING FEVER" A comedy starring Susan Anton, Jessica Walter and Frank Converse. Introducing Carling Bassett. Directed by Joseph L. Scanlan. Written by Stuart Gillard and Fred Stefan. Music by Fred Mollin. Running Time: 100 minutes. In area theaters. (Screened at the Ellisberg Cinema, New Jersey)

The print ads for this film loom as yet another message to and from middle America: It shows two bikini-clad young women dousing a not-so-unhappy stud with light beer. Specifically, they're spraying the foam in his crotch area.

I bring up this dubious ad, not because it titillated me, but because it has absolutely nothing to do with what goes on in the movie. One would be hard put to find either a beach or light beer in "Spring Fever," a throwaway comedy about a tennis tournament for teenage girls.

True, the central teen character (Carling Bassett) does get to jog on the beach, but she's wearing a sweat suit. And, yes, her show-girl mama (Susan Anton) does get to drink beer in the bar where she picks up men.

So much for beach-and-beer action in "Spring Fever" (even the title doesn't make sense!), a large part of which is devoted to the competition between the little girls in general and between the mothers (Anton and a wicked Jessica Walter) in particular. The clowning and bickering are terribly forced and, before long, "Spring Fever" seems nothing more than an extended (and endless) commercial for Nike sneakers, Dunlop tennis racquets, Bain de Soleil, Anton's teeth and her beer.

I'm not sure, however, if it's the same light beer used in the ads.

One great scene: Anton singing to herself and catty Walter slipping her a bill for her services.

"TIME WALKER"

An action thriller starring Ben Murphy, Nina Axelrod, Kevin Brophy and James Karen. Directed by Tom Kennedy. Adapted by Tom Friedman and Karen Levitt from a story by Jason Williams and Friedman. Music by Richard Band. Running Time: 90 minutes. In area theaters (Screened at Budco Community, Barclay Farm, N.J.)

This movie bears a tenuous relationship to those old Mummy horror movies that were the bane of the '50s and still haunt certain TV channels on Saturday afternoons.

Its lone claim to fame, however, has nothing to do with the resurrection of a decrepit movie genre, but with its thorough lack of style. "time walker" is a veritable textbook example on how to make a horror film on the cheap - and without mirrors.

By restricting the action of his film to a college campus and by wrapping his monstrous thing in mummy garb, director Tom Kennedy had half of his film made. The remainder of it dotes on people who should know better (college profs, the police, brainy doctors) doing all the wrong things and going in all the wrong places on the misty campus.

Kennedy's mummy rises from his sarcophagus when a larky frat brother steals the five precious stones hidden in the tomb. Throughout the rest of the tilm, this "time walker" - a mummy from another galaxy - roams the campus, retrieving his stones and literally scorching the wrongdoers.

The cast is aptly flighty, risky and gabby, particularly Kevin Brophy as the fraternity house goof-off whose theft triggers the mayhem, and Nina Axelrod, a strong-willed, straight-haired blonde who gets to scream into the moonlight.

Note in Passing: I previewed "time walker" at South Jersey's Community Theater on the last day of the theater's existence. It is slated to become a restaurant. A sad farewell to yet another movie house. . .

Parental Guide: Both films are rated PG, both pretty much for their language.

MY CHAUFFEUR (1986)




'CHAUFFEUR' SURE TO DRIVE YOU NUTS

Miami Herald, The (FL)

March 20, 1986

Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic


A genuinely weird sense of humor is at work in My Chauffeur, a comedy about a Madonna wanna-be who finds work with a Beverly Hills limousine service staffed by crusty old misogynists.
"You're deluded," says the limo boss to Casey, a flighty young woman. "Oooh. I've never had a 'lude in my life," says
Casey.

That kind of thing.

My Chauffeur has moments of pure daffiness, unhinged stuff. But it is also the most ineptly made comedy in years, so badly made that it is ultimately unwatchable.

The film is such a catalog of blunders that it might well
serve as a film-school training tool. Continuity, that concept by which one shot within a scene seems logically to follow another, even though they may have been filmed at different times, is simply abandoned here. In one scene, an old driver is seen struggling hopelessly to light his pipe, which has broken apart and is in two pieces; when the camera cuts away and pulls back for a wide shot of the other drivers, there's the old man in the back, puffing contentedly and holding a cup of coffee that seems magically to have sprung into his hand. In another, a performance by a rock band, the singer's agent refers to the "stadium," when the performance is clearly taking place in a small room.

The script is similarly jumbled: In the opening scenes,
Casey arrives, desperate for the job despite the fact that the other drivers don't want her around. A scene later and she is no longer interested, and has to be persuaded to stay on. A scene later, she desperately wants the job again. The entire film is disconnected in this way; the direction is wretched.

But it is no worse than the performance by Deborah Foreman as Casey, who is by turns and for no apparent reason slatternly and sweetly innocent. Foreman grins throughout her performance, no matter what is happening, whether she is happy, menaced, confused, angry. Like the rest of the cast, which includes the strange magicians Penn and Teller as well as E.G. Marshall and Howard Hesseman, she appears to have performing skills, and even has her moments. But like the film, she is more often simply bad.

My Chauffeur (R) *

CAST: Deborah Foreman, Sam Jones, Sean McClory, Howard Hesseman, E.G. Marshall, Penn Jillette, Teller.

CREDITS: Director: David Beaird. Producer: Marilyn J. Tenser. Screenwriter: David Beaird. Cinematographer: Harry Mathias.

A Crown International Pictures release. Running time: 97 minutes. Vulgar language, nudity, sexual situations.

Herald movie critics rate movies from zero to four stars.

**** Excellent *** 1/2 Very Good

*** Good ** 1/2 Worth Seeing ** Fair

* Poor Zero: Worthless

MALIBU BIKINI SHOP / HARDBODIES 2 (1986)











TAKE ONE DEADLY HORROR FILM AND TWO JIGGLE MOVIES AND STAY HOME

Seattle Post-Intelligencer - October 14, 1986

Author: William Arnold P-I Film Critic

It used to be that movie distributors saved their lowest exploitation films for the summer audience. But with the vast number of hungry multiplex screens and an overall glut in exploitation production, the dogs of August now pop up all year long.

This week, for instance, a vacuum in the release schedule has invited a trio of summer-style exploitation pictures to hit town - a horror film, the long-delayed ''Deadly Friend''; and two beach pictures, ''Malibu Bikini Shop'' and ''Hardbodies 2.''

The first of these, Wes Craven's ''Deadly Friend,'' is a fairly routine ''teen-age Frankenstein'' movie reportedly bumped from the summer's schedule because of last-minute exhibitor anxiety over the failure of the previous summer's cycle of teen-age Frankenstein movies.

Based on a book by Diana Henstell, the film is about a teen-age genius (Matthew Laborteaux, of TV's ''Little House on the Prairie'') who implants an artificial-intelligence chip into the cortex of his brain-dead girlfriend.

In true Frankenstein tradition, the girl-monster soon runs amok and, faster than you can say Boris Karloff, is twisting off the head of her abusive, sicko father and doing in the grouchy neighbor who had earlier stolen her basketball.

Under the direction of horror veteran Wes Craven, this film treads the narrow line between satire and playing it straight rather well, and is always technically a cut or two above the level of the average exploitation horror vehicle.

But the film is so predictable and so unremarkable in every way that anyone who thought Craven's ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' heralded the advent of a daring new horror -movie talent will find ''Deadly Friend'' a considerable disappointment.

Over in the next auditorium we have something called ''Malibu Bikini Shop,'' which was filmed in Santa Monica and Venice, and has nothing at all to do with Malibu (the title on the print I saw did not even mention Malibu - it was called ''The Bikini Shop'').

In any case, the film is a jiggle comedy about two odd-couple brothers who inherit a bikini specialty shop that is in rather (you should pardon the word) shaky financial condition, and have to mount a massive bikini promotion to save the place from extinction.

In its heart of hearts, this movie is an old-fashioned late '50s ''nudie'' and exists as an excuse to show topless and scantily clad women in a variety of peekaboo, teasing poses and situations.

But the young cast is surprisingly appealing; the script is never really vulgar. Director David Wechter has worked in a couple of very stylish video- style fantasy sequences. And a good supporting cast of Hollywood veterans (among them Frank Nelson, Kathleen Freeman and Jay Robinson) all help make this innocuous little movie a lot more tolerable than its title and premise might imply.

There are, however, no such redeeming features to ''Hardbodies 2,'' a sequel to last year's ''Hardbodies'' and the second summer T&A movie of the week.

Loosely a comedy about an American movie company filming on location in the Mediterranean, this one is straight, soft-core pornography that goes out of its way to be crude and vulgar every chance it gets.

Like ''Malibu,'' the dominant visual motif is the bare breast, but instead of teasing his audience, director Mark Griffiths absolutely overwhelms it with breast montages.

Indeed, his movie is virtually a documentary on the mammary organ - and one that is so overdone and thoroughly unimaginative that even the most dedicated connoisseurs of skin will probably be bored by it.

Memo: MOVIE REVIEW

(1) ** Deadly Friend, directed by Wes Craven. Written by Bruce Joel Rubin. Cast: Matthew Laborteaux, Kristy Swanson, Michael Sharrett. Warner Bros. Several theaters. Rated R.

(2) ** Malibu Bikini Beach, directed and written by David Wechter. Cast: Michael David Wright, Bruce Greenwood, Barbra Horan, Jay Robinson, Frank Nelson. International Cinema. Several theaters. Rated R.

(3) * Hardbodies 2, directed by Mark Griffiths. Written by Mark Griffiths and Curtis Scott Wilmot. Cast: Brad Zutaut, James Karen, Alba Francesca, Roberta Collins. Cinetel Films. Several theaters. Rated R.

WEEKEND WARRIORS (1986)




`WARRIORS` WEEKEND PASS TO BOREDOM

Sun-Sentinel - October 27, 1986

Author: ROGER HURLBURT, Entertainment Writer

Ever wonder why America has never been invaded by Romania?

Well, if we have slept at ease these many nights since August 1961, it`s because the Hollywood, Calif., branch of the Air National Guard has been ever vigilant.

In between their sophomoric branks, crude sexual jokes and dirty story get- togethers, the lads in uniform have kept us safe from the "slimy Commie hordes threatening to end civilization as we know it."

At least that`s the premise of director Bert (I`m-not-sure-what-I-really-do-in- show-business) Convy`s comedy film Weekend Warriors. While the film has one, possible two moments that garner a genuine laugh, this film should have remained AWOL.

The plot is utterly preposterous: The year is 1961 and a group of Hollywood film studio fellas -- actors, bit players, budding screenwriters, stuntmen and makeup artists -- are trying to stay out of regular military service by doing weekend stints at an Air National Guard base. Whew!

Sgt. Burge (Vic Tayback) is the gung-ho sort trying to whip the guys into shape. Good luck. Col. Archer (Lloyd Bridges) offers little encouragement; he`s a former actor who appeared in 86 "B" westerns ("and died in all of them.")

Add one more to the list, Lloyd.

This group of wisenheimers are tough to control. There`s a twerp, a macho man, a wise guy and a ring leader, the latter played by Chris Lemmon, son of actor Jack Lemmon.

And when the inactive status of these characters is suddenly classified as "active" -- much to the horror of Congressman Balljoy (Graham Jarvis) -- things really get out of hand.

So does the film. Guess who`s coming to watch a formal inspection? Why, none other than the Ambassador of Romania. Makes sense.

Aside from a brief chase between a Jeep and a truck laden with bottled water and an unspeakable "mooning" demonstration in the cafeteria, Weekend Warriors is a three-day pass to boredom.

Lemmon isn`t bad, but his material is. The rest of the cast walks through the film in one-take fashion. The finale, a cheap swipe of the funny ending to Bill Murray`s Stripes, has potential, but falls flat.

The R rating might make you think there`s lots of jiggle and flesh. Not so. The smattering of coarse language is gratuitous, too.

Save a few bucks; watch for this one in the video stores real soon

CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH (1986)





`NUKE 'EM': TOXIC WASTE

The Record (New Jersey) - December 12, 1986

Author: By Will Joyner, Staff Writer: The Record
1/2@

CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH: Directed by Richard Haines and Samuel Weil. Written by Haines, Mark Rudnitsky, Lloyd Kaufman, and Stuart Strutin. Photography, Michael Mayers. Special effects and makeup, Scott Coulter and Brian Quinn. With Janelle Brady (Chrissy), Gilbert Brenton (Warren), Robert Prichard (Spike), R. L. Ryan (Mr. Paley), James Nugent Vernon (Eddie), and others. Produced by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz. Released by Troma Inc. Opens locally today. Running time: 78 minutes. Rated R: nudity, profanity, excessive violence and gore.

"Class of Nuke 'Em High," the latest from infamous Troma Inc., takes up where "The Toxic Avenger" left off earlier this year somewhere in North Jersey, along the outer limits of gleeful bad taste.

Actually, the Avenger himself doesn't show his ghastly mug for that, we must somehow wait for "Toxic Avenger II" but we do get another glimpse of his environmentally troubled hometown, Tromaville, which continues to look a lot like Jersey City.

"The Toxic Avenger," which exploited the timely question of nuclear-waste transport to serve up a trashy spread of horror effects and violence, was, heaven help us, something of a cult hit.

"Class of Nuke 'Em High," which slightly modifies the formula by adding a faulty nuclear-power plant, is and here I'm speaking very relatively and checking most of my professional ethics at the door a better-made movie. Maybe, heaven please help us, it won't be quite awful enough for bad-film fans, and will disappear quickly.

In this chapter of Tromaville's annals, teen-agers at the town's high school are having their highly questionable constitutions further altered by leakage from a nearby power plant. The water fountains spew blue goo. The Cretins, once the school's honor students, deal a home-grown marijuana that provides what they proudly call a "nuclear high. "

The story shakily revolves around an all-American couple, Chrissy and Warren (Janelle Brady and Gilbert Brenton), whose virginity preoccupies most of Tromaville High's population. The two are tricked into sampling the tainted drugs, and promptly go all the way sexually and in other physical ways that I can't bring myself to describe. Revenge is called for, without a doubt.

Unlike its predecessor, "Class of Nuke 'Em High" looks professionally photographed. The X-ray and laserlike special effects are a little higher tech. The skin-shriveling reveals more attention to gruesome detail. The costumes, especially those given to the futuristic Cretins, have a twisted sort of style.

"Dialogue" is still too optimistic a term to attach to the screenplay, but this plot gains coherence because most of the action takes place on the campus of a single school (a Bergen County institution that should want to remain nameless). The direction, by Troma veterans Richard Haines and Samuel Weil, is at least innocuous.

FRATERNITY VACATION / RAPPIN' / GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN (1985)

A TRIO OF FILMS FOR YOUNG SET

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - May 23, 1985

Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer





* "Fraternity Vacation." A comedy starring Stephen Geoffreys. Directed by James Frawley from a screenplay by Lindsay Harrison. Photographed by Paul Ryan. Music by Brad Fiedel. Running time: 89 minutes. A New World release.





* "Rappin'." A comedy with music staring Mario Van Peebles and Tasia Valenza. Directed by Joel Silberg from a screenplay by Robert Litz and Adam Friedman. Photographed by David Garfinkel. Music by Michael Linn. Running time: 92 minutes. A Cannon release.






* "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." A comedy with music starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt. Directed by Alan Metter from a screenplayby Amy Spies. Photographed by Thomas Ackerman. Music by Thomas Newman. Running time: 87 minutes. A New World release. All three films are in area theaters.

Wendell Tvedt, see, is this nerd from Iowa State who heads to Palm Springs with two of his buddies for a little leching.

Wendell is the central character of "Fraternity Vacation," one of three new "youth-oriented" films that opened here recently and that come with inch-deep matinee substance.

He's a kid who simply wants to have a nice, cozy time with the cute daughter of the Palm Springs police chief (a situation that is trouble in itself), but whose good buddies get him involved in a creepy competition involving a pair of rival fraternity brothers and a pretty virgin.

Wendell's also a virgin, and as played by Stephen Geoffreys (recently of ''Heaven Help Us"), he looks like what might result if the young Jack Nicholson of "Little Shop of Horrors " mated with Jerry Lewis' Julius Kelp
from "The Nutty Professor."

Naturally, Wendell - who does a mean Wayne Newton imitation - turns out to be a natural, a better swordsman than any of the other four guys, all of whom fancy themselves Tom Selleck clones.

"Fraternity Party" is a wretched film. A colleague compared it to two dogs checking each other out. However, any movie that advances the notion that Wayne Newton is more sexually formidable than Tom Selleck gets my vote. Quality has nothing to do with it.

"Rappin'," from the director who gave us the original "Breakin'," is another ghetto-ized Mickey and Judy romp, in which the film's Mickey (Mario Van Peebles) - named John "Rappin' " Hood - gets out of jail, cleans up his native Pittsburgh (of not only gang warfare, but also greedy land development) and wins a recording contract.

He gets the girl, too (soap star Tasia Valenza). Everything has been sanitized and sugarized in the urban world here, so much so that the original Mickey and Judy look like cynical J.D.s by comparison.

But at least "Rappin' " has a semblance of a plot. "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" simply continues the dance contest that started with "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease" and continued with "Fame," "Flashdance," ''Footloose" and the two "Breakin' " films. It's . . . bouncy.

Sarah Jessica Parker, nevertheless, is engaging as a nice Catholic girl trying to hide her penchant for sexy dance gyrations from her hard-nosed daddy.

WEIRD SCIENCE (1985)







STRA-A-ANGE A PAIR OF NEW MOVIES DEMONSTRATES HOW FUNNY THE NIGHTMARISH CAN BE

San Jose Mercury News (CA) - August 2, 1985

Author: GLENN LOVELL, Mercury News Film Writer

THERE'S some seriously weird stuff going on at the movies these days. We're talking cuckoo-crazy, as in stra-a-ange. But don't be alarmed. The odd goings-on in "Fright Night" and "Weird Science" (both opening today) will have you laughing so hard you'll almost forget your fears.

Almost -- but not quite.

As every spooky spoof from "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" to "Ghostbusters" reminds us, the horror genre with its creaky cliches and moldy monsters is perfect for teasing.

And that's exactly what the two young filmmakers behind today's new arrivals have done, in films that flit easily from the stylish to the silly, from the erotic to the eerie.

And with this range working for them, it's a safe bet that both will become required summertime viewing for the out-of- school-and-ready-to- howl set.

The more conventional "Fright Night" is an ingenious reworking of the Dracula legend. Only here the hero is a small-town kid with a vivid imagination, the vampire is a Valentino-suave neighbor played by Chris Sarandon, and the fearless vampire killer is a cowardly horror -movie star who's now hosting a "Creature Feature"-type TV program.

But don't go expecting another zany "Love at First Bite" lark. Though there are laughs aplenty in "Fright Night," written and directed by Tom Holland, there are also wonderfully nauseating makeup and bat effects that will have you hiding under your seat.

Indeed, Holland, who wrote "Psycho II" and last summer's overlooked "Cloak & Dagger," has whipped up the best tongue- in-cheek chiller since Joe Dante's "The Howling." And just as the Dante film revitalized the werewolf yarn, "Fright Night" gives the vampire melodrama a much-needed transfusion of humor and suspense.

And just as you think Holland has played his last devilish prank, he one-ups himself with more gruesome surprises and throwaway comedy touches (like the vampire throwing sparks by dragging his long fingernails along a banister).

Newcomer William Ragsdale plays Charley Brewster, a horror - movie buff who spies new neighbor Jerry Dandrige (Sarandon) with his next luscious victim. Charley spends the rest of the movie trying to convince his mom and friends that the mutilation murders being reported nightly are the work of an honest-to-gosh vampire.

Making matters even more frustrating is the fact that Dandrige is a smug charmer who mocks Charley's every feeble attempt to expose him. Like all the best fiends, Dandrige delights in taunting his adversary.

And when he really gets mad, Dandrige puts the bite on Charley's girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse) and his already wacked-out buddy (Stephen Geoffreys of "Fraternity Vacation").

Holland, who doesn't always play fair with vampire lore and logic, has great fun making his hero squirm. At every turn Dandrige outsmarts his young crucifix-wielding opponent (Roddy McDowall as the TV show host). Worse, that blankety-blank bloodsucker mesmerizes Amy at the local disco in what has to be one of the hottest, funniest seduction scenes in recent years.

Sarandon really comes into his own as the supercilious vampire who becomes a howling, red-eyed banshee from hell when miffed. Geoffreys is also a scream as the freaky friend who's basically an insecure loser. This is really the old Renfield/ Igor role given a New Wave slant.

Credit Richard Edlund of "Ghostbusters" fame with the amazing visual effects, which include an appallingly graphic reverse transformation from wolf to boy and a dive-bombing vampire bat that's about the size of B-52 bomber.

What Edlund's makeup people do to Bearse's lovely smile in the final basement crypt scenes will have you tossing in your sleep for weeks to come.

'Weird Science" is something else again -- a deliriously funny mix of "National Lampoon's Animal House," "Risky Business," "The Road Warrior" and such vintage Disney hoots as "The Shaggy Dog" and "The Absent-Minded Professor."

Since we're title-dropping, we should add that it's a color-tinted print of that 1935 classic, "The Bride of Frankenstein," that inspires our two young nerd heroes to show up the preppy bullies at school by creating their very own dream girl.

''Just like Frankenstein -- 'cept cuter," drools Gary (Anthony Michael Hall of "Sixteen Candles" and "Breakfast Club").

''I'm not digging up any dead girls," whines the shyer Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), who lives in mortal terror of his older brother, the snarling CroMagnum (sic) with the boot-camp crewcut.

Of course things have been refined a bit since Dr. Frankenstein's days on the moor. Now our heroes blend computer science with voodoo and a bit of old-fashioned studio fog to create a living doll named Lisa (Kelly LeBrock of "The Woman in Red").

Their toughest decision: Whether to favor boobs over brains.

''I want her to live. I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize," Gary rants in a hilarious variation on the original Frankenstein's exultant "It lives!"

As it turns out, Lisa is as bright and brassy as she is beautiful. And this works out just fine, because she can protect her horny creators from threatening elders, as well as lecture them on the importance of friends who "like you for what you are, not what you pretend to be."

In other words, the boys have hit the jackpot -- a centerfold nanny who shelters them at night and showers with them in the morning.

''Weird Science" runs out of things to say and do, so eventually it resorts to repetitious sight gags and effects as well as the obligatory car chase. But there's still more to howl over here than in any five other teen comedies.

Once again John Hughes ("Sixteen Candles" and "The Breakfast Club"), who also wrote the script, proves himself a master at capturing high-school angst. His young Frankensteins possess all the intensity and nervousness of real misfits, not the cartoonish "Goonies" variety.

And Mitchell-Smith and Hall complement each other beautifully. The former is charming and painfully shy; the latter mouthy and naughty. The mix results in some of the year's funniest moments -- first at a blues bar (where Hall becomes a rappin' "Saaay whaaat?" soul brother), then at a wild and crazy party that's crashed by a Pershing missile and a gang of motorcycle mutants straight out of "Mad Max."

''Weird Science" is a weird concoction all right -- weird, wonderful and unexpected.

Fright Night

(star)(star)(star) 1/2

R (fleeting nudity, nauseating makeup effects)

Cast: Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowall Director-screenwriter: Tom Holland

Studio: Released by Columbia Pictures

Weird Science

(star)(star)(star)

PG-13 (profanity, nudity,

emphasis on sex)

Cast: Anthony Michael Hall, Kelly LeBrock, Ilan Mitchell-Smith

Director-screenwriter: John Hughes

Studio: Released by Universal Pictures

WEEKEND PASS (1984)





COMEDY, THRILLER: TWO FOR THE RUDE

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - April 30, 1984

Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer

* "Weekend Pass." A comedy starring D.W. Brown, Peter Ellenstein, Chip McAllister and Patrick Hauser. Written and directed by Lawrence Bassoff. Photographed by Bryan England. Edited by Harry B. Miller III. Music by John Baer. Running Time: 92 minutes. A Crown-International release. In area theaters.

* "The Initiation." A thriller starring Vera Miles, Clu Gulager and Marilyn Kagen. Introducing Daphne Zuniga. Directed by Larry Stewart from a screenplay by Charles Pratt, Jr. Photographed by George Tiri. Music by Gabriel Black and Lance Ong. Running Time: 99 minutes. A New World release. In area theaters.

The precivilized nomads who are making movies these days - apparently movies for anyone seeking voluntary solitary confinement in movie houses - are back in action.

The culprits this week are Lawrence Bassoff, whose "Weekend Pass" gives the impression of having been made by a middle-aged alter boy dabbling in SIN, and Larry Stewart, the flesh-hungry type, if his film, "The Initiation," is any indication.

You couldn't come up with two more opposite films if you tried: "Weekend Pass" is as simple, creaky and, yes, innocent as "The Initiation" is convoluted, contemporary and evil. Seeing them both in one day - and back-to- back, no less - as I foolishly did makes for a most demoralizing movie outing.

On Friday, "Weekend Pass" was shown as part of an all-day preview with ''Where the Boys Are '84," and the 13-year-old intellectual who was sitting in front of me provided the best review of it when she flinched and dismissed this comedy about four gobs on leave in Los Angeles as "square." She preferred the sizzling "Where the Boys Are '84" (which, ironically, is about four gals on the loose in Fort Lauderdale).

Bassoff has integrated his film in the predictable way - one nerd (Peter Ellenstein), one black (Chip McAllister), one jock-type (Patrick Houser) and the staple stud (D.W. Brown) who, refreshingly enough, turns out to be the
cut-up of the group. The guys clearly have sex on the brains, but Bassoff
keeps tickling and teasing them and never really comes through for them - or us.

Much of the film is a tour of L.A., with the black character paying a visit to his ghetto home and feeling disillusioned, the stud trying out his stand-up style at a comedy club, the jock calling on an old flame and the nerd being turned into a pretzel by an avid Oriental masseuse.

All four guys, meanwhile, get to hang out at a strip joint and an aerobics class. Golly-gee! What fun. Did Bassoff actually think anyone would pay to see something like this?

Say what you will about the embarrassing naivete of "Weekend Pass," it is preferable to the inhuman gibberish of "The Initiation." This is a Freudian- slip-of-a- horror -film, far more complex than truly frightening.

A young college girl's initiation into a sorority is all tied up with ancient childhood fears about her mother and father and her mother's paramour. One of them was murdered, either the father or the paramour, and the other was incarcerated in an asylum. We never really know which is which, and
neither does Kelly (Daphne Zuniga).

Kelly, in fact, has such swift mood swings that she may in fact be two people. Or she may simply be schitzophrenic. Who knows? Who cares?

Anyway, on the night of Kelly's initiation - which is to take place in the vacated shopping mall owned by her mother (Vera Miles) - Mr. So-and-So escapes
from the asylum, and people start dropping like flies - or like bad actors.

Smack-dab in the middle of this bloody mess is a curiously introspective moment (I guess that it's Stewart's half-hearted way of exhibiting his sensitivity) in which one of Kelly's friends (the excellent Marilyn Kagen) tells about the time she was molested as a child. She is killed immediately after the confession, and by the end of the movie, just about everyone is dead.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Parental Guide: Both are rated R, "Weekend Pass" for its profane humor, ''The Initiation" for its violence and references to sex

HYSTERICAL (1983)





'HYSTERICAL': FIT ONLY FOR THOSE STILL IN DIAPERS

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - July 4, 1983

Author: Desmond Ryan, Inquirer Movie Critic

In recent years, film critics have bemoaned the tidal wave of toilet humor that has swept over American comedies. Hysterical breaks new ground in that it is manifestly designed to appeal to those who have yet to be toilet-trained.

In what amounts to consumer advice of admirable candor, one of the Hudson Brothers - on his way to a supposedly hilarious autopsy - warns that you are going to need a strong stomach to get through it. An empty head is also advisable for coping with the endless inanity of Hysterical. The film is set - or rather irretrievably mired - in a tiny resort town called Hellview. That is the one apt idea in Hysterical, since watching its scant 87 minutes seems like an eternal punishment.

At Columbia pictures, the executive who told Steven Spielberg that E.T. was a dumb idea for a movie still goes home with a fat paycheck. The people who approved the financing and production of Hysterical will doubtless continue in gainful employment, and that is a depressing prospect. Usually, when a movie is this abysmal, the makers can cite a commercial reason for its existence. With Hysterical, it is hard to imagine anyone out of diapers
finding a minute of it remotely amusing.

The snickering screenplay is mostly the work of the Hudson Brothers, and it strays in and out of parody of horror films and hits like Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark. As a lampoon of the mad-killer genre, Hysterical is merely frightful. Yellowbeard, the current pirate spoof, acknowledges the problem of the parodist by offering more than puns on old Errol Flynn pictures. The horror movie presents a trickier proposition for humorists, whose ranks do not include the writers of Hysterical.

The occult and, more recently, the slasher films have been churned out in such numbers that each new one is no more than a collection of cliches and borrowings from its predecessors. Directors trying to be serious confront the dilemma by coming up with more inventive ways to kill their characters. Playing in this area for laughs is a losing bet almost every time. With the exception of High Anxiety, horror lampoons have nowhere to go but down.

Hysterical trots out every shopworn device with a child-like air of having discovered something fresh, and that lends the movie its especially awful quality. It has the look of a film that has been assembled at random. Richard Kiel, who played the steel-toothed villain in Moonraker, is a lighthouse keeper who returns from the dead to create mayhem in Hellview.

His attentions disturb the current occupant, a hack writer who has bought the property in the hopes of creating the great American novel. To call what happens in the rest of Hysterical the work of hack writers is to demean that lowly calling. The film forces an actor to look at a lighthouse and say, "I hope batteries are included."

Its one saving grace is the repeated appearance of the village idiot - the target audience for a film like Hysterical. "You're doomed," he says at every opportunity. It amounts to a fair warning to anyone unfortunate enough to have parted with honest money to sit through Hysterical.

HYSTERICAL

Produced by Gene Levy, directed by Chris Bearde; written by Bill Hudson, Mark Hudson, Brett Hudson, and Trace Johnston; photography by Robert Ragland, music by Don Morgan, distributed by Cinema Group; running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes. **SINGLEG*Captain - Richard Kiel

Sheriff - Clint Walker

Mayor - Murray Hamilton

Parents' guide: PG

WACKO (1983)





'WACKO': AN ABSOLUTE HORROR

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - May 12, 1983

Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer

In terms of teenage sex films, "Wacko" - another opus from Greydon Clark, the public nuisance who just recently foisted "Joysticks" on us - is as about as arousing as a cadaver.

What we have here is teenage sexploitation, with a Hitchcock twist: Between its staple scenes of kids at Hitchcock High trying to get laid, the movie serves up quotes from Hitchcock films (most notably "The Birds" and ''Psycho"), as well as those made by such imitators as Brian De Palma and John Carpenter.

It's easy to see why these films are geared to the pre-pubescent, "how- about-a-joint?" crowd - only an uninformed, clouded mind could find anything to enjoy in these stinkers.

The resident virgin is a girl named Mary who, 13 years ago, witnessed the lawnmower mutilation/murder of her sister. Mary's beau is one Norman Bates who, true to his "Psycho" namesake, is also sexually untarnished.

Half of the cast of "Wacko" drops like flies; the other half makes pathetic attempts at having sex. (Is this film trying to say something?)

For the record, an embarrassing George Kennedy and a tacky Stella Stevens play Mary's incompetent parents, and Joe Don Baker, who hit a low point in ''Joysticks," sinks to rock bottom here as the disgusting gumshoe examining all the dead bodies that litter dear old Hitchcock High. He's downright odious.

**SINGLEG* Parental Guide: Rated R for its bloody ways and infrequent nudity.

GET CRAZY (1983)





MOVIE: ROCK-BAND CRAZINESS

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - August 8, 1983

Author: Steven X. Rea, Inquirer Staff Writer

Yes, Get Crazy has a scene in which guys clamber up a rickety ladder so they can gawk at a nubile cheerleader-type in her bubble bath.

Yes, there is a pimple-faced nerd whose virginity is taken by a beautiful blond woman who speaks in some strange Scandinavian tongue.

Yes, there are gratuitous masturbation jokes, gratuitous drug jokes, gratuitous (female) nude scenes and general gratuitous gratuitousness.

But there are also, in this low-budget, low-brow comedy, some wonderful satiric moments, one of the odder aggregations of actors and rock 'n' rollers you are likely to see in some time, and about a solid half-hour of frenzied, goofy entertainment.

What you have got here is this: a story about the backstage catastrophes/ high jinks/intrigues/hassles/

and whatnots that transpire during the preparation and presentation of a gala New Year's Eve rock concert. You have Max Wolfe (played by the not-untalented Allen Goorwitz) as the kindhearted veteran concert promoter; you have Neil Allan, our hero, an earnest, bemused young stage manager, played with earnest bemusement by the not-untalented Daniel (Diner, Breaking Away) Stern; you have aging British rock star Reggie Wanker, a shameless (and not very good) sendup of Mick Jagger by none other than Malcolm McDowell.

You have a supporting cast that runs the gamut from awful (Miles Chapin as Wolfe's simpy nephew; Stacy Nelkin as a spandexed schoolgirl) to awfully weird (Lee Ving, the rabid, cretinous lead singer of the punk band Fear, as a rabid, cretinous punk rocker called Piggy; Lou Reed as a '60s folk poet known as Auden, and Eating Raoul's Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov as a lecherous doctor and a no-nonsense lighting technician, respectively).

The bad guy in all this is Colin Beverly, a slimey rock promoter who wants/ needs/must have Wolfe's theater so he can erect an 88-story office building with his name on it. Decked out in a loose-fitting, silvery jumpsuit, Ed Begley Jr. waddles through the part of Beverly sneering snidely at anyone who looks at him crosswise, including his two dunderhead sidekicks, played by (no kidding) Bobby Sherman and Fabian. This last bit of casting is kind of pathetic.

Get Crazy was directed, sometimes deftly, sometimes shabbily, by Allan Arkush, whose Rock 'n' Roll High School has become something of a cult favorite on the midnight-movie circuit. An alumnus of Roger Corman 's New World studios, Arkush knows his dumb-teenage-sex-and-drugs-and-rock-'n'-roll movie inside and out (the new issue of Movies refers to this genre as "horny noir"). He also knows his rock concerts: Arkush made his way through New York University film school working as an usher and stagehand at Bill Graham's Fillmore East.

In fact, some of Arkush's little nods to '60s psychedelia, including footage from a spacey 1920s cartoon that used to precede Grateful Dead shows at the Fillmore, are among the most inspired bits in the movie. There is also some fierce, droning rock (courtesy of Fear) that is worked into a sharply choreographed performance by New York dancer/performer Lori Eastside and her group. And then there is all the Porky's stuff - some of it funny, some of it just lame.

As it turns out, the funny and the lame are dished up in equal dollops, making Get Crazy, with its wonky cast and cheap effects, an erratic piece of entertainment.

Footnote for trend-spotters: Like Steve Martin's The Man With Two Brains, Get Crazy features a pet - in this case, a well-coiffed French poodle - being kicked with great, violent zeal from one end of a giant room to another.

GET CRAZY

Produced by Hunt Lowry, directed by Allan Arkush, written by Danny Opatoshu, Henry Rosenbaum, David Taylor, photography by Thomas Del Ruth, original music by Michael Boddicker, and distributed by Embassy Pictures; running time, 1 hour, 42 min. ***

Reggie Wanker - Malcolm McDowell

Max Wolfe - Allen Goorwitz

Neil Allan - Daniel Stern

Colin Beverly - Ed Begley Jr.

Susie - Stacy Nelkin

Parents' guide: R

HAMBURGER: THE MOTION PICTURE (1986)

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

HAMBURGER' HALF-COOKED
Miami Herald, The (FL)
March 20, 1986
Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic
Estimated printed pages: 1

In Hamburger, a man who keeps getting expelled from college for sexual dalliances -- "Sluts cost you your future," his mother yells -- is driven to enroll in the one school that will have him, a fast-food management-training center called Busterburger University.
Well, you can just imagine: He gets the ketchup and the mustard and the special sauce all mixed up, and he falls for the daughter of the company founder, who happens to be the girlfriend of the Busterburger U. drill sergeant (played by Dick Butkus, who seems far too intelligent for his surroundings).

Hamburger, like Police Academy and a dozen others before it, is essentially a basic-training sitcom with some softcore on the side. And like the films it imitates, Hamburger is an example of a perfectly good comic premise -- there's weirdness in modern food technology, bet your syntho-chicken nuggets there is -- botched by a script aimed at just that segment of the audience that is theoretically banned from attending R-rated films.

HAMBURGER (R) *

CAST: Leigh McCloskey, Dick Butkus, Randi Brooks, Jack Blessing, Sandy Hackett, Charles Tyner.

CREDITS: Director: Mike Marvin. Producers: Edward S. Feldman, Charles R. Meeker. Screenwriter: Donald Ross. Cinematographer: Karen Grossman. Music: Peter Bernstein.

An FM Entertainment release. Vulgar language, nudity, sexual situations.

ROCK AND ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (1979)

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Punk Rock ’n’ Roll Fun

Washington Post, The (DC) - July 27, 1979
Author: Joseph McLellan

"Rock ’n’ Roll High School," now playing at six local theaters, is not to be taken seriously - even by the juvenile rock fans who are its intended audience. And that’s good, because otherwise we should get ready for an escalated replay of the late ’60s, with high schools all over the country being taken over the students and blown to dust in last-ditch confrontations with "the power structure."

The story is simple, as befits a film whose teme music is punk rock: at Vince Lombardi High School (somewhere in Southern California), the students want to do nothing but listen to punk rock, while the new principal, Miss Togar, insists that they should try to learn something. When she finally stages a Nazi-style record-burning (mostly of the Ramones, but one notes with a twinge that "Highway 61 Revisited" is on the burning pile), the revolution is launched, the school is occupied and it could be 1968 again.

Once it becomes clear that they can’t win, the students devise an explosive strategy (illustrating the slogan of the school and its eponym: "Winning isn’t the most important thing, it’s only thing." But before the end, the students have a few rapturous moments to show what the school could be: rocking in the corridors, an orgy in the shower room (decorously veiled by breast-high suds) and sadism in the cafeteria, where the white-uniformed workers are bound, gagged and stood up against the wall while the students throw food at them.

This final image occupies the screen for only a few moments, but in some ways it gets to the heart of the picture’s unintentionally complicated symbolism. The student body at Vince Lombardi is overwhelmingly white and middle class. Anyone who has ever eaten cafeteria food can understand their motivation, but it is hard to accept the way they work it out. If you can’t pull down the agribusiness structure, you tie up a few Hispanics and torture them. Torture them in a way that gives maximum insult to the Third World, by pelting them with food.

The campus unrest of the ’60s generally was motivated by issues and principles - or, at least, that was the flavor of its rhetoric. But at Vince Lombardi High, the rhetoric and the gestures harmonize totally, and what they add up to is simple-minded self-indulgence, escapism masquerading as revolution.

This was not the audience reaction, however at a preview showing Wednesday night in the Ontario Theater, where the urban guerrilla sentiment drew tumultuous applause - and a big laugh when the kids started throwing food at the cafeteria workers.

Good performances, in a cast that faced no serious acting challenges, were given by Mary Woronov as the principal (a pretty fair imitation of Ilse Koch), P.J. Soles and Lynn Farrell as feuding rock fans, Don Steele as Screamin’ Steve Stevens, a deejay, and Rob Bottin as a giant white mouse. The Ramones, given the assignment of playing themselves, did so flawlessly.

Why did an easygoing, simple-minded rock group that doesn’t seem to be mad at anyone these days decide to be featured in such a movie? Guitarist Johnny Ramone has said it was because of their respect for executive producer Roger Corman :

"When I was a little kid I used to go to the pictures all the time. I saw all the Corman pictures, from ’Attack of the Crab Monsters’ to ’The Little Shop of Horrors’ and all of the Poe pictures and biker movies. When we found out Roger Corman was behind the picture, we said, ’Sure, we’ll do it,’ because we knew he had a reputation and we knew he made good movies."

"Rock ’n’ Roll High School" is in that great tradition.

NIGHT PATROL (1984)

I've been obsessing about Jackie Kong movies lately. Today, I'm watching NIGHT PATROL. It's pretty damn funny and a perfect antidote to these Judd Apatow, Raunchy- Comedies-with-a-Heart that seem to be in vogue now.

nightpatrol
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' Night Patrol ': vile, infantile, puerile -- and terrible

Evening Tribune (San Diego, CA) - January 7, 1985
Author: BILL HAGEN, FILM/THEATER CRITIC

IT'S NO SECRET that the first month or two of a new year -- and sometimes considerably longer than that, like waiting for the Social Security deduction from your paycheck to end -- is clearance sale time for the movie business.

Everything -- and anything -- goes.

At such a time, it's a good idea -- even a sanity-saving idea -- to keep reminding yourself it's early in the season, that things surely will get better. But never, to the best of my recollection, have I had to remind myself so early in the season that it's early in the season, if you know what I mean.

The first new release out of the box, which isn't at all a bad a way to put it, is a vile, infantile, puerile exercise in inanity called " Night Patrol ." What it is basically is a sleazy rip-off of "Police Academy" and maybe "Airplane!," neither of which were totally innocent of sleaze in the first place.

Truth to tell, I had a tiny inkling beforehand that " Night Patrol " would be pretty much what it is, which is abominable. Oh, the clues were subtle, but they were there. For instance, a cast headed by Linda Blair , Pat Paulsen, Jaye P. Morgan, Jack Riley, Billy Barty and Murray Langston. Would that light up a marquee, or what?

Then there's the writing team -- the aforementioned Langston, whose versatility is overshadowed only by his lack of talent; William Levey; William Osco; and Jackie Kong. Talk about spreading lack of talent around, Kong is also accused of being co-producer and director.

" Night Patrol " is a relentless series of off-the-wall (usually the bathroom wall) skits celebrating such classy comedy topics as urination, defecation, flatulence and other giggly stuff most people outgrow a few years before puberty. Quite a few years. Like when potty training ends.

The thread, however slender, that runs through this tasteless, numbingly unfunny comedy involves Langston as a moonlighting cop. He is to law enforcement as Erica Jong is to deathless prose.

His second job is as a performer in a comedy club, at which he's not any better. But for his second job he shows wisdom totally out of character -- he wears a paper bag over his head while performing. I'll bet the rest of the cast thought of the same thing. He's known as the Unknown Comedian, strictly on merit.

Meanwhile, another person wearing a bag is doing crimes and .... Well, it's not for me to give away everything. I'd like to give away this movie, though, perhaps to the Ayatollah.

The writing committee and the director of " Night Patrol " also have great sport with, or make sport of, homosexuals in a particularly disgusting way. (One of the jokes, and you'd better sit down for this: The police chief is handing out assignments and calls for patrolman number one. No answer. "Are you one?" the chief asks. And the answer is -- give me a moment to gather myself -- "Yes, are you one too?" Most of the other jokes fall short of that, but who could keep up such a pace?)

Less bloodied but not totally unscathed are such targets as nuns, the mentally deficient and, of course, the police. Hey, a laugh's a laugh, right? Anything's fair game. Well, not anything, and definitely not if there's nothing funny about any of it.

One of the concerns about lacerating a movie like " Night Patrol " -- although even from Hollywood there aren't too many like it -- is that it might pique curiosity. You know, like nothing can be that bad or that gross. Wrong! " Night Patrol " is a thoroughly detestable movie.

The only thing that salvaged the day for me, in fact, was the revelation that General Electric is making some really nifty audio equipment. That information was included in a commercial before the movie and, in retrospect, the commercial was much too short.

Naw, I'm only kidding. I think use of commercials and rock videos in movie-houses is pretty venal. But, then, the movie business is something of a bastion of venality. It is, after all, the business that unearthed " Night Patrol ."

" Night Patrol ," rated R (language, sexual content), is playing areawide.
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New year begins in a terrible way

San Diego Union, The (CA) - January 8, 1985
Author: David Elliott, Movie Critic

" Night Patrol " opens with French credit titles, and at first I thought a French print had been shipped by mistake. A few minutes into the film I realized they'd made a bigger mistake. New World Pictures should have sent an all-French version, and one without English subtitles.

This comedy that never made me laugh is no way to start a new year. It's about a wimpy cop in San Francisco (though it looks like Los Angeles) who moonlights as a nightclub comic, wearing a bag on his head and cracking, uh, jokes. Among the few that can be printed in this paper: "You know beer makes you smarter? It made Bud wiser."

Though no longer run by Roger Corman, New World Pictures still has a reputation for giving chances to young talent. Here the rising star is director Jackie Kong, daughter (says the PR sheet) of the late writer and wit Anita Loos. She was, also says the sheet, "raised among the likes of Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando and Roman Polanski. As a result, she remains unfazed by the glitter of Hollywood."

That's reassuring, but we can wish that Jackie K. had been fazed by more talent. I missed her first feature, "The Being," which is not, as you may surmise, a meditation on Heidegger's ontology but about "a creature from a toxic waste dump who terrorizes a small town." Jackie, toxic with low-budget ambition, is now terrorizing viewers. During my viewing of " Night Patrol ," the audience peeled away in stunned sections from the theater.

The film's cop-comic is played by Murray Langston, who must have requested the head bag after he read the script. But Murray's gags and gestures (a poor steal from Martin Short's geek character Ed Grimley) are not the lowest points in this Death Valley. We also see dirty old copper Pat Paulsen pawing women, among them "Kitten" Natividad, the busty graduate of Russ Meyer films. Whatever it is that Kitten does, Meyer handles it better.

Jaye P. Morgan plays a talent agent with lurid cynical smile. Dwarfish Billy Barty is the precinct captain whose shoes make flatulent noises. And Pat Morita rolls back some of his "Karate Kid" advance by appearing as a transvestite rape victim, dubbed with a girl's voice.

Oh yes, and Linda Blair , very late of "The Exorcist," appears as policewoman Sue Perman (and if you get the joke of her name, you're getting as deep as this movie goes). Blair, who has matured rather nicely, no longer makes me think of revolving heads and pea soup. After "Exorcist II: The Heretic," and now this, hasn't she earned a break?

" Night Patrol " never gets better. Those dressy French titles, it turns out, are the sharpest gag. This movie exists in a septic sub-basement beneath "Laugh-in," beneath Cheech and Chong, even beneath the Three Stooges. The attitude behind the raunchy scattershots is: Throw something at the screen and see if it sticks. It seldom does, but we're left with the stain.

Watching " Night Patrol " is like being trapped in a bus station late at night with people who are unemployed for obvious reasons. When a mean, dumb waiter in a greasy diner cleans Paulsen's knife by wiping it through his armpit, I realized that we may be surprisingly early in finding 1985's worst film.

" Night Patrol " (no stars) A New World Pictures release. Directed by Jackie Kong. Produced by Bill Osco. Written by Murray Langston, Bill Levey, Jackie Kong, Bill Osco. Photography by Juerg Walthers, Hanania Baer. Rated R. In local theaters. The Cast Murray Langston-Murray, Linda Blair-Sue Perman, Pat Paulsen-Kent ,Billy Barty-Capt. Lewis, Pat Morita-Rape Victim, Jaye P. Morgan-Kate
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FILM: MIDGET CAPTAINS, PAPER BAGS AND ' NIGHT PATROL '

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - January 28, 1985
Author: Desmond Ryan, Inquirer Movie Critic

In the matter of an opinion of Night Patrol , I yield to the incontinent pigeon who chooses a policeman as its target shortly after the opening credits. The bird proves a fair judge of a movie, which is more than can be said for anyone else involved in this unspeakable film.

The hucksters, casting about for a come-on to an audience that consists of people who like to see the doodlings on the wall of a bus station men's room brought to cinematic life, declare that Night Patrol is funnier than last year's Police Academy.

But then, so is a two-car funeral cortege.

The pigeon - or some other little bird - might have informed them, but the main idea here is to out-gross, in every sense of the word, the box-office success of Police Academy.

The credits of Night Patrol are in subtitled French. The rest of the film, unfortunately, is in subcretinous English.

Shortly after the pigeon has turned in its review, a man shows up with a brown paper bag over his head. He is a night-club comedian who wishes to keep his identity a secret. The plot has something to do with his secret moonlighting and a bandit who adopts his disguise.

When the comedian trots out a few of his jokes, the bag seems an eminently sensible idea, and one wonders why the rest of the cast did not seek a similar refuge in anonymity. When performers appear in something as filthy and witless as Night Patrol , it is sometimes sadly referred to as "career- threatening." But when you are willing to appear in a movie whose recurring joke concerns a midget police captain with a terminal case of flatulence, you clearly have no career left to threaten.

It would be a humanitarian gesture - one I am sure the pigeon would endorse - if the filmmakers showed some compassion and issued brown paper bags to patrons as they enter the theater for Night Patrol .

Airlines are considerate in this regard, and there is far more potential for nausea among those exposed to the full 87 minutes of Night Patrol - a film that gives a new meaning to the term police brutality.

NIGHT PATROL

Produced by William Osco, directed by Jackie Kong, written by Murray Langston, William Levey, William Osco and Jackie Kong, photography by Juergen Walthers, distributed by New World Pictures; running time, 1 hour, 27 min. *

Kent - Pat Paulsen

Melvin - Jack Riley

Kate - Jaye P. Morgan

Edith - Linda Blair

Parents' guide: R (language, gross humor)

PAT PAULSEN ETHNIC JOKE/MINSTREL BIT ON MERV GRIFFIN
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..PATROL': POOPER SCOOPER FARE

THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - February 4, 1985
Author: Peter Stack

.... Night Patrol ,'' which splatted into Bay Area theaters over the weekend, is a steady flow of gags from the lower intestinal tract and environs. I imagine ....Joe Bob'' types will at least be licking the screen upon seeing this rotten dog of a comedy that needs a scooper to pick up after it.

As advertised, .... Night Patrol ,'' starring Linda Blair , Pat Paulson and Murray Langston as the Unknown Comic, is the ....gross-out movie of the year.''

Do we need a gross-out movie this year? Or any year?

The average filmgoer will have to consider just how far he or she wishes to sink on the issue of grossing out. Are dog doo jokes sufficient? How about a sperm bank joke in which a woman . . . well, you almost have to be there to appreciate the nuances of .... Night Patrol .'' Nuances that hit you like a truckload of road apples.

Still and all, some road apples are juicier than others. Although I'm a sensitive type given to serious reflection and philosophical pursuits, I suffered a few eruptions of unabashed laughter at about four of the apples - steamers, if you will.

A back-alley cockfight scene, for example, hit my funnybone from left field. A ....High Noon'' parody, in which a gunslinger can't decide whether his Smith & Wesson is in his pants or his holster, got me too.

.... Night Patrol '' is about about two cops, a rookie and a veteran (played by Langston and Paulsen) who are assigned to night patrol . Linda Blair is the radio dispatcher at police headquarters. She still looks about 14 years old, and she's still is all the other things her fans gawk and talk about, although the gawkables are seen in only one fleeting moment. No freeze frames in our neighborhood theaters!

The movie, technically a pile, and rather chaotic in terms of plot, runs out of steam - and steamers - pretty fast. Dog doo succumbs to dumb doo, and it's all over except for the tedious process of getting your money's worth by staying until the bitter end.

Langston plays both the rookie cop and the Unknown Comic, the stand-up who performs with a paper bag over his head. In the film a man wearing a paper bag over his head is robbing taverns. The cops are hot on his trail in spite of their captain, Billy Barty, whose main shtick is to break wind.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact injuries to the sensibilities that occur in .... Night Patrol ,'' mostly because they're so constant. But the brazenly gross first 10 minutes (following titles in French) is really the only puke-in-your-popcorn portion of the movie. After a siege of jokes that would make even hardened perverts blush, .... Night Patrol '' just sputters stupidly to its final wind-down.

This is not a film to take your grandparents to - and you grannies out there, don't take no little grandkids either!

RATING: (EMPTY CHAIR)

NIGHT PATROL : Raunchy comedy. Starring Linda Blair , Pat Paulson, Murray Langston. (R. 87 minutes. At the Alhambra, Alexandria, Empire, New Mission, St. Francis, Serramonte and Geneva Drive-In.)

UNKNOWN COMIC on GONG SHOW
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HORRENDOUS ' NIGHT PATROL ' AN ABSOLUTE MUST-NOT SEE

SACRAMENTO BEE - February 5, 1985
Author: George Williams Bee Reviewer

NIGHT PATROL is an ugly little movie that seems bent on offending every possible target. It attempts to make jokes out of little people, gay people, flatulent people. It is sexist, racist and ageist. It's anti-black, anti-Asian, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-dog, anti-cat. It tries to get laughs at the expense of comics, agents, psychiatrists, the police, criminals, victims - all civilians.

It's raunchy, treating sexuality as if it were nothing but perversion. And it's dumb. You've heard all the jokes before. There's not an original bone on its body.

So what are we to make of this? Apparently New World Pictures figured they could make a lot of money by exploiting a comparative masterpiece, the comedy Police Academy that mined similar ground and was one of 1984's big money-makers. Night Patrol is a septic tank compared to the tranquil mountain lake of Police Academy.

Unlike Police Academy, Night Patrol ignores every possibility for fun. It lacks any real vitality or imagination. It reeks of stupidity, cowardice and mean-heartedness.

The bottom line is that Night Patrol is clearly presented as if we will find it hilarious and charming and that we will sympathize with its characters. It's saying that Night Patrol 's monstrous attitude is just what we want to see up on the screen.

It's a monstrous insult that should be soundly kicked into a garbage pit where it belongs.

NIGHT PATROL

(No stars.)

Cast: Pat Paulsen, Linda Blair , Jaye P. Morgan, Jack Riley, Billy Barty, Murray Langston. Director: Jackie Kong. Producer: William Osco. Screenplay: Langston, Kong, Osco, William Levey. Distributor: New World Pictures.

Capitol, State, Sunrise, Sacramento Drive-In.

Rating: R, for raunchiness, simulated sex, profanity.

LINDA BLAIR HOW TO MAKE IT IN HOLLYWOOD
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MOVIE REVIEW - .. Night Patrol ,' like comic, should be an unknown film
The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution - February 5, 1985
Author: RINGEL, ELEANOR, Eleanor Ringel Film Editor: STAFF

The people connected with "Police Academy" are going to be very happy with " Night Patrol ." This inept, cheap-shot, gross-out comedy does one thing very well - it shows how low the "Police Academy" crowd could've stooped.

The movie uses up its funniest idea right away. The credits are subtitled in French, sort of mock-New Wave pretentious. Unfortunately, the rest of the picture is in English.

The ostensible star is a comedian named Murray Langston who bills himself as The Unknown Comic and performs his act with a paper bag over his head. During the day, he takes off the bag and dons a badge as a policeman named Melvin.

All kinds of funny things happen to Melvin. Incontinent pigeons let loose on him. A bum sleeping in a public park turns out to be gay and covers him with kisses. His commander-in-chief is a dwarf (Billy Barty) with a bad case of terminal flatulence.

But Melvin's real problems aren't any of the above. They are: one, no one is supposed to know he's moonlighting as a comic, known or not; two, there's a criminal roaming the city who also wears a paper bag and tells bad jokes which makes the Unknown Comic Barty's prime suspect.

There really is an Unknown Comic - he's played comedy clubs in Atlanta - and " Night Patrol " comes off as a vanity production financed by his manager or his parents or perhaps both. Whoever it was, they probably thought they were doing their boy a good turn, but if he wants to make a career out of this kind of trash, he might consider trading his grocery bag for a Hefty bag.

Though most of the cast is made up of actors obviously so desperate to have a movie credit on their meager resumes that they'll do anything in front of a camera, there are a few "name" performers. Linda Blair , making a genre move from horror movies to horrible ones, comes off best as a police dispatcher in love with Melvin. Less fortunate are Pat Paulsen as Melvin's womanizing partner and Jack Riley as his pipe-smoking shrink. It's too bad the Smothers Brothers and Bob Newhart can't take better care of their old second bananas. Most embarrassing of all is poor Pat Morita as a "rape" victim, a portrayal I don't think will do much for his chances at an Oscar nomination for "The Karate Kid."

" Night Patrol " makes "Police Academy" look like "Hill Street Blues." As 10-four comedies go, this one is a 10-zero. Over and out.

BILLY BARTY interview 1996
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.. NIGHT PATROL ' IS ALMOST CRIMINAL

THE SEATTLE TIMES - February 23, 1985
Author: JOHN HARTL ; TIMES FILM REVIEWER

.... Night Patrol ,'' with Linda Blair , Pat Paulsen, Jaye P. Morgan, Jack Riley, Billy Barty, Murray Langston. Directed by Jackie Kong, from a script by Kong, Langston, William Osco and William Levy. Aurora Village, Kirkland Parkplace, Kent, SeaTac Mall Cinemas, Valley drive-in. Rated R

.... Night Patrol '' begins with a nebbish policeman named Melvin (Murray Langston) stopping a lunatic motorist who immediately confesses to all manner of crimes and indiscretions. ....I picked up a hitchhiker and severely raped him,'' says the madman as he tries to kiss the cop.

Seconds later, Melvin attempts a mouth-to-mouth rescue job on a street person who has apparently passed out, only to find that the man is very much alive and willing to reciprocate. His fellow cops include a pair who hold hands and lisp and are overjoyed to patrol the parks.

Melvin's psychiatrist admits to Melvin ....a chemistry I don't feel with my other male patients.'' A male ....rape victim'' (played by ....Karate Kid'' Oscar nominee Pat Morita) is forced to masturbate 13 times by his male ....assailants.''

You might say the creators of .... Night Patrol ,'' led by a 27-year-old writer-director named Jackie Kong, share an obsession.

Unfortunately, they can't translate it into anything but a wretchedly acted series of gross-out gags about Melvin's split personality.

By day he's the rookie partner of Pat Paulsen. By night he's ....The Unknown Comic,'' a popular stand-up comedian who keeps a bag over his head. Like Lois Lane, the rookie cop's girlfriend ( Linda Blair ) wants to know why she never sees Melvin in the audience during the comic's act.

The girlfriend is fond of telling Melvin that his boss' bark is worse than his bite, whereupon we hear barking from the boss' office.

She tells Melvin that he wouldn't harm a fly, whereupon a fly appears and he smashes it. His partner tells Melvin that her devotion to him is written all over her face, and the next shot is of Blair with ....I Love Melvin'' painted on her cheeks and chin. By the time someone announces ....there's a full moon tonight'' and the camera pans to an open window, you know what's coming.

....Airplane!'', which thrived on this sort of thing, has much to answer for. But its makers never stooped to this level of desperation.

The worst gags in ....Airplane!'' are funnier than the best moments in .... Night Patrol ,'' which finally throws all caution to the wind during its last half-hour _ a collage of terrible impersonations of Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and witless parodies of spaghetti westerns, Clint Eastwood cop movies and the dance numbers from ....Fame.'

JAYE P MORGAN on Muppets
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' NIGHT PATROL ' HAS NO PURPOSE

Miami Herald, The (FL) - February 27, 1985
Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic

Night Patrol is an attempt to marry the shotgun-gag approach of Airplane! with the up-the-authorities juvenilia of Police Academy -- an unholy wedding indeed.

Jokes, some quite repulsive and almost all quite obviously tired (you can hear the little punch lines panting even before they're uttered) come fast and furious and without benefit of any but the thinnest of plots. The scenes involving Billy Barty as the dwarf chief of police are evocative: Barty by himself is not funny enough once the novelty has worn off, so the filmmakers compensated by dubbing in an endless stream of sound track flatulence during his appearances. He's not just small, he passes gas as well.

Linda Blair and Pat Paulsen are featured, thus telling us more about their shriveled careers than we wanted to know. And they are cast, alas, as second fiddles to Murray Langston, who was a brief sensation last decade as The Unknown Comic, a man who performed while wearing a paper bag over this head. Though the film does have one legitimately funny line -- an attorney counsels his handcuffed client, "If you get the chance, try to escape" -- Langston's once and former schtick provides the central metaphor for all involved.

BILL COSFORD

With Linda Blair , Pat Paulsen and Murray Langston; directed by Jackie Kong; written by Murray Langston, William Levey, William Osco and Jackie Kong. Vulgar language, brief nudity, sexual situations.

ANDREW DICE CLAY
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' NIGHT PATROL ' HAS NO TASTE, NO HUMOR

Boston Globe - March 2, 1985
Author: Jay Carr, Globe Staff

" Night Patrol " is a crude little gross-out movie with a brick in its head and a sewer in its mouth. At

first, it seems content with trying to be a modestly inept "Police Academy" ripoff. But it soon self-destructs because it doesn't know how to make its bad taste funny or chaotic enough, especially in the San Francisco precinct house where its cops are based. Poor, cute, chipmunk-cheeked Linda Blair , the dispatcher, gets stuck with most of the numbingly literal gags.

No sooner does she talk about the captain's bark being worse than his bite, than we hear barking on the soundtrack. Let her say "A little bird told me," and we see a bird chirping away in a cage next to her desk. When leering cop Pat Paulsen tells rookie Murray Langston that Blair loves Langston and that it's written all over her face, the next shot, sure enough, shows Blair's face with "I love you" written on it in grease pencil. When he requests a backup unit during a shootout - you guessed it, the arriving police car backs into the crime scene.

Langston wants to be a nightclub comic. This ambition conflicts with his police job, which forbids other employment. So he performs with a paper bag over his head and becomes known as The Unknown Comedian. Then a gunman with a paper bag over his head starts holding up bars, and Langston is under suspicion. The victims don't so much mind losing the money as being forced to listen to obnoxious jokes at gunpoint. For instance, when he waves his gun at the bartender in a dignified black club, the stickup man asks if they take Massacharge.

At another point, the film manages to be unfunny while simultaneously insulting lesbians and Pat Morita. Some of the raunchy stuff is funny, but most of it is boneheaded and offensive, and the film is executed amateurishly. To those who can remember when Paulsen used to be a comedian, his tired lechery here is depressing. Diminutive Billy Barty, as an unendingly gaseous police captain, is stuck with the film's unfunniest running gag. Langston, as the would-be comic with the hangdog face, ha s more personality with the paper bag over his head. But it's " Night Patrol " that should have been bagged.
Memo: MOVIE REVIEW

NIGHT PATROL - Directed by Jackie Kong, screenplay by

Kong, Murray Langston, William Levey and William Osco.

Starring Linda Blair , Pat Paulsen, Jaye P. Morgan, Jack

Riley, Billy Barty, Murray Langston, Lori Sutton, Pat

Morita. At the Pi Alley and suburbs, rated R (nudity,

vulgar language).


More from Jackie Kong:

BLOOD DINER clip
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' Night Patrol '

Washington Post, The (DC) - March 4, 1985
Author: Paul Attanasio, Washington Post Staff Writer

" Night Patrol " stars Murray Langston, who was hot stuff on "The $1.98 Beauty Show" about five years ago; Jaye P. Morgan, who was a wow on "The Gong Show" before that; and Pat Paulsen who, according to cave paintings, starred on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." Add to this Linda Blair , whose career since "The Exorcist" has been roughly comparable to Father Merrin's.

Langston plays Melvin, a cop who's trying to break into the nightclub biz as "The Unknown Comic" -- he wears a paper bag over his head and tells terribly funny jokes (or at least the hired extras think they're terribly funny). But a crook is afoot wearing the same get-up, so Melvin's partner (Paulsen) begins to suspect him. Morgan plays Melvin's agent, who, when he tells her he has butterflies in his stomach, feeds him mothballs. Blair plays a cop in love with Melvin. Her name is Sue Perman. But Melvin is in love with Edith Hutton (and when Edith Hutton speaks, people listen).

" Night Patrol " begins in anarchic gross-out style (for example, a pregnant prostitute offering a "Two-for-One" sale). The opening sequence is, inexplicably, half in subtitled French; and a series of sight gags are introduced pell-mell, linked only by the movie's bouncy reggae theme. But the movie soon becomes the sort of tired punfest that went out with, well, "The $1.98 Beauty Show," "The Gong Show" and "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." The movie ends by asking, "Should he franchise the Unknown Comic? Yell Yes or No." And honk if you voted for Pat Paulsen.

Night Patrol , at area theaters, is rated R and contains nudity, sexual themes and profanity.

MURRAY LANGSTON-UnBAGGED
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.. NIGHT PATROL ': DEADBEAT
The Record (New Jersey) - March 11, 1985
Author: By Deborah Jerome, Movie Critic: The Record

" Night Patrol ," which opened this weekend at theaters locally, is a comedy that must have seemed vastly amusing to the people who wrote and directed it, and even to the people who acted in it, but it's murder on the viewer who tries to sit through it to the end.

Directed by Jackie Kong, and written by Kong with Murray Langston, William Levey, and William Osco, " Night Patrol " tries very hard to create an atmosphere of the kind of insouciant grossness that works so well in the movies of John Waters ("Polyester") and the wisecracking slapstick of movies like "Airplane. " Lacking both the wisecracks and the insouciance, Kong's film is left with only grossness and slapstick.

Langston plays a sweet Los Angeles cop who by night is becoming highly successful on the comedy-club circuit in his act as the Unknown Comic so-called because he wears a paper bag over his head. Trouble begins brewing when a wave of robberies starts, all committed by a man wearing a paper bag.

This central core of the comedy isn't bad, but Kong, Langston, and the other writers prefer to lay on the crudeness, which isn't much relieved by sharpness of observation or wit. The result is that their movie is peopled with a flatulent dwarf, a sex-starved agent, a pregnant hooker who walks the streets offering "two for one," and a band of bad-humored lesbians and these are supposed to be jokes in themselves, without much context.

If there had been a little more pointedness to their satirical observations, or a little more cleverness in the dialogue, the film makers might have made " Night Patrol " a nice little midnight movie. But there isn't, and it's not. Of note is Linda Blair as a police dispatcher; this is not the movie that's going to resurrect her career.

" Night Patrol " is rated R, with brief nudity and coarse jokes