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Sunday, July 11, 2021

TOP SECRET (1984)

After writing hit & miss comedy skits for KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE/’77, Jim Abrahams, David & Jerry Zucker hyphenated up to director on AIRPLANE!/’80 & tv’s POLICE SQUAD/’82 (a very funny flop forerunner to their NAKED GUN movies*), before showing slightly less inspiration & significantly less structural cohesion taking on Cold War Spies & Elvis pics.  Still darn funny, but with less to pull you along during the inevitable comic misfires.  Debuting Val Kilmer, pouty of lip, skinny of leg, makes a solid, willing & winning Elvis.  He’d never be less self-conscious again.  Perhaps playing against bland ingenue Lucy Gutteridge relaxed his killer instinct.  He also doesn’t cross paths with guest star Omar Sharif, beaming with pleasure and getting the film’s best costume (he wears a crushed car), too bad he disappears halfway in.  Cinematography great Christopher Challis, nearing retirement,  goes along with the over-lit look all comedy directors other than Blake Edwards were putting out at the time, and the staging of action stuff and the big rock & roll dance numbers are casual, to put it nicely.  (Okay, lazy/unimaginative.)  Does it matter on these things?  An æsthetic that goes no further than sharp focus & bright lighting to ‘sell’ the gag.  Fine when the gag is funny, though it can make even a 90-minute running time feel over-extended.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: In retrospect, the ‘70s & ‘80s were something of a Golden Age for Spoofs with AZZ trashing Air Travel, Cold War spying, Elvis & Cop shows while Mel Brooks did much the same (with even brighter lighting!) to Westerns, Horror, Silent Comedy, Hitchcock, Historical Epics & Outer Space.  Now, other than slasher spoofs, the form seems to have disappeared.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Any of which would make fine double-bills, but with today’s internet, POLICE SQUAD may be ripe for discovery.

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