“But what the holy heck did I do to get sent to Hell, Duke? I lived a mostly good life. I went to church. I tolerated my mother. Sure I was tangentially connected to a dozen or so “accidental” deaths, but no charges were ever made.”
“Everyone’s innocent down here, pardner.”
“But I don’t want to go to Hell! There must be something I can do to stay away from here if that ambulance makes it to the hospital in time.”
“There is, Drake. You’d have to give up being a stuntman.”
Ever go back to a movie from your youth that you saw 1000 times and loved and thought was awesome and the best thing ever, only to discover that it was worse than the time your dog got rabies and your mom told you to go outside and shoot it, but he didn't die the first time you shot him and he managed to sink his fangs into your leg, necessitating the need for a series of painful shots?
This isn't about that.
This it-happens-when-it-happens series is instead about what happens when you revisit an old movie you used to love and discover that it makes you feel the exact same way you did the last time you watched it as a kid--maybe even a little better. It's a good feeling and not one that gets mentioned on the internet that often.
For my first look at such a movie, I have a film that's yet to make it to DVD, despite being a TV staple after its brief 1979 theatrical run. I must have seen it from beginning to end at least 10 times in the 80s, and was always shocked and thrilled by it's inclusion of a brief scene of nudity I AM NOT ALLOWED to enjoy today.
I am, of course, talking about:
Just You and Me, Kid
(1979)
Synopsis
Bill Grant used to be a famous Vaudeville comedian, but he's an old man now, living his days as a bachelor in a beautiful house filled with mementos from his past. Kate is a troubled 14 year-old girl who attempts to escape her sad foster home existence by stealing $20,000 from a demented drug dealer named Demesta. But before she can run off to Arizona, he finds her and strips her naked in his apartment. She escapes with nothing but a towel, which she loses along the way. She hides away in the back of an old car, and when she's discovered by the old man who owns it, orders him to take him to her place, which he does. Bill has seen too much of the world to be shocked by the situation and treats his new unwanted houseguest with patience and good humour. Kate, on the other hand, is so desperate to get moving that she jumps out a window and sprains her ankle. Bill tends to her injury, tells jokes she doesn't think are funny, and still makes the appointments that define his life. Kate is slow to appreciate his generosity and regards him and his friends with constant suspicion, but eventually she realizes he's someone she's never met before--a good person. Demesta eventually tracks them down, but Bill's quick thinking makes quick work of them. Having formed a unique family, Bill convinces his worried daughter to adopt Kate, while his beloved friend, Max, breaks his silence and returns to the real world.
As a kid I was sucker for anything that was corny and/or sentimental. If it could make me cry (and it was--and still is--very easy to make me cry) then I loved it. Watching Just You and Me, Kid at the age of 8, 9, and 10, I always choked up at the moment when Bill ran into his house thrilled to be able to tell Kate that her advice worked and his friend Max had spoken to him for the first time in years. What moved me wasn't the news itself, but the obvious joy he had in having someone to share it with, and then the painful realization that she was no longer there and possibly out of his life forever.
That shit killed me, then. Turns out, it still kills me now.
There's no doubt this is a flawed movie. Roger Ebert's two-star review gets it mostly right. The film does bungle the part of Demesta, making him truly terrifying in the beginning, only to have him turn into a chickenshit dope at the end. It isn't hard to understand how this happened--there's only so much you can do action-wise when your heroes are a geriatric old man and a 14 year-old girl. The screenwriters wrote themselves into a corner and simply couldn't think of a better way to get out of it.
But I can't begrudge them their error. Even Mr. Ebert admits that the film had to have started out as a great script, since there is so much treasure to be found in its barely-TV-movie-level production values. That said the greatness begins and ends with George Burns, whose performance here--I feel--is actually superior to the one in The Sunshine Boys that won him his Oscar and completely resurrected his moribund career. It's easy to say that Grant is merely a version of himself, but that ignores the wonderful, thrilling joy of it. This is a man who can't help himself from singing aloud as he performs the little chores that keep him feeling active and vital, whose wits have not been the slightest bit dulled with age or lack of an audience, who truly LOVES show business in a way very few people can understand. It's a small, unassuming film whose existence is based only on the amusing juxtaposition of 1979's oldest and youngest superstars, but that doesn't negate the fact that in it, Burns gives one of my all-time favourite performances and creates a character I genuinely and sincerely love.
Perhaps the thing I love the most is how it allows Burns to have fun, be smart, and maintain his dignity. I HATE it when anyone attempts to wring laughs by having seniors behave like children. I don't find it cute or endearing--it's rude, disrespectful, and only made possible by exploiting those whose time in the spotlight has long past its expiration date. Just You and Me, Kid respects its elders and I approve whole-heartedly.
Where I do disagree with Mr. Ebert is in his description of the roteness of Brooke Shields' character, Kate, which suggests that her arc feels manufactured, rather than genuine. To my mind, her fear, suspicion and hostility make perfect sense, given her past. I also like how the script allows her to be canny enough to have genuine insight into her situation--allowing her to at one point accuse Bill of keeping her in the house because he needs an audience. It's presented as a throwaway moment, an accusation made in a peak of frustration, but it indicates that her character actually does pay attention and understand the world around her.
I was initially concerned that the film would sexualize Shields, as Pretty Baby had a year earlier and The Blue Lagoon would a year later. This seemed confirmed when she loses her towel and is shown running--naked from the back--down some stairs. To a present-day viewer the moment seems gratuitous and gross, but I remember that back in the 80s it wasn't even edited out of the TV version. Times have changed. Luckily, though, the script quickly realizes that Kate is a child and allows her to be treated as such--with only a few "she's a pretty girl" comments from some characters to remind us that Shields is playing the part.
I also appreciated how the script even allowed the film's non-drug-dealing villain--Bill's daughter--a moment of sympathy, giving her a chance to suggest ways in which her beloved father might not have always been a great dad. Her short speech gives the film the added depth of allowing us to understand that as happy as Bill appears, his life has been far from perfect. I was especially moved by her suggestion of an attempted comeback that was met with utter indifference. What's sadder than someone who needs to perform who can no longer find an audience?
So that's why, for all its flaws and flimsiness, my revisiting this classic film from my youth wasn't an experience in torture or self-recrimination. No one else may consider it a great movie, but I do--and it's these kind of personally fulfilling movies that matter more than most.
I have no way of knowing if I was the only 15 year-old who spent a weekend afternoon sitting alone in an empty theater watching Blake Edwards' remake of the Vincente Minnelli's 1964 Goodbye Charlie, but I'm pretty sure that if I was, I was probably the only one who knew who Edwards or Minnelli even were. That said, the real reason I decided to bike on over to the Londonderry Mall theater and plunk down my $6 had everything to do with the blond on the poster. I had seen Sea of Love and The Adventures of Buckeroo Banzai and was all over anything with Ellen Barkin in it.
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
Rejected By Rod(?)
Sorority House Massacre
(1986)
For eagle-eyed horror fans the cleverest moment in Sorority House Massacre comes when two of its characters are watching television. Showing on the set is a scene from an earlier Roger Corman produced classic, Slumber Party Massacre, in which a character is—you guessed it—watching a horror movie on television. It’s the cinematic equivalent of one those drawings of a cartoon character holding a drawing of them holding a drawing on into infinity.
Beyond this one moment, though, there’s not a lot to say about the film. While it does feature a memorably creepy dream sequence, the plot itself is lifted straight from the first two Halloweens, featuring as it does a killer who escapes from the loony bin in order to return to the house where he killed all but the youngest member of his family, who’s now an attractive brunette college student plagued by nightmares featuring him and the massacre she doesn’t remember surviving.
To writer/director Carol Frank’s credit, she avoids the mistake of making her characters deliberately hateful, and merely settles for bland and uninteresting. To her discredit, she chose not to fire her apparently blind costume designer and allowed them to dress her cast in the most hideous clothes the 80s ever foisted upon the planet. That is if a movie this low budget even had a costume designer. If it didn’t, then her biggest crime was casting actors who couldn’t supply decent clothes out of their own closets.
Ultimately, Sorority House Massacre is an especially unexceptional movie and the only reason I’m reviewing it now is because I took the time to watch it before experiencing Sorority House Massacre II, which is an exceptional movie, but not for the reasons you might think.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
Honey, O’Hara, Teri and Sam are the H.O.T.S., four girls with axes to grind against their college’s snootiest sorority. By recruiting other busty “rejects” they connive to get their revenge. This mostly unfunny comedy ends with a strip football game you will likely remember for the rest of your life.
At his business school graduation party, Alan Finston learns he’s inherited a 51% interest in his late Aunt Ida’s beachside swimwear store. He leaves his spoiled fiancé, Jane, behind to prepare the store for sale, only to discover that his ne’er-do-well brother, Todd, is the owner of the other 49%. Todd wants to keep the store, but can’t stop Alan from selling it to the leader of a local religious cult. When Alan learns that the cult leader plans to close the store and open a recruitment center in its place, he has a change of heart and asks to buy it back, pissing off a visiting Jane in the process. The cult leader agrees, but demands an additional $6,000 in cash within two weeks. Determined to raise the money, Alan, Todd and the shop’s three female staff members hand-sew 50 army-inspired bikinis designed by Ronnie, the beautiful brunette who’s had a crush on Alan since they first met. With just a few hours to go before the money has to be paid, they do everything they can to sell their new bikinis, while the angrily scorned Jane and her father try their best to make sure they don’t succeed.
The Malibu Bikini Shop is as purely a product of the 1980s as Culture Club, Ray-Bans, and Dynasty. Whereas the fun, lightweight bikini movies of the 1960s (most famously the ones starring Frankie & Annette) were all frivolous fantasy pictures featuring the complications created by glamorous Italian heiresses (Muscle Beach Party), rich English pop stars (Bikini Beach), and mermaids (Beach Blanket Bingo), this 80s incarnation of the genre eschews whimsy in favor of depicting the battle between uptight capitalism and unapologetic hedonism. What makes the film especially evocative of its decade is that the battle ends in a tie, with both sides coming to a better understanding of the other and embracing the idea that one shouldn’t be afraid to party, so long as you’re making money at the same time.
Written and directed by David Wechter (who remains best known as the co-writer/co-director of the cult 1980 Disney film Midnight Madness), TMBS is strongly reminiscent of Paul Brickman’s much, much, much better Risky Business, which also featured an ambitious young wannabe-yuppie as its supposedly sympathetic protagonist. The clear difference is that Brickman had Tom Cruise, who actually did manage to imbue some likeability into the role of Joel Goodsen, while Wechter cast Michael David Wright, whose acting career justifiably ended almost as soon as it began and who went on to make a living as a network executive. It’s all the difference in the world.
Oh, and Paul Brickman had vision and talent.
It doesn’t help that TMBS ups the ante by giving us an 80s archetype even more tiresome than the ambitious young Republican—the slobberific party animal. Unlike the part of Alan, the role of his brother Todd is actually played by a very talented actor—Canada’s own Bruce Greenwood—but he’s miscast here and incapable of convincing us that we wouldn’t want to beat Todd to death with a tire iron within minutes of meeting him.
The result is cliché battling cliché, leaving the viewer to impatiently wait for the plot to stop and allow for the film’s true raison d’etre to show itself.
There’s a certain promise inherent in any 80s movie with the word “bikini” in its title, that its 60s predecessors were not also allowed to make—that at some point, hopefully more than once, twice, or thrice, those bikinis would come off and we would get to see what was barely being hidden from us. TMBS attempts to make good on this promise, but its prurience lacks conviction.
The film’s most famous nude scene serves as proof of the film’s ambivalence about the only reason anyone has ever watched it. In it, a stacked blond customer (Bobbi Pavis, credited as “Stunning Girl”) enters one of the store’s changing rooms, unaware that Todd has equipped them with two-way mirrors in order to commit a crime that could now result in jail time, but in 1986 was considered hilarious. He marvels at the sight of her removing her top, while conservative, no-fun-asshole Alan looks away. But when Todd leaves, Alan allows his mask of decorum to fall away and is punished by the sight of an overweight woman trying to get into a bikini that clearly doesn’t fit her.
This sudden juxtaposition of the attractive and repellent is meant to be funny (although you can tell the movie was made in the 80s because the overweight woman is shown attempting to put on the bikini over her very large underwear—today that same scene would be shot with her completely naked), but there’s a tangible hostility inherent in the moment that makes it clear Wechter wants to punish us for enjoying the sight of Pavis’ copious breasts in the same way Alan is punished for giving into his own urge to peek.
Interestingly, though, the one person who gets away without harm in this moment is the man who instigated it. Although Alan is obviously the film’s protagonist and has the largest character arc, Todd is clearly meant to serve as the film’s moral center, which is odd since he’s very clearly a selfish, lazy manchild who’s only interested in his own immediate happiness.
As different as they appear, both Alan and Todd have embraced the Reagen-era belief in the virtue of self-interest. Alan insists on using his 1% controlling interest in the store to override Todd’s desire to keep it, while Todd ignores anyone who might impede his ability to have a good time. While Alan succeeds in removing the stick from his butt by the end of the picture, Todd—who the film has portrayed as right more often than wrong—remains unchanged. When Alan discovers that the surgical thread they used to sew the bikinis is designed to dissolve in water he runs to tell Todd, who responds by saying he knew that all along and watches enthusiastically as a group of attractive women dressed in the swimsuits are quickly robbed of their dignity.
The moral then seems to be that selfish, extremely questionable behaviour is entirely acceptable if it’s in service of a good time. Since watching TMBS isn’t a good time, though, it’s hard to justify its similar impropriety.
That said, there is at least two good things about the film. Former Miss Texas, Barbara Horan (now Amanda Horan Kennedy, owner of a successful bra company) is very appealing as Ronnie, the gorgeous brunette who likes Alan for reasons that are explained, but still don’t seem the slightest bit plausible. Not necessarily a strong actress, she still manages to leave a good impression and earns far more sympathy than your typical fantasy dream girl character.
But if I had to pick TMBS’sone redeeming moment, it would have to be the extremely gratuitous, nonsensical dance sequence that occurs when Ronnie unveils her new swimsuit designs for the first time. In terms of style and content it bears no relation to any other sequence from the movie, which is probably why it was easily my favourite part of the whole movie.
To no one’s surprise, The Malibu Bikini Shop is a bad movie, but the problem isn’t inherent in its premise or genre, but rather one of execution and confused philosophy. The truth is that the film is undone by David Wechter’s clear ambition to make a film that was more than an excuse to bare some T & A. Had he stayed true to just that noble ambition the film probably would have still sucked, if only because he isn’t a talented filmmaker, but it at least would have spared us several moments of agony in the process.
I was 12. Plus I was a major anti-Reagan mini-liberal who despaired the way Russians were always portrayed as villains throughout 80s cinema, and I felt honour bound to support a film that set out to break that mold. Did I mention I was 12? Blame my Uncle Doug--he paid for the tickets.
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
Rejected By Rod(?)
The Convent
(2000)
The Convent is one of those horror movies that was made with such obvious affection by its filmmakers I’m able to forgive the fact that it literally plunges a knife into the heart of its least hateful character 30 minutes into its running time and then makes us wait another 20 before Adrienne Barbeau shows up to kick some serious demon nun ass.
The movie begins memorably with a hot young brunette in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform walking into a church and batting away at the assembled sisters (and father) with a Louisville slugger before setting them ablaze and blasting them with a shotgun, all to the sweet sound of Lesley Gore’s classic “You Don’t Know Me”.
It then cuts to 40 years later, where the location of this massacre is the destination of choice for a trio of truly obnoxious fraternity assholes, their virgin pledge, two girlfriends and the super cute, sarcastic goth girl who’s just like the woman I imagined I’d end up marrying back when I was 14 (which obviously didn’t happen).
The trouble starts when super cute goth girl is sacrificed by a quartet of pathetic Satanists, which causes the demons that necessitated the previous massacre to rise up from wherever they went the last time this all went down. In the end, the only person who can stop the demons from raising the antichrist is the hot 50-something version of the hot schoolgirl who took care of the problem the first time.
Needless to say, Adrienne Barbeau is truly awesome as the foul-mouthed, liquored up, tight jeans wearing demon slayer and is—along with the film’s sly sense of humor—the main reason to ignore the its obvious deficits and give it a chance.
Clearly inspired by Night of the Demons and Evil Dead II, The Convent is better than the former and nowhere close to the latter, which is exactly how it should be in a fair and just world such as our own.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
Pyun’s recent attempts to beat out Ed Wood and Al Adamson for the title of All-Time Worst Director make it a real shock to discover that his first film is actually pretty decent. Horsley plays Talon, a prince/merc who gets embroiled in a complicated plot to oust tyrant Lynch.
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
There are many thoughts that leap to mind while returning to Red Sonja decades after you’ve last seen it, but the one I kept focusing on was, “Where the heck did Brigitte Nielsen’s breasts go?”
Now, I do have an admitted tendency to over-focus on this sort of thing and I should probably get some help and talk to someone about it, but I’m not wrong in noticing that the international 80s Amazon’s dimensions here in her cinematic debut are somewhat less Amazonian than those found in her later films, which to my mind suggests a direct correlation between getting enormous implants and subsequently starring in a series of shittier and shittier movies.
I may be alone in expressing this, but I think Nielsen actually showed some (unmet) promise here in her film debut. Sure, she’s often flatly unintelligible, but then so is her co-star and that didn’t stop him from starring in Batman & Robin (and becoming the governor of California). As an action heroine, though, she’s entirely credible and was probably the only actress/model of the period with a build both substantial and sexy enough to take on the role of Robert E. Howard’s most famous female character. She was just missing the breasts, which she must have noticed and decided to correct for her future work (which sadly never included that proposed big screen adaptation of She-Hulk she was born for).
The rest of the film manages to serve as a solid example of 80s sword and sorcery silliness. Not as memorable as Cozzi’s Hercules films, but still better than Conan the Destroyer and its many low-budget clones (none of which were foolish enough to copy Milius’ superior original), Red Sonja is a serviceable timewaster lessened only by its distinct lack of a D-Cup.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
After she inherits a creepy old house, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark becomes an unwanted neighbor in a conservative small town. Cassandra Peterson brings her iconic character to the big screen in a fun, cheesy comedy whose dependence on boob jokes is so blatant it would make Dolly Parton blush.
Giorgio Fini is the world’s greatest opera tenor, but the thought of returning to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House—the site of his most humiliating disaster—is enough to turn him mute before a public performance in Boston. His loyal manager, Henry, finds the city’s best ear, nose, and throat doctor, who just happens to be a gorgeous blond named Pamela Taylor. At first Fini refuses to be treated by a “nurse”, but submits when Henry makes up a story about a tenor he managed who lost his voice when he refused to be examined by a non-Italian doctor. Dr. Taylor quickly diagnoses that Fini’s laryngitis is psychosomatic and “cures” him by painfully stabbing him in the butt with a B-12 shot. Fini is so grateful he begins to court the beautiful doctor, even though he is a married man with two children. He eventually convinces her to join him in San Francisco, where they embark on a bittersweet love affair doomed from the moment of its conception. Having been convinced by Dr. Taylor to return to the Met, Fini deals with his heartbreak by giving the greatest performance of his life.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking—“What the fuck is Allan on? Does he have a fever? In what universe is a light mainstream romantic comedy about fucking opera anything even approaching a B-Movie?”
And here are my answers to all of those questions—“Mostly Nyquil. Yes, but it’s not as bad as it was yesterday, where it forced me to miss my family’s X-Mas celebration. This one.”
Y’see, despite being made by a major studio with a $19 million budget (which those of you who read my Megaforce entry know was a very significant amount of money at the time) and its classical music setting, Yes, Giorgio is as perfect an example I can name of one of my very favourite sub-genres of exploitation movies—the starsploitation flick.
It’s a very simple concept that dates back all the way to the silent era. Take a non-acting celebrity whose fame and name recognition is off the charts and throw them into the movie with the hope that their legion of adoring fans flock to the theater to see them. I’ve already mentioned the amazing Viva Knievel! on the blog, but other classic examples include such disasters as 1955’s Sincerely Yours (in which Liberace played a totally heterosexual concert performer whose sudden deafness compels him to stay at home and change the lives of the strangers he sees suffering outside his apartment window), 1980’s Can’t Stop the Music (in which The Village People play totally heterosexual dudes who come together to form a gay disco group called The Village People), 1980’s The Jazz Singer (in which Neil Diamond plays a wannabe rock star whose father, Laurence Olivier, is so over-the-top Jewish it actually borders on being anti-Semitic), and 2002’s Crossroads (in which Britney Spears did something with some people in a movie I’ve never seen).
That’s not to say that every starsploitation effort is a failure. A Hard Day’s Night is one of the greatest musical comedies of all time, despite starting out as a way to make a quick buck off of the Beatles’ “fad”; Jailhouse Rock led to Elvis Presley becoming one of the biggest stars in Hollywood; and 8 Mile gave us the wonderful sight of Barbra Streisand forced to announce Eminem’s name at the Oscars.
In fact, the world of starsploitation is so rich there are examples of the genre that actually starred genuine movie stars. For example, 1978’s Sextette was made to capitalize on the popularity of Mae West, despite the fact that anyone with eyes or ears could have told the producers that the film’s octogenarian star had no business returning to her role of alluring sexpot. And then there’s 2010’s The Expendables (and its upcoming 2012 sequel), whose whole raison d'etre is to excite action fans by giving them glimpses of their favourite movie tough guys on screen in one cinematic experience.
So, given this rich history of Hollywood trying to make a buck by exploiting a celebrity’s non-acting fame, it was probably inevitable that someone would try and turn Luciano Pavarotti into a movie star. He was, after all, the most famous opera tenor in the world—capable of selling out arena’s everywhere he went. Imagine how much money could be made if those same fans flocked to movie theaters to see him sing!
When Peter Fetterman, the producer of Yes, Giorgio, decided to approach Pavarotti his dream project was a bio-film about Enrico Caruso, but the great tenor had no interest in taking on a potentially difficult role for which he’d probably receive mostly negative comparisons. He insisted that he wanted to play a romantic lead, so Fetterman bought the rights to Anne Piper’s novel, which told the story of the love affair that developed between the world’s greatest tenor and the beautiful doctor who cures his vocal problems.
This decision led to some obvious problems. Pavarotti was known for his voice, but not his physical attractiveness. Would audiences balk at watching the large man romance a much more conventionally attractive actress? Plus, the native Italian speaker didn’t have the best grasp of the English language, and would end up having to recite many of his lines phonetically throughout filming.
To face these dilemmas Fetterman hired Norman Steinberg (then best known for his contribution to Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles) to write the screenplay, and Franklin J. Schaffner, the Oscar-winning director of Patton, to oversee the production.
Schaffner was definitely an odd choice for the director’s seat. His reputation had been made as a serious director who tackled historical subjects (Papillion, Nicholas and Alexandra), politics (The Best Man) and intelligent science fiction (Planet of the Apes, The Boys From Brazil). Steinberg’s screenplay turned Piper’s novel into a lightly comic musical romance with a bittersweet ending, which made it unlike any movie project the talented director had tackled before. The best explanation for why he agreed to do it can be found in the previous year’s Sphinx, his expensive Egyptian-themed thriller that flopped mightily at the B.O. In all likelihood Schaffner bought into Fetterman’s assertion that Pavarotti’s millions of fans would flock to theaters in record numbers and help restore his Hollywood reputation.
For the role of the doctor who falls in love with the singer, the filmmaker’s hired Kathryn Harrold, a knockout blond best known for her role as Albert Brooks' on-again, off-again girlfriend in the classic comedy Modern Romance. In the end she would prove to be the film’s one saving grace.
Unfortunately for Schaffner and Fetterman, Yes, Giorgio didn’t cause Pavoratti’s admirers to run to movie theaters. The film only earned 1/10th of its budget back in domestic gross and was savaged by critics. Much of the blame rested on the fact that the audience most likely to appreciate its light hearted comedy were put off by the thought of lengthy opera sequences, while serious opera fans were put off by seeing their idol in such a flimsy vehicle.
Viewed today (or more accurately, yesterday—Christmas Day, 2011) Yes, Giorgio, lacks the misbegotten excess of such classic late 70s/early 80s musical disasters like The Apple, Xanadu, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (itself another classic example of starsploitation), which is ultimately to its detriment. Without the benefit of extreme bad taste to turn it into a guilty pleasure, the film forces us to take its characters seriously, which is a huge mistake, since—as written by Steinberg and portrayed by Pavarotti—its title character is an unlikable, sexist man-child whose cavalier attitude towards adultery makes him one of the screen’s least likely romantic comedy protagonists. With his boyish speaking voice and round body, Pavarotti’s Fini is less a romantic lead than a big enormous baby.
Which is a huge problem for Kathryn Harrold, who is faced with the insurmountable challenge of making us believe her smart, funny, likable character would so much as touch Fini with a 50 foot pole, much less declare her love for him in one of the more painful scenes the genre has ever produced. The film ends with her running out of the Met, supposedly unable to face the heartbreak of seeing him give his career-defining performance, but for the viewer it feels instead like a sudden spark of sanity—as if she’s suddenly realized what’s going on and decides to get the fuck out of Dodge.
But, ironically, the thing that hurts the film the most is its reliance on Pavarotti’s famous voice. He sings a lot in Yes, Giorgio, but there’s a cheesy “greatest hits” aspect to the opera scenes (“Hey,” you say to yourself, “that’s the one from that Bugs Bunny cartoon!”), and his brief attempt at a pop standard like “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” only serves to highlight his inability to perform outside of his wheelhouse. I try my best to never fast forward through a movie I plan on giving a B-Movie Bullsh*t analysis, but during the final 1/3 of the film I gave in and sped through all but the very last of the musical sequences. Truth is, I probably would have done so sooner if I wasn’t already doped up on cough medicine.
I admit it probably takes a fever and the calming narcotics of green Nyquil (it tastes like Sambuca!) to truly consider a $19 million dollar movie about opera an exploitation B-Movie, but the truth is that it isn’t all about sex, violence, monsters, and car crashes. Sometimes it truly is about fat, bearded opera singers speaking a language they don’t understand in a movie whose limitations were set in stone by their own ego.
