Naked Gun Series

 There is a new Naked Gun film coming directed by Akiva Schaffer and starring Liam Neeson.  I am both interested and apprehensive about seeing it.  Neeson is a first rate dramatic actor who is also very effective in action roles (though I think he has not been selective enough about his material lately) but I have rarely seen in him a comedy and never as a lead.  But hopefully they come up with something memorable.  

Recently I showed my kids the original Police Squad TV series and the trilogy of films which I think are the gold standard of the format the ZAZ (the Zucker brother and Jim Abrahams) perfected.  Their films and shows present plots but as a clotheslines for comedic gags and puns that break all narrative convention.  Their characters are presented as mostly straightforward (but also more than a little foolish) who let the craziness around them define them as opposed to chasing laughs with big acting moments.

Spoilers below

Police Squad (1982)

Police Squad, which debuted in 1982, makes fun of a lot of TV detective shows from the 1960s and  70s introduces us to Leslie Nielsen as Sergeant Frank Drebin (who also identifies himself as Detective Lieutenant).  Nielsen was the funniest member of the ensemble in the ZAZ film Airplane (1980), managing to successfully sell all the crazy situations he found himself in with a straight face ("Don't call me Shirley", delivering a baby with a passenger in stirups, the Pinnochio nose), completely sending up his own image as a dramatic actor.  As Frank Nielsen plays it fairly serious when delivering lines like "We would have come before but your husband wasn't dead then." but also convincingly delivers a stand up routine and calmly calls fellow police officers to sacrifice themselves while figuring out where a bullet was fired from.  Nielsen also establishes that Frank is far too quick to use his gun in public settings which often leads to hilarity. The first episode in particular is hilarious and the others all have fun moments.  The opening credits are reminiscent of Quinn Martin shows like The Fugitive in which a guest star is named but in this case quickly murdered on camera.  One of my favorite gags is the questionable taste of "Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln" shows Lincoln from behind firing back at his John Wilks Booth when his famous hat (instead of his head) head is shot at Ford's theatre.  For years I thought it was "Rex Harrison" and the idea that Rex Harrison would play Lincoln is almost as funny as the gag itself.  I also really like Alan North's credit as it shows him going to his desk while someone starts shooting at him offscreen and while he picks up his gun to return fire a man runs by him on fire.  

The show only lasted six episodes since apparently it demanded audiences pay extra attention to catch all the sight gags and cleverly written puns.  For example there is a moment where Frank angrily releases a suspect saying to Ed "Tell that bomber to take off!" and Ed looks out the window, gives a thumbs up and we hear but do not see an airplane take off.  This is cleverly constructed but if you were only half paying attention you might miss it.  In a movie theatre where people are forced to look at the screen it is easier to engage audiences.  Police Squad was also different from the sitcoms that were popular at the time like Family Ties and Diff'rent Strokes which were filmed in front of audiences who would laugh. It is also possible that the shows Police Squad was lampooning were mostly gone by the time it came out.  Notably only Nielsen and Ed Williams as the Q like character Ted Olson made it to the film though Alan North and Peter Lupus' characters of Captain Ed Hocken and Officer Nordberg were in the film series but recast with bigger names.  

The show has some funny recurring gags like Frank getting the word from the street from a man who shines shoes played by George Buell and then as soon as he leaves the shoe shiner gives advice to other experts in their fields like Joyce Brothers and Tommy Lasorda.  At that time TV shows often had light hearted epilogues which provided closing exposition and a couple of jokes which would often end in a freeze frame. Police Squad just had the actors stand still with frozen smiles while one character moved in the background, not understanding.  Often some other action would occur like pouring coffee while we imagine the characters having to not move or react while being burnt, or the building being demolished around them.  Additionally like in the Airplane movies, while Drebin is more clueless than most of the other characters everyone in the show is on the same wavelength so they rarely get exasperated with him.  

Police Squad probably would not have worked as a long-time show as the gags might have burned out but it is a shame that it didn't really take off just because it was different than other comedies of the time.   

Police Squad is definitely worth a watch for fans of the film series (or comedy in general) and it is really impressive that a failed TV show was turned into a hit movie just a few years later starring the same actor. This is especially notable as Police Squad never went into syndication or had a video release prior to the production of the Naked Gun films.  I only first heard of it after seeing the second Naked Gun film in theatres and it was rebroadcast.  ***

Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)

The series immortality is on the strength of this film, one of the funniest ever.  It was directed by David Zucker though all three of the ZAZ team (and writer Pat Proft) were involved.  I was in high school when it came out and remember hearing people quote it constantly.  1988 also has another fabulous comedy in A Fish Called Wanda.  I caught up with it on cable a year or so later and laughed almost nonstop.  In this film Drebin is assigned to protect Queen Elizabeth during a visit to the U.S. and investigate an attempt on Nordberg's life.  The pace is a little slower than the show and some of the gags are a little bigger and given more build up.

Nielsen adjusted his performance a little and adds silly faces and makes Frank a little more clueless.  Nielsen's true strength in the role is his willingness to look foolish onscreen but always in character.  Sometimes the funniest person in a comedy is a supporting character but Nielsen is both maximizing this rich material and making Frank a memorable and principled lead character, as clumsy as Inspector Cleaseau but far more likeable.  One of Nielsen's best moments when Jane is introduced and falls down the stairs we hear it but the shot is on Frank moving his head (with perfectly edited crashing sounds to match the head movements) following her hitting the steps but never lifting a finger to help her which would have played differently in the show.  A couple of the characters, like the villain played by Ricardo Montalban, and the mayor played by Nancy Marchand, play their characters more seriously and so get put off by Frank.  The other characters, like Ed, mostly help Frank or are buffoonish like him which keeps the fun more good natured.  

The series had established Frank as often crashing his car when he parked it but this film has one of the funniest laughs when a small crash (which is Frank's fault) sets off the airbag which knocks the car out of gear (in the 1980s American cars with automatic transitions often had the gear shifts by the steering wheel) and then causes Frank to foolishly fire at it thinking it is a mad driver, setting it on fire when he hits the gas tank.  Director Zucker lets the scene play out with the car rolling offscreen as Frank slowly senses he may be responsible and quietly removes himself from the scene, like a child who just broke something and hopes to not get caught.  

The opening sets Frank as a hero for America while on vacation in Beirut (which was a warzone) beats up several of the biggest adversaries including Amin, Ayatollah, Yassir Arafat and Gaddafi).  

The credit sequence uses Ira Newborn's theme from the TV show and sets up a clever gag that is used in each of the three films with the camera following the top of Frank's squad car as it goes to unexpected places.  I think the best one is the closing of the second one where Frank's car is born. 

Nordberg's shooting has a nice pause when the many bad guys casually load their guns as he enters the scene, as well as one being spooked and tossing his gun away when Nordberg orders them all to freeze.  

The hospital scene is also a highlight.  We are accustomed to seeing a sad scene of someone nearly dead and the friends and family distraught.  Naked Gun turns it on his head with a clever set up line as Ed relays Nordberg's chances for survival.  When the cops enter the writers and directors take advantage of this expectation Frank asks where Norberg is (when he is right next him in bed) and then knocks him all over the place, nearly killing him sets up some uproarious laughs.  Following this are Frank's poorly judged remarks to Nordberg's devastated wife who the filmmakers are wise enough to never let get mad at him and foolishly keep clinging to him for comfort.  Her wails as Frank's comments get worse and worse give the scene a perfect pitch.  Of course now the fact that accused double murderer O.J. Simpson plays Nordberg gives an odd sensation to the whole enterprise.  Now we can enjoy how Nordberg is continually the victim of slapstick in this and the other films as opposed to just laughing at him but also feeling bad.  

The scene where Frank meets Montalban's character Vincent Ludwig has a lot of slapstick which I think works less successfully than some of the other moments in the film but I like how Frank mindlessly tells Ludwig confidential information on Nordberg's status, how much he has said, and where he is "Our Lady of the Worthless Miracle." (which was apparently originally called "Our Lady Who Never Got The Pickle").  I think Worthless Miracle is a funnier line. 

The scene in which Frank chases down a doctor is also funny mostly for the use of a very droll John Houseman who likely never expected his final screen role would be as a driving instructor.  Sadly the film premiered after Houseman's passing.  Interestingly the film treats the doctor as a criminal when he has been hypnotized and is actually innocent but that is never acknowledged.  Perhaps it was set up for Frank to learn this later but dropped.

One item that distinguishes Naked Gun from other similar spoof films is it has a plot and character arc of its own.  They are pretty lightweight but a lot of other spoofs do not work if you do not know the source material.  For example I have shown my kids Hot Shots because they have seen Top Gun but not Hot Shots Part Deux because they are too young to watch the Rambo films.  Naked Gun ape detective shows and films but a lot of its comedy is not dependent on watching them.  One of the best exchanges is when the mayor chews Drebin out for a park "incident".  The carefully worded dialogue reveals that Drebin mistook a performance of the assassination scene from Julius Caesar for an actual murder and shot the actors.  I laughed uproariously at that and quoted it with friends.  In the late 1990s I finally saw Dirty Harry and realize with the set design, camera angles and delivery that the Naked Gun was making fun of a similar exchange in that film but it didn't make me laugh any harder because it worked so well on its own.

Priscella Presley was mostly known to the world as Elvis' ex and caretaker of his legacy but to me she will always be Jane first.  She is painted as a femme fatale but actually turns out to truly love Frank which is unexpectedly touching.  The date montage is to the upbeat song "Into Something Good" is innovative and with a highlight being where the new lovers walk laughing out of the downbeat war film Platoon.  The dialogue between them is made funny by the commitment of both actors who play against it.

Another beautifully crafted small moment is when Ed and Frank search someone at a dinner and Frank accidentally grabs Ed's wallet, leading to Ed thinking the man is having an affair with Ed's offscreen wife.  The entire beat is filmed with one shot behind Ed and perfectly timed.

The baseball game is the best climax of the three films.  The game is staged with a fun spirit and the filmmakers keep the momentum up with Frank impersonating an opera singer and an umpire while  both disrupting and participating in the game.  The standout moment is Frank singing the Star Spangled Banner for several reasons.  The scene really shows how willing Nielsen was to look foolish, singing an entire song off key (while forgetting some of the lyrics) in what is usually a patriotic moment at sporting events.  The crowd's befuddled reaction is expected but there are two extra kicks.  First the TV screen names Enrico Palazzo (the name of the actual singer) onto the very Anglo-Saxon Frank which is  watched by the actual singer who screams in frustration with a gag in his mouth at that seeing someone performing so badly in his name.  Secondly the cops who come to stop Frank still have their hands on their hearts, respecting the moment.  

Comedy is often a showcase for younger actors but this innovative film stars veteran actors who were mostly in their 60s (Nielsen, Kennedy, Montalban).  Presley was about 43 which, although about 20 years younger than Nielsen, was more mature than leading ladies usually were at that time.

The Naked Gun is a classic comedy.  Its success spawned many other spoof films but the closest any film to recapturing the spirit were the sequels, particularly the first one.  ****

Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991)

Growing up in the 1980s I was a big fan of the show Little House on the Prairie, which may not have been the coolest show but its story of a frontier family and their community overcoming countless hardships (loosely adapted from Laura Ingalls Wilder's books) through warmth and hard work really appealed to me.  By far my favorite character was Charles Ingalls, played by Michael Landon, who was also the show's main producer, and one of the principal writers and directors.  Landon's screen presence gave weight to Charles' wisdom and humor.  But Landon also made Charles a flawed character with a hot temper who sometimes made bad decisions, which ultimately made him human.  David Rose's often piano-based score added a lot of emotion to the show.

What does Little House on the Prairie have to do with Naked Gun?  On July 1, 1991 Michael Landon died of pancreatic cancer.  I was pretty saddened by it, though while I knew Landon was sick I had hoped he would pull through based on his upbeat public appearances, the last of which was in May.  The next day I went to see Naked Gun 2 1/2 and the film gave me a series of much needed laughs that helped ease the pain I and so many other Americans were feeling.  

Naked Gun 2 1/2 (also directed by David Zucker and written by him and Pat Proft-Jerry was working on other films like Ghost and My Life and Abrahams started the Hot Shots series) is like many comedy sequels a little bigger than the first ($23 million budget up from  $12 million), with bigger gags.   For example in the first film there is a gag of Nordberg's chalk outline in the water (even though Nordberg is still alive).  In this film when Frank enters a room after a bombing there are a couple of dozen chalk outlines in varying forms.  I think the original is funnier but it may just be a matter of taste.  My favorite line in the scene is when Frank accidentally bumps into a corpse and Ed says "Frank just found another one" even though it is in the middle of a crowded room.  Also a highlight is the sketch artists' drawings of sexual fantasies of Jane (and Ed's ever befuddled reactions to it).

The opening sequence establishes the new setting (everyone is now in Washington D.C. instead of L.A. and they are back in L.A. in the next one) as Drebin first appears (to the sound of Ira Newborn's score) accidentally smacking First Lady Barbara Bush in the face with a door and walking alongside President George H.W. Bush into a state dinner.  Nielsen has only one line but spends a lot of it completely out of place at this dinner.  It also sets up the running gag of Barbara Bush being the victim of Drebin's shenanigans.

A lot of the humor is more based on sex and the film recycles a lot of gags from the show ("Is this a bust?" "Little Italy" and Frank and a bad guy shooting at each other from behind cover in reverse shots and the medium shot reveals they are about a foot apart). 

2 1/2 (which had a teaser trailer parodying the pottery scene from Ghost) makes more use of the terrific George Kennedy (who was so good in Cool Hand Luke as Luke's bully and then protector), allowing him to participate in a lot of the gags instead of just reacting to them.  By contrast in the first film Ed dumbfoundedly reacts to Drebin dressing up as Enrico Pallazo but in 2 1/2's musical impersonation Ed is dressed up as one the mariachi singers.  He also goes to beat up a thug and offscreen we see Drebin react to punches with head movements similar to in the first film when Jane falls down the steps which then cuts to Ed knocked out cold on the floor while the much smaller thug brandishes a fist at him.  Even better is the set up which angers Ed (seeing a kidnap victim beaten up not realizing it is all inadvertently Frank's fault).

 The bar scene has some funny moments that parody Casablanca (the piano player who starts singing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" in a high pitched voice when Jane asks for him to play their song with the audience thinking it would be something like "As Time Goes By"), the disaster pictures, and the long married Ed's reactions to Frank's description of his swinging single life now that Frank and Jane are no longer together.

The climax, involving the gang trying to allow a scientist to give a speech at the White House (and the oil barrons trying to prevent it since it will dictate environmental policy) is not as entertaining as in Part I but has several stand out moments (the "Besome mucho scene", Frank getting beat up and left on the floor while dressed as a mariachi-and someone leaving a dollar in a cup as if he was a sleeping beggar, the audience for the big environmental speech all falling asleep while listening to it).  The resolution to the bomb scare is a little too convenient and the manner in which Hapsburg is dispatched feels as if someone threw a dart at a wall and it landed on "lion" (though much earlier Frank had driven a tank through the walls of a zoo, freeing some animals).  

Robert Goulet, who appeared in one of the credit sequences as the murdered guest star of the week on Police Squad, plays the villain Hapsburg, brings a nice slick charm.  Anthony James, who had been a memorably twisted villain on the A-Team, shows some comedic chops as Hector Savage, one of Hapsburg's goons, especially when he is moved hearing Jane sing "The Way We Were." President Bush is played by John Roarke (an actor whose other work I am not familiar with) captures a lot of Bush's mannerisms though Dana Carvey was doing such an impressive job playing Bush on Saturday Night Live I wonder why the producers did not just hire him as anyone else would suffer by comparison.  Richard Griffiths is good in a double role as the suffering benevolent British Dr. Meinheimer and his doppelganger Earl Hacker, who has a deep Southern accent and long black hair.  

Naked Gun 2 1/2 is not quite as funny or creative as the first but it is a lot better than most other comedies of its type, proving there is still plenty of life in the series.  ***

Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)

David Zucker only produced the last film of the trilogy and turned the director's reins over to Peter Segal who has since directed several comedy films, especially an Adam Sandler film I much like, 50 First Dates.    

Paramount curiously released this film in March instead of the summer and as a result the film, while a success, had lighter numbers than the other films which came out while people were out of school.  Paramount did not have a major June release that year so I wonder why they did not put it there.  Speed and The Lion King were the most successful films of that month but the Naked Gun certainly could have carved out a market share. The only reason I can think of is the climax of the film takes place at the Oscars so the studio may have felt releasing the film in March may have made it more timely.  

The series faced a challenge by this point.  Due to the huge success of the other Naked Gun films other studios started putting out similar spoofs.  Pat Proft and Jim Abrahams (who both worked on the first two Naked Gun films) had the aforementioned Hot Shots series.  Gene Quintano Jr. (a writer on the Police Academy films) directed National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 with Emilio Estevez (Hot Shots star Charlie Sheen's brother) and Samuel L. Jackson which riffed on the Lethal Weapon movies.  Loaded Weapon had some good gags but the Lethal films by that point were pretty comedic in their own right.  Director Carl Reiner put out Fatal Instinct a few months earlier which parodied sexy film noirs like Basic Instinct and Body Heat.  It had a funny concept (Armand Assante plays a police officer and a lawyer who often defends the people he arrests) and Assante gives a committed performance but it otherwise is not too memorable and Sean Young is poorly cast as the femme fatale.  Although the spoof genre was now feeling a little oversaturated Naked Gun 33 1/3 stands above the competition thanks to Nielsen and the seasoned team behind these films.

33 1/3 adds Anna Nicole Smith as a sex bomb clearly designed to appeal to young men (and be a temptation to Frank) more than the now late 40s Priscilla Presley.  However there is no younger man to draw attention from the 67-year-old Nielsen although Jane does leave Frank for awhile.  Smith's line readings are pretty flat but there is a sexy saxophone score that seems to follow her around.  The funniest bit involving her is when Frank's usual inner monologue that he used when first seeing Jane in the first two films is suddenly out loud and cut off by Rocco Dillon.

Naked Gun 33 1/3 spends much of its screen time spoofing specific moments in other (mostly recent at the time) films.  The opening makes fun of  the steps sequence in The Untouchables but as cleverly staged as it is the moment that made me laugh hardest is the headline on the newspaper Frank is "reading" which says "Dyslexia for Cure Found" which has nothing to do with The Untouchables.

The spoof of Thelma and Louise does not really work as it focuses on Louise character just hating men.  Thelma and Louise was much more nuanced than that.  It is feminist film about a friendship between two different women who push back a bit on society's expectations of them but to call them man hating is a cheap shot.

The funniest bits of the film for me is seeing Frank overly embrace domesticity and the sperm bank scenes, especially the exchange Frank has about playing with his uncle.  Frank going undercover in prison has some good laughs and he has a great line about making a list of the people he is going to kill shortly (to cover writing a letter for Jane).  While writing this letter Frank references a lost love.  This puts a funny moment in the film that was likely just intended for the hilarious teaser trailer.  I remember going to the movies in late 1993 and seeing a trailer of a woman in a period dress running toward a cottage, which was a common sight in films like Remains of the Day and Howard's End.  The door is unexpectedly opened by Frank Drebin in his usual grey suit who (without noticing) knocks the woman off a cliff into shark infested waters.  

The Oscars sequence has some good laughs but it largely mimics the structure of the baseball game climax of the first film with Frank using all kinds of methods to insert himself into the show to stop a bomb.  As a film fan I pay a lot of attention to the Oscars and the lead up to it but often find parts of the show tedious.  I think the Oscars also are not a great target since they get made fun of a lot so the jokes were not too fresh.  

There are some other sore points within the sequence too.  Frank exchanges a gun for letting the bomber have the bomb back during one exchange which seems particularly dumb, even for Frank.  I would believed it more if Frank had been tricked into doing so.  Also, while there are some celebrity cameos when the biggest names are Raquel Welch and James Earl Jones it doesn't feel remotely like the real event which is always packed with huge stars.  The biggest stars around that time were people like Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon and Jack Nicholson.  If the Naked Gun producers could not get one of them to show up then they could have had some fun with an impersonator like in Naked Gun 2 1/2.  

Fred Ward plays a much tougher villain than the others in the series.  I found he got the job done but the character was not particularly funny.  

However a couple of funny bits are Frank presenting an award and not knowing when to stop reading the teleprompter.  Also Frank has a funny gymnastics routine on ropes while Jane is proclaiming her love for him on stage.  Frank's disruption of a musical number by not knowing the choreography is inventively staged though, although I prefer the similar moments in the first two films.  I suppose I just like hearing Frank sing.

The closing gag of the film is brief but inventive and the final shot of the film has the prescient sight of a police officer chasing a character played by O.J. Simpson, which became all too real a few months later.

Naked Gun 33 1/3 is certainly a worthy addition to the series but it feels like it was the right time to end it.  ***

The notoriety of O.J. Simpson's arrest a few months later combined with the lower grosses probably prevented Paramount from greenlighting another film, though if 33 1/3 had performed better Nordberg  was certainly was not an essential character and could have been written out.  Nielsen did several other spoof films such as a Mel Brooks take on Dracula (which I did not see) and Spy Hard and Wrongfully Accused (which I did).  Spy Hard was an intermittently funny take on the James Bond series.  Wrongfully Accused largely spoofed The Fugitive.  Wrongfully Accused has a couple of good laughs at the beginning when Nielsen's character is performing a Riverdance like number but Richard Crenna (in his last role) had the unenviable task of making fun of Tommy Lee Jones' Gerard.  The take Crenna and director Pat Proft came up with was giving a lot of fast orders that do not make a lot of sense.  Gerard was sometimes so funny on his own that he is hard to spoof.  Nielsen's character running from the famous train crash in The Fugitive is overplayed when the train starts hunting him.  Also in neither of the films did the leading ladies have the chemistry with Nielsen that Priscilla Presley did.  If anything it goes to show how special the Naked Gun films were.

I am unfamiliar with most of Akiva Schaffer's work outside of Saturday Night Live but am certainly routing for him and Neeson to present a fresh approach to Frank Drebin.