Leslie Nielsen

  • Prom Night (1980)

    Prom Night (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2020) I have rather vivid memories of Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (ugh, that locker scene), and was curious about its prequel, but it turns out that the films barely have anything in common except the title and general high-school-horror theme. Most fundamentally, Prom Night is a boring psycho-with-a-knife slasher, rather than the supernatural horror that I find more interesting. Not only that, but Prom Night is influential: coming in a few months after Friday the 13th, starring Halloween scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, and affirming the tradition of special-day-themed slashers, it ended up providing a template for many other low-budget filmmakers trying to follow in those footsteps, littering the early 1980s with dozens if not hundreds of broadly similar (and awful) horror films. The highlights of those films are “the kills” rather than “the plot” and they continue to make critics grumpy to these days. Prom Night doesn’t fly all that high: the structure is familiar, the mystery is familiar, the prom night setting is not as original considering the example left by Carrie, and the characters couldn’t be blander if they tried. There are a few ways in which the film is more interesting as a historical marker than for itself. It’s one of the most successful Canadian movies of the era, for instance (my country has much to answer for in the role it played in the slasher explosion), was put together in Toronto by a young Toronto-area cast and crew, and it features Leslie Nielsen in what would be one of his last dramatic roles following the success of Airplane! But even by slasher standards, Prom Night is not all that interesting, and given that I don’t like the genre to begin with, there’s little else to say—fans of the genre will like, but it won’t convert anyone else.

  • Viva Knievel! (1977)

    Viva Knievel! (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) The curse of star vehicles is that you have to like the stars, and while Evel Knievel was still a shorthand for “daredevil stuntman” when I was a young kid, 1977 was a year of highs and lows for him. On the low side, a failed jump injured him in January, and later during the year he was arrested for assaulting his promoter, leading to the end of his sponsorship deals. On the plus side (although that would be debatable), there was the release of Viva Knievel!, a film featuring Knievel as himself, acting in an ultimate star vehicle. Mere words can barely sum up the inanity of the result, which starts (non-ironically) with Knievel comforting kids at an orphanage by handing them action figures of himself and ends with Knievel freeing a woman and kid from the clutches of an evil drug dealer played by Leslie Nielsen. In between, we get Gene Kelly acting as his mechanic, a preachy anti-drug speech interrupting the action (It even interrupts the film’s plot summary on Wikipedia), a few daredevil jumps and an anti-feminist rant that’s supposed to charm the film’s romantic interest—and does because it’s a star vehicle. If that wasn’t enough, the 1970s fashions are showcased in eye-injuring colour.  Viva Knievel must be seen to be believed, but that’s overhyping it—much of the film is deathly boring, with only a few “that’s stupid!’ moments to enliven things along the way. It does serve as a warning signal of sort to anyone hubristic enough to play themselves in a hagiography—Sic transit gloria mundi and all. One thinks a death-defying stuntman should know better.

  • The Reluctant Astronaut (1967)

    The Reluctant Astronaut (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2020) It’s not that I don’t get Don Knotts—the wild-eyed goofy shtick is timeless—but seen from the twenty-first century, it’s not all that clear why he ended up with that many starring roles in 1960s comedies. Films like mostly-forgotten curio The Reluctant Astronaut, which takes some inspiration from space-age race-to-the-moon mania to feature decidedly the un-heroic Knotts as a janitor promoted to space pioneer. It’s actually not a bad premise to match a high-profile comic actor with a topical situation (somehow, we were spared a 2010s Adam-Sandler-in-SpaceX remake). And, to be fair, Knotts understands the assignment perfectly: he plays the fool very well, and the film fits completely around his performance. If you want some comic theory, The Reluctant Astronaut is very much a film-long exploration of the clash between the sacred and the profane. Speaking of which—not-quite white-haired Leslie Nielsen plays the straight man in this silly comedy, portending his later-career turn as a comic icon. Space enthusiasts may be amused at the integration of real-life footage shot at Cape Kennedy. The story is familiar, but the historical value is rather interesting—for a dose of space-age pop optimism (the film feels closer to Kennedy-era 1960s than hippie-1960s), for how Hollywood comedies don’t change all that much throughout the decades, and perhaps even for understanding Knott’s appeal as a star.

  • Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)

    Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, In French, On Cable TV, December 2019) I’m not a big fan of late-period Mel Brooks and Leslie Nielsen played in some remarkable stinkers outside of The Naked Gun series between 1990 and 2001. Given those biases, you can accurately predict my tepid reaction to Dracula: Dead and Loving It. An obvious spoof of the film adaptations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it strips down the plot to its barest essential, then adds gags as it goes. While the obvious inspiration is the 1931 Bela Lugosi film (“I never drink wine … oh, what the hell. Let me try it.”), there are obvious pokes here and there at 1922’s Nosferatu, 1967’s The Fearless Vampire Killers and 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And while (as someone who’s seen those Dracula movies in the past year or so), there’s something intriguing in seeing the Dracula story boiled down to its essence before, I’m not so happy with the comedy aspect. Dracula: Dead and Loving It simply feels laborious most of the time. In Brooksian fashion, the humour is basic, but the worst part of it is that it’s usually telegraphed well in advance and keeps going long after the humour has faded away. Predictability and insistence are not qualities that mesh well with humour, and one of the big surprises of comparing this film with other spoof comedies is how it feels far less dense with jokes than the better examples of the form. (At least it’s better than the non-funny Friedberg/Seltzer spoofs of the 2000s, although that’s not saying much.)  Still, let’s allow for some leeway: As I’m checking quotes from the film, I’m finding that the movie is far funnier on the page in its original form than on the French dub—this doesn’t change my mind about the pacing and predictability of the film, but it gets an extra point or two for the actual jokes. The other thing is that despite the film’s low budget, there’s a pleasant Victorian atmosphere to the proceedings—the sets and costumes are nice and it surely helps that there’s a lot of cleavage on display from nearly every female character. Then there’s Leslie Nielsen (as Dracula) and Mel Brooks (as Van Helsing) trying to out-ham each other, which is not all that bad. Still, Dracula: Dead and Loving It feels like it squanders a lot of its assets—but, of course, it’s late-period Mel Brooks, so what did we expect?

  • The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

    The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2018) Considering my criticism of the Poseidon remake, I find it almost amusing that much of what I don’t like about the original The Poseidon Adventure is what didn’t work decades later. Much of the film feels like a repetitive loop as the survivors of a capsized cruise ship try to make their way out of the wreck: Encounter an obstacle, lose a member of the cast, and proceed to the next obstacle. There’s a high point during the initial disaster, and the plot does get slightly more interesting in the last half-hour, but much of The Poseidon Adventure feels too long and repetitive. The premise does have a whiff of originality to it (arguably extinguished by the remake), and it’s mildly interesting to see Leslie Nielsen pop up in what could have been a major role in any other movie. Otherwise, Gene Hackman is not bad as a priest questioning his own faith, and Ernest Borgnine makes for a capable foil throughout the ensuing adventures. The special effects are occasionally good, although the CGI achievements of the sequel clearly outshine the original in that area. There is a characteristic early-seventies feel to the entire film that some viewers will like. As for which version is better I’m curiously ambivalent—I usually prefer the originals on ideological grounds, but what I’m finding here is that the original The Poseidon Adventure doesn’t have much to recommend over its remake.

  • Forbidden Planet (1956)

    Forbidden Planet (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, December 2017) How could I call myself a science-fiction expert, reviewer or even fan given that I hadn’t even seen Forbidden Planet? Isn’t it in the running for the title of the fiftiesiest of the 1950s science-fiction movies? Featuring an almost-unrecognizable Leslie Nielsen (with not-white hair!) as the captain of a mission investigating the disappearance of a colony, Forbidden Planet begins with a saucer with theremin (ish) music and clearly shows itself to be a predecessor of the Star Trek template. Much of the film is hopelessly dated by today’s standards, but consider that to be a compliment, as it can be enjoyed as a retro-futurist period piece, not wrong as much as existing in its own reality. Even the mumbo-jumbo of the third act can be excused by the rest of the film, a big-budget science-fiction spectacular with effects that are still mildly impressive today. The pacing is off, the SF devices are clumsy (Robbie the Robot, ugh!) and the acting clearly comes from a pre-realism era, but Forbidden Planet has, in sixty years, acquired a patina of charm that shields it from more conventional criticism. I enjoyed seeing it quite a bit more than I expected, and it’s not just about filling in a gap in my knowledge of the genre—there is enough good stuff here and there to make the film enjoyable on its own terms.

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

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

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2017) One of the problems in watching the Naked Gun trilogy on successive days is that the series is so generally consistent in achieving its comic objectives that it’s difficult to tease apart any film-specific commentary. So what’s to be said about Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult? The film is funny; Leslie Nielsen is comedy gold with his deadpan portrayal of a veteran cop; OJ Simpson features in it. This third instalment gets more insistent with its movie-specific parodies, heralding the downfall of the subgenre later on. There’s also a crudeness to some of the gags that clearly makes this third volume the least successful in the trilogy, but that’s not really unexpected. At least the climax, set at the Academy Awards, allows for some pokes at Hollywood itself, although the references there are getting dated far more quickly than the rest of the series. Still, once you’ve started this series, there’s no real reason to stop—even as a third instalment, the film is funny enough to warrant a look.

  • The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991)

    The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2017) While The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear is slightly less funny than its predecessor, the difference is slight enough as to be negligible, and the original started out high enough. The result is another solid comedy, perhaps a bit more dubiously motivated (what is Frank Drebin doing in Washington, all of a sudden?) but still effectively hitting upon the tropes of police thrillers. There are a few more outright nods to specific films, but they’re still controlled well compared to the grotesque excesses of more contemporary spoofs. The poke at Bush(I)-era American politics date the film more quickly than the generic cop-thriller stuff of the first film. Otherwise, there isn’t much to say about the film that wasn’t already discussed for the first film: It’s a consistent series, now without its flaws but good enough to be worth a few laughs. 

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

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

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2017) Much of the fun in watching The Naked Gun is in seeing the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker team (along with Pat Proft) take on the police thriller as worthy of spoofing. Using Leslie Nielsen as a gaffe-prone policeman with more zeal than polish is inspired, but then again most of The Naked Gun comes from the short-lived but still-hilarious Police Squad! TV show. The basic elements being familiar to the filmmakers, the film itself seems well-practised, something that also probably has to do with the previous ZAZ spoof movies. In any case, the solid plot acts as a clothesline on which to add various gags, joke sequences and parodies. The number of outright parodies is low (the shift would happen in later instalments of the series) but the laughs are high, mostly because the film is spoofing a genre and generating a lot of jokes along the way. Leslie Nielsen is solid, playing his ridiculous character Frank Drebin with absolute dryness. Ricardo Montalban is also a highlight in his own way, while Priscilla Presley, George Hamilton and (ironically now) O.J. Simpson round up the main cast. The third act does get a bit long especially if you have no great interest in baseball. Still, no matter how you see it, The Naked Gun remains a terrific spoof comedy, as essential today as other classics of the genre such as Airplane!, Top Secret! or Hot Shots!

  • Creepshow (1982)

    Creepshow (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2016) Horror anthology Creepshow may be uneven and thirty-five years old by now, but it does have a few things still going for it. Among them is a charming throwback to fifties horror comics, along with the tongue-in-cheek, slightly-sadistic sense of humour that characterized it. Another would be seeing Stephen King hamming it up as a rural yokel gradually colonized by an alien plant. Yet another would be Leslie Nielsen is a rather serious role as a betrayed husband seeking revenge. Creepshow also notably adopts a number of comic book conventions decades before comic-book movies, under the cackling direction of horror legend George A. Romero. A very young (but not young-looking) Ed Harris pops up in a minor role, while Hal Holbrook and Adrienne Barbeau have more substantial roles in another segment. Finally, “They’re Creeping Up on You” cranks up the ick-factor to eleven for those who are bothered by cockroaches—you’ve been warned. Otherwise, well, it’s hit-and-miss. Neither the laughs nor the chills are always evenly balanced, and there’s a repetition of themes and effect even in five vignettes—at least two, and maybe even three, end on a note of “the dead rise for revenge!” Some of the special effects look dodgy (although this is more forgivable in a semi-comic context) and one suspects that had a similar film been made today, the direction would have been quite a bit more impressionistic. Still, Creepshow is not a bad grab bag thirty-five years later, and it does sustain viewing satisfaction until the end. As with most anthology movies, it’s perhaps best appreciated in small doses, a segment a night.

  • Police Squad! (1982)

    Police Squad! (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, December 2010) Almost thirty years later, this short-lived TV series still holds up splendidly.  Best-known as the prototype for the Naked Gun! trilogy of police movie spoofs, Police Squad! is an amusing attempt to translate the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker brand of rapid-paced comedy to the TV screen.  The pacing is slower than the films but is considerably faster than most sitcoms and as a result still works pretty well even today, echoing the rhythm of latter series such as The Simpsons and Family Guy.  Leslie Nielsen is great as Frank Drebin, although his TV portrayal is a bit more competent that the film’s doofus character.  One of the ways the series can sustain its rapid-fire stream of comedy is by recycling gags, and it’s hard to tell whether they’re funnier the first or the sixth time: The end-of-episode fake-freeze moments still feel inspired today.  At six episodes, total running time for the series on DVD is slightly over two hours, making it an ideal length for an evening’s viewing.  The DVD contains a generous amount of supplementary material, including three episode commentaries and a gag reel.

  • Scary Movie 4 (2006)

    Scary Movie 4 (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, April 2006) Roughly similar in tone to the previous Scary Movie 3, this one is a comedy grab-bag that chiefly goes after (in decreasing order of importance) War Of The Worlds, The Grudge and The Village, with other assorted pokes and tweaks at other films (Saw, Million Dollar Baby and Brokeback Mountain) and pop-culture icons. Scary Movie 4‘s biggest problem is that it’s quite happy to pastiche other films, but seldom goes for the jugular: Movie critics had funnier jabs at War Of The Worlds during the summer of 2005 than the parody ever manages to put together. (The constantly-screaming little girl shtick isn’t even mocked.) Scary Movie 4, alas, is almost completely bloodless in its parodies: it recreates the original with some goofiness but seldom more. (This being said, the production values are often impressive, especially considering the short shooting schedule) Even the rare political gags only make us wish for much more. It’s no surprise, then, if some of the film’s cleverest moments stand completely apart from previous films. As for the actors, well Anna Faris is still cute in an increasingly irritating clueless shtick, while Craig Bierko does well with the thankless task of parodying Tom Cruise. Still, it’s Regina Hall who steals the show as the insatiable Brenda: her arrival in the movie kicks it up another notch (plus, doesn’t she look unbelievably gorgeous in founder’s-era clothing?) Yes, Scary Movie 4 will make you laugh. Dumb, cheap, easy laughs but still; consider it your reward for slogging through endless mainstream horror films.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, October 2021) One of the side-benefits of my Scary Movie series marathon is a renewed appreciation of how the series is broken down into three distinct phases, and how closely related are the films of those phases. Phase one is the Wayans Brothers phase—closely following genre protocols, often very funny but just as frequently too gross or too dumb for any laughs. Phase Two, the Zucker phase, is more controlled in tone but deliberately chaotic in plot, with fewer gross-out gags but far more comic violence that quickly gets old. Scary Movie 4 is very much of a piece with its predecessor, blending together the plots of very different films in order to create a clothesline on which to hang smaller film-specific parodies. There’s an effort to go beyond simple re-creation to create a more comic tone, and the number of known names in the cast is proof enough of the budget that went into the thing. Anna Faris makes a final appearance in the series (Phase Three of the series is the Faris-less one, which doesn’t help anything) and once again bears the brunt of much of the gags, but Regina Hall sharply improves the film once she joins in mid-plot. (She does look real nice playing a nymphomaniac in 18th century garb.)  Craig Bierko does well in a role asking him to spoof Tom Cruise, while various smaller roles are held by Leslie Nielsen, Bill Pullman, a pre-stardom Kevin Hart and many others —alas, Chris Elliot is once again a laugh-inhibitor whenever he shows up on-screen. In the end, Scary Movie 4 is not a great spoof comedy, but it’s better than many others (including Scary Movie 2) and works reasonably well when the filmmakers can keep their worst tendencies in check (their fondness for hitting women and children aside, at least they don’t include an excruciatingly long door unlocking/opening sequence). It’s more or less the end of the series, though—Scary Movie 5 is a different, almost unrelated beast, and another other sharp turn lower for a series that doesn’t have a lot of room to spare before hitting the bottom of the barrel.

  • Scary Movie 3 (2003)

    Scary Movie 3 (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, October 2003) The good news are that most of the the overly gross moments of the first two films of the series have been removed; what remains may not be too tasteful (decapitations, paedophilia and dismemberment are featured here and there) but at least it’s more palatable than before. Veteran spoof director David Zucker overuses slapstick over more amusing silliness (witness the “seven days” exchange), but Scary Movie 3 still feels a lot more respectable for it. Alas, the bad news are that the comedic highlights of the first two films have also been filed off, with an overall result that is a lot more tepid than it should be. The film floats from one grin to another, with few belly-laughs in between. The visual and cinematographic re-creation of the parodies (Signs, The Ring, 8 Mile, etc) is irreproachable, but the film often does next to nothing with the material it’s given. Leslie Nielsen, continues to be obnoxious with his usual shtick, though I wonder how many will get the joke of his last appearance in the film. All in all, a rather mixed effort that feels somewhat lazy. Not the bottom of the barrel (and certainly a step up from the past five year’s worth of spoof comedies), but still far away from the genre’s best efforts. Catch it on TV late at night.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, October 2021) No one in their right mind will call Scary Movie 3 a good movie, or even a particularly fine example of a spoof: It’s loose, frequently witless and overly fond of a specific repetitive form of physical violence comedy. But at least it’s a step up from the second film: funnier, cleverer and far more even as well. Much of this can probably be attributed to a change in writers and directors, going from the inconsistent Wayan Brothers to spoof comedy veteran David Zucker (of ZAZ fame). The pacing is slightly better, the jokes aren’t as milked dry, and the film’s comic instincts aren’t as dumbfounding as previous films in the series. On the other hand, the occasional grossness, frequent vulgarity and constant physical violence used a punchline quickly get tiresome. Still, the main plotline, lifting equally from Signs and The Ring (among other movies added for flavour), is more chaotic and interesting. Anna Faris is back in blonde, with some surprisingly big names in cameos from Charlie Sheen to Leslie Nielsen. Regina Hall disappears from the film too soon, but there are so many brief roles from various familiar faces (including an early role for Kevin Hart) that there is a lot to see anyway. Scary Movie 3 is not a great spoof, but it is watchable and doesn’t have the lengthy laugh-free, slightly repulsive moments of its predecessor. As I continue my Scary Movie five-night marathon, I’m reassured that the fourth film is (if I recall correctly) more or less of equal quality than the third one.