Everyone has strange moments of synergy in their lives where they discover, for whatever reason, that everyone in the room has the same birthday, or everyone is related to a former president, or everyone's favorite drink is pink gin. In my case, I was once at a party in my sophomore year college apartment where everyone had some life-changing story affixed to Back to School. How it came up I have no memory.
One guy said it had brought his parents back to together after a fight (?!), another girl said it had made her quit the diving team (!!), a third guy simply said it was the greatest movie ever made and then promptly passed out on our couch, a hero and legend until the end of days.
I have no similar story - I just really like the movie. I first caught it on TV, probably Fox 5/45 back in the late '80s or early '90s. The opening is great - a black and white vignette featuring Wayne from The Wonder Years bringing his Old World father a failing report card. The father yells at him, You've Got To Go To College!!! and Wayne sneers and generally declines. We cut to the present day...
The credits then run, with a great montage of vintage photos, including baby pictures, of Rodney Dangerfield. He runs a men's clothing store called Big and Fat, and has a son he misses a lot and wishes he saw more of. But hey, when you're a big time corporate exec, it's tough to find time for your kids...
...unless you're our hero Thornton Melon (Dangerfield, of course) and you make your own rules. I could easily go through this movie scene by scene, but that might/would get boring (for you) really quickly. So I'll hit a few major plot points and then some topics. After getting a divorce from his horrendous young wife ("Adam and Evil" says Rodney after catching her with another man), Dangerfield orders his amazing chauffeur (played masterfully by the incomparable Burt Young) to go to the university where his son studies. One part of the family crumbles, better reinforce the rest.
His son, sadly, is a wimp. And a dweeb. His best friend and roommate, amazingly, is Robert Downey Jr. with wild dyed hair. And this son (played by Keith Gordon) can't hack it and is about to drop out - a major blow to proud parent Dangerfield who never attended school himself. Solution? GO TO COLLEGE WITH YOUR SON!!! Brilliant.
But let's pause to discuss the cast here. It's a murderer's row - Ned Beatty is the dean, Sally Kellerman is the teacher/love interest, character actor Paxton Whitehead is Dr. Barbay, M. Emmet Walsh is Coach Turnbull, Adrienne Barbeau, Kurt Vonnegut as himself, and - by far my favorite - Sam Kinison is in this, at Dangerfield's real-life insistence, as Professor Terguson. Kinison is fantastic and very memorable as a teacher of contemporary American history.
In fact, my strongest memory of this film after the famous Triple Lindy dive is Kinison's reaction to a student's depiction of the end of Vietnam - it's vintage Kinison, screaming over-the-top comedy as he steadily melts down until he's yowling at full bore in his way. And then is marvelously defused by Dangerfield.
Speaking of the Triple Lindy, another great point: Dangerfield's character was a trick diver as a young man and he gets back into it at school. Turns out Rodney Dangerfield himself was a trick diver in real life! Who knew? However, I am almost certainly the diving in the film is done by a body double.
The movie was filmed both at University of Wisconsin, Madison and UCLA, and both look amazing. These are the kind of idealized college campuses that made me actually want to go to college as kid. Everything is green and landscaped and people are mulling around everywhere looking cool.
Remember how in the last Dangerfield movie I reviewed, Easy Money, he sang Funiculi Funicula? In this one he does a spirited version of Twist and Shout, which further reinforces my belief that he really wants to be a musician at heart. Or at least comes out of that vaudeville tradition where comedians were expected to have more than one talent to get by.
Singing aside, his best performance is probably when he recites Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" for his oral exam. Surprisingly good.
Also, Oingo Boingo does a great job playing "Dead Man's Party" at a wild party.
I don't know how much it cost to make, but in combined theater and rental profits it grossed (according to IMDB) $150 million (!!). That is major in terms of 1986. This was a big success and probably led to Dangerfield making things like Lady Bugs and his unforgettably disturbing role in Natural Born Killers.
I am a big fan of this movie. Excellent Friend Rob says this is both overrated and underrated, and that is spot on. It doesn't quite deserve the Pinnacle of All Dangerfield Comedies, nor does it deserve the Greatest Comedy of the '80s Award either ... but it's no humble fare, and is very funny in all the right ways. Dangerfield and whoever else wrote the story did a great job tailoring the role to his natural persona, so he is funny but vulnerable and realistic. He actually has soulful scenes, which is not what people think of when this movie gets thrown around. Everyone remembers the Triple Lindy, but nobody remembers the tender dinner scene where Dangerfield ruefully acknowledges his failed marriages.
Heartily endorsed.
...unless you're our hero Thornton Melon (Dangerfield, of course) and you make your own rules. I could easily go through this movie scene by scene, but that might/would get boring (for you) really quickly. So I'll hit a few major plot points and then some topics. After getting a divorce from his horrendous young wife ("Adam and Evil" says Rodney after catching her with another man), Dangerfield orders his amazing chauffeur (played masterfully by the incomparable Burt Young) to go to the university where his son studies. One part of the family crumbles, better reinforce the rest.
His son, sadly, is a wimp. And a dweeb. His best friend and roommate, amazingly, is Robert Downey Jr. with wild dyed hair. And this son (played by Keith Gordon) can't hack it and is about to drop out - a major blow to proud parent Dangerfield who never attended school himself. Solution? GO TO COLLEGE WITH YOUR SON!!! Brilliant.
But let's pause to discuss the cast here. It's a murderer's row - Ned Beatty is the dean, Sally Kellerman is the teacher/love interest, character actor Paxton Whitehead is Dr. Barbay, M. Emmet Walsh is Coach Turnbull, Adrienne Barbeau, Kurt Vonnegut as himself, and - by far my favorite - Sam Kinison is in this, at Dangerfield's real-life insistence, as Professor Terguson. Kinison is fantastic and very memorable as a teacher of contemporary American history.
In fact, my strongest memory of this film after the famous Triple Lindy dive is Kinison's reaction to a student's depiction of the end of Vietnam - it's vintage Kinison, screaming over-the-top comedy as he steadily melts down until he's yowling at full bore in his way. And then is marvelously defused by Dangerfield.
Speaking of the Triple Lindy, another great point: Dangerfield's character was a trick diver as a young man and he gets back into it at school. Turns out Rodney Dangerfield himself was a trick diver in real life! Who knew? However, I am almost certainly the diving in the film is done by a body double.
The movie was filmed both at University of Wisconsin, Madison and UCLA, and both look amazing. These are the kind of idealized college campuses that made me actually want to go to college as kid. Everything is green and landscaped and people are mulling around everywhere looking cool.
Remember how in the last Dangerfield movie I reviewed, Easy Money, he sang Funiculi Funicula? In this one he does a spirited version of Twist and Shout, which further reinforces my belief that he really wants to be a musician at heart. Or at least comes out of that vaudeville tradition where comedians were expected to have more than one talent to get by.
Singing aside, his best performance is probably when he recites Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" for his oral exam. Surprisingly good.
Also, Oingo Boingo does a great job playing "Dead Man's Party" at a wild party.
I don't know how much it cost to make, but in combined theater and rental profits it grossed (according to IMDB) $150 million (!!). That is major in terms of 1986. This was a big success and probably led to Dangerfield making things like Lady Bugs and his unforgettably disturbing role in Natural Born Killers.
I am a big fan of this movie. Excellent Friend Rob says this is both overrated and underrated, and that is spot on. It doesn't quite deserve the Pinnacle of All Dangerfield Comedies, nor does it deserve the Greatest Comedy of the '80s Award either ... but it's no humble fare, and is very funny in all the right ways. Dangerfield and whoever else wrote the story did a great job tailoring the role to his natural persona, so he is funny but vulnerable and realistic. He actually has soulful scenes, which is not what people think of when this movie gets thrown around. Everyone remembers the Triple Lindy, but nobody remembers the tender dinner scene where Dangerfield ruefully acknowledges his failed marriages.
Heartily endorsed.
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