MY MOVIE SHELF: Johnny Dangerously

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 220  Days to go: 220

Movie #157:  Johnny Dangerously

Swear to God, if you haven’t seen Johnny Dangerously, just what, exactly, are you doing with your life? Once again, Amy Heckerling proves herself a skilled comedy director and gets almost no credit or cachet out of it. Why isn’t she given more projects? I mean, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless are considered iconic films of their generations. And while Johnny Dangerously isn’t that, it is the single-best film ever made entirely out of puns and silly gags.

Fun fact: Marilu Henner (Lil Sheridan) still knows all the words and choreography to “Dangerously.”

Michael Keaton plays the lead, a good Irish kid named Johnny Kelly who gets caught up in a life of crime with the Jocko Dundee (Peter Boyle) gang in order to pay for his mother’s mounting medical bills. Ma Kelly (Maureen Stapleton) is an older-than-she-looks 29-year-old, living the hard life of an immigrant widow (her husband Killer Kelly having gotten the electric chair some years before). She’s constantly in need of surgeries to locate her thyroid or unblock her salivary glands, and Johnny will do anything to pay for them. He also adores his kid brother Tommy (Griffin Dunne) and pays for his way through law school, only to find out his brother wants to be District Attorney and fight crime.

Fun fact: Marilu Henner remembers the names and faces of every single person she met making this film in 1984.

There are so many silly little things in this movie, it’s almost impossible to highlight all the ones I love. Tommy’s desperate need to hump his brains out with Sally (Glynnis O’Connor), is a good one, mostly for his mother’s “ba-BOOM ba-BOOM ba-BOOM” and Johnny’s informational film, “Your Testicles and You.” Then there’s the game show presentation by D.A. Burr (Danny DeVito), tempting Tommy to Play Ball, followed by the speeding up of the song on the radio as Tommy’s car brakes fail, followed by Johnny getting invited by Burr to two weeks in Puerto Rico before the newspaper headline “D.A. Burr Dies in Commercial.” Then, of course, there’s gangster bad boy Danny Vermin (Joe Piscopo) who carries an 88 Magnum, has it out for the Kelly boys and whose father hung him on a hook once. Once! But far and away the best is Richard Dimitri as gangland nemesis Roman Moronie, a fargin icehole corksoaking bastidge if ever there was one.

Fun fact: Marilu Henner can tell you exactly how many takes it took for Johnny to stick a business card in her boob pocket or for Danny to drop her from his lap.

There’s so much more, though. Jocko thinking his “dork” has been blown off, Ma Kelly thinking of taking up smoking and the ashtray present that clinches it, Polly the parrot wearing jailhouse stripes as he passes a message along the grapevine to Johnny, and oh, the shelf paper! It’s just filled to the brim and overflowing with jokes.

Fun fact: Marilu Henner can still give the exact details of the fit and feel of every costume she wore for the film, including fly fisherman and nun disguises.

 

A really smart joke is a great thing (something I love, in fact), but to make a super funny movie, the best plan of action is to make the most jokes. The more jokes you can cram into something, the funnier it’s going to be. Some will land better than others, some will be dumber than others, but by giving your audience no chance to breathe from one joke to the next is the absolute best way to keep them laughing. And that’s something Johnny Dangerously is great at. Plus, it has a moral: “Crime doesn’t pay. Well, it pays a little.”

Fun fact: Marilu Henner still knows precisely how Michael Keaton kisses.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Bye Bye Birdie

This is the deal: I own around 350 movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Through June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #43: Bye Bye Birdie

I’m not really sure why I own this movie, except that I saw it when I was in high school and have had “We Love You, Conrad” in my head ever since.

Actually, as far as cultural impact goes, this movie has probably had more than people realize. “Put on a Happy Face,” which Albert (Dick Van Dyke) sings to Rosie (Janet Leigh) is considered a standard (even Tony Bennett has recorded it). Bye Bye Birdie also made Ann-Margret a huge star, and her iconic opening number has been referenced in several movies since, plus was the inspiration for an entire ad campaign during an episode of Mad Men.

Set in 1958 and released in 1963 — a year before The Beatles really turned the world of fangirls upside-down — Bye Bye Birdie satirizes the media events surrounding Elvis Presley being drafted into the army in 1957 and giving one lucky woman “one last kiss.” In the movie, the Elvis surrogate is one Conrad Birdie (Jesse Pearson) and the randomly selected lucky girl is Ann-Margret’s character Kim McAfee, from Sweet Apple, Ohio, which I’m pretty sure is not an actual place. (In the movie, when Ed Sullivan — the real guy, appearing as himself — is approached with this idea to have Conrad kiss one lucky girl, he insists she should be from Ohio, which is hilarious to me. I’m pretty sure Ohio has had this exact reputation in Hollywood since 1958; it’s never changed.)

The movie proceeds to mock just about everything, from teenagers to heartthrobs to mothers, to women in general, actually. There’s not a whole lot to recommend it from a modern feminist perspective, though it is something that, like Mad Men, can be used as a gauge for how much things have changed in 50 years, and how much they’ve remained very much the same.

One thing that’s definitely not changed is how older generations have viewed younger generations, since the beginning of time. The pundits who look down on the youth of today are the same kids being satirized in 1963, as are their current views, sung by the two disapproving parents in the movie, Paul Lynde and Maureen Stapleton as Kim’s father and Albert’s mother, in the song “Kids.” Sample lines: “Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way? What’s the matter with kids today?” That’s a theme that just never goes out of style.

So maybe Bye Bye Birdie isn’t an important film, maybe it’s an outdated film, but it’s still a pretty fun film, and it’s got great music. Except maybe “We Love You, Conrad,” which thanks to this project will now be in my head for the next twenty years. (I’m kidding, it never left.)