Forty years ago, in the United States of the mid-1980’s, the Trust-Fund comedy was like the celluloid version of dirty jokes one could hear at the Bar or in the High School lunch room. The humor style of Zucker/Zucker and Abrams was somewhere between the societal commentary of Woody Allen and Mel Brooks and the political incorrectness of such comic voices as Don Rickles and Sam Kinison. Jokes about the cliches of human sexuality, racial stereotypes, bathroom humor,etc. Where some of the movies of this era used this comedic platform to take blistering shots at society, starting in earnest with 1978’s “Animal House” and 1979’s “Stripes”, others were less concerned about making a cultural statement and fell more under the heading of “Conservatives like to party, too”.
Films such as 1980’s “Caddyshack”, involving naughty shenanigans at a ritzy Golf Club/Country Club, “Hot Dog…The Movie”, where fun-loving youngsters frolic at a ski resort or 1984’s “Up the Creek”, where College-age kids engage in a Whitewater rafting race (emphasis on White) against more corrupt College-aged kids were all about partying with and rubbing elbows with the Wealthy. No tales of hardscrabble living here, these were the tales of youthful ribaldry before these hypothetical metaphorical characters went on to careers selling Real Estate or managing Hedge funds.
In 1984, screenwriters Pat Proft and Neal Israel got on a bit of a roll with scripts that were full of naughty toilet humor laughs with guilt-free messaging. The first movie of theirs of note, which spawned six financially successful sequels, was the notorious “Police Academy ” franchise; chockful of lampoonable caricatures, bawdy locker room sex jokes and racial stereotyping that wasn’t considered insensitive by the public in general. Their second hit of that Summer was a film totally devoid of introspection, a film lacking in anything profound to say about the human condition, I’m referring to writer Israel’s foray into directing, “Bachelor Party”.
Following a group of Twenty or Thirty-something loveable miscreants, “Bachelor Party” assumes we the audience is privy to all of the juvenile desires that it’s morally corrupt protagonists are pursuing; NSA hook-ups with hot prostitutes, wanton drug and alcohol abuse, watching exotic dancers get it on with farm animals, assuming that your family’s matriarchal/patriarchal figures secretly desire to engage in bondage fetishes and fondle the over-endowed private parts of strip club performers, you get the jizz, er, gist. This film is less about any tangible ideas and more about one recollecting to your fellow movie goers on the ride home from the theater “Hey, how about when that Proctologist took her finger out of her patient’s asshole and attempted to give Tom Hanks a hug?”
Yes, you read that correctly, this movie starred a young Tom Hanks, long before he became a de facto on-screen spokesman for onscreen Hollywood messaging. Hanks in this film seemed to be cast as a Prep School version of Bill Murray with better hair and less facial acne and truth be told, I prefer this version of Hanks to that of his numerous later films, which is not meant to diminish his work in later more serious movies like “Philadelphia” and “Catch Me if You Can”. Here, however, Hanks plays an unrepentant smart-ass and mischief maker and he is quite compelling at being both. When he chances upon a Male exotic dancer who he has hired to play a prank on his intended future Mother-In -Law to be, the dancer goes by the moniker of “Nick the Dick” due to the freakish size (so we are told) of his trouser Snake. “Do I call you Nick?” Hanks as the lead character Rick quips, “Or is it Mr. Dick?”
This is not high-brow entertainment that ever, ever veers off into maudlin relationship messaging, it’s a string of puerile bathroom gags. Part of what sells the film for me is it’s incessant optimism that it’s being funny, like a used car salesman who is failing in front of you but won’t stop being glib and will never cease attempting to solicit you. Sometimes watching comedians flail around is almost as laugh inducing as their material actually landing. In another brief moment, Hanks as Rick makes a joke to a dim bulb hot Blonde who has nothing to say back, Rick briefly pulls down her tube top and addresses her perky boobs while he asks “Can you hear me? Are these things on?”
Screenwriters Proft and Israel, as they did with their screenplays for the Police Academy franchise movies, draft up an assortment of whimsical characters that mirror shallow 1980’s society; Adrian Zmed is Rick’s cute and sleazy buddy O’Neal (a dead ringer for Tim Matheson’s “Otter” from “Animal House”), William Tepper as Rick’s jaded and married Physician Brother, Tawny Kitaen as Rick’s beautiful, hip and puckish fiance Debbie, Sumant as an Indian Pimp pretending to act “Black”, George Grizzard as Rick’s disapproving and crusty potential Father-In-Law and there are countless more. The script, in the manner of an R-rated TV sitcom, does a solid job of sketching out this outlandish group of characters with quick zings of dialogue. Other stalwart roles include Deborah Harmon as Debbie’s man-hating Cousin, Barbara Stewart as Debbie’s daffy Mother, Bradford Bancroft as Rick’s manic depressive and pill-addicted buddy. Hell, even future B-movie action star Michael Dudikoff is in this as an airhead stoner.
A cynic might propose that much of this material is derivative, that you could trace many of these jokes to other films and that is a valid point. A scene involving an older Woman unknowingly tugging on a hunky Man’s Johnson is straight out of Director Bob Clark’s bawdy “Porky’s” from 1981, a scene where Rick finds himself face-to-face with a naked girl from his past is an “Animal House” rip-off. In addition, so is the Mule that the Boys kidnap and bring to the party and the ensuing Burro helps himself to the Cocaine and Quaaludes that are laid out on the snack table. This is a movie you either watch by yourself or with others who are subsequently high and drunk.
The plot of this flick, as it were, involves our fearless Rick as a young post-College fuck-up who drives a School Bus for a living, shuttling foul-mouthed Catholic children who gamble and view pornography. Rick is engaged to Debbie, who comes from a family of Country Club snobs who find Rick revolting. They prefer Debbie’s ex, Cole (played by Robert Prescott), a typical Aryan-looking preppy 80’s trust fund comedy bad guy, who will go to any lengths to get Debbie back. Rick never takes a pause from mocking everyone, to Debbie’s delight and Daddy’s chagrin.
Meanwhile, Rick’s depraved circle of friends, while slightly remorseful that Rick won’t be available to harass strange Women with them anymore, are excited to engage in a bachelor party of the free-for-all variety. As one character exclaims, “A Bachelor Party! With booze, drugs, guns and hookers!” A scene involving Rick and Debbie having dinner together is surprisingly charming, Hanks almost appears to be improvising and his neurotic self-commentary is both cute and wry, with his perfect hair and dreamy Blue eyes. This version of Hanks is breezy and fun-loving, the Hanks that audiences got in later films when he was still milking his Boy-next-door-appeal, such as “Turner and Hooch”, “Joe Versus the Volcano”, “Sleepless in Seattle”, “Big”, etc are too sappy for me, too much self-absorbed baggage. This guilt-free and unapologetic Hanks, I find to be much more satisfying.
Not to crater to conspiracies, but it is interesting that this wasn’t a simple movie for me to find again without ordering to buy it online, almost like the powers that be would prefer for it to be buried. I found it on an internet archival site titled Daily Motion. While the jokes are pretty vulgar, this R-rated film only shows a lot of breasts and some Male butt cheeks. We get a scene where a buddy of Rick’s attempts to give his own groin a good scrubbing after having relations with a surprise transsexual who he had assumed was a Woman.
One thing about physical comedies that involve salacious mayhem, is that they either sell the cacophony and make you laugh, or they don’t. Just because there is mania occurring on the screen, people are screaming but it’s not necessarily laugh-inducing, but this film’s hyper activity worked for me in 1984 in a rowdy audience in Lawrence, KS and worked for me watching it on my phone. Debbie and her friends attempt to crash the party dressed as hookers and end up in the wrong Hotel room, being pursued by half-dressed Japanese buisnessmen, a two-girl show meant for the party ends up at Debbie’s house for her pristine Bridal Shower, complete with hookers in Leather Teddies performing with vibrators to the horror of the sanctified wealthy Bridal Shower guests. An all-girl Band with Beehive hairdos shows up at the Bachelor Party out of nowhere and begins rocking out, I may have attended parties in High School and College with this same unbridled energy.
Besides the quirky staging of the mayhem here, the Cinematography by Hal Trussell and the editing by Tom Walls are both vibrant and there isn’t a film score to speak of, just random pop songs from up-and-coming Bands at the time like REM. What makes this movie timely for me besides it’s nostalgia, is that it’s really a comedy about Conservatives who like sex but are too repressed to be forthcoming without an event as a cover story, so to speak. Unlike 80’s comedies such as “Trading Places”, “The Blues Brothers” or “Tootsie”, there is no social messaging from the Left-wing perspective here, there is just the Trust-Funders having an unrepentant blow-out, while Rick shows sensitive concern towards Debbie and her anxiety about his fidelity or his suicidal pill-addicted buddy’s attempts to fall into despair, the film is oblivious to worry or inappropriateness.
Nobody here has concern for the needy, everyone is just trying to get their rocks off. Rick has no Black friends, but there are Black pimps and hookers in this. Jewish people are portrayed as aggressive and whiny in this flick, if they are in it at all. There are for the most part, WASPS out for a good time, no subject is too taboo. I recall in my late 20’s attempting to date a random Conservative girl who worked at a Bank near me. She told me a story on the phone about her Brother going to a Halloween party dressed as a Nun with nothing on under his habit. My Left-Wing friends, as adventurous as they could be, would never dress in anything that outlandish. Just as in this movie when it comes to partying, Conservatives, maybe in that era in part due to the Preppy norms that they were expected to uphold, could take partying out further than anyone.
“Bachelor Party” to me as an entertainment, embodies this idea. That the more rigid and structured on the surface that one’s existence is, the flip side is that their recreation is much more extreme in the opposite direction. In the 1980’s, my experience when partying with poorer people was that you were more concerned with avoiding violence, albeit the Music, Dancing, Food and quality of Marijuana was superlative. Most in attendance already knew their sexual boundaries, whether through prior engagement or experimentation. “Bachelor Party” mirrors for me what I saw more of when rich kids drank; their Conservative roles in their real lives led to more risque rebellion when they were released from their faux disciplined cages.
Having attended numerous College parties from the mid-1980’s through the mid-1990’s (The last few years as a part of bands that played at Fraternities), the longer the night went on and the drunker that people got, the more naked, sweaty, wayward and licentious it got, all of those images came flooding back to me as I watched Tom Hanks in this movie dance wildly on top of a Hotel piano while naked Blondes riding on the shoulders of topless Frat Boys played Volleyball with a Beach Ball to the rhythm of an all-Girl band blasting out “Why Do Good Girls Like Bad Boys”, a veritable sea of glowing, sweaty nakedness. The party was fun while it lasted.
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