Doctor Detroit (Michael Pressman, 1983)

Awash with the kind of politically incorrect humour that would most likely get you banished from today's overly sensitive outrage-verse, Doctor Detroit was originally intended to amuse the people of the 1980s (blue collar slobs, closeted white supremacists, unaware yuppies, middle-class geeks and shiftless wastoids and dweebies). In other words, why would anyone in their right mind watch it now? I have two words for you, and I think you all know what I'm about to say: Fran Drescher! I was thinking about faking you out by saying, oh, something like, Nan Martin. Who, don't get me wrong, is hilarious, and, not to mention, pretty hot, for an "old chick." But let's get real, there's only one reason to watch this completely asinine tale about a dorky English professor who gets coned into becoming a cyborg pimp named... "Doctor Detroit," by a high class Chicago pimp (Dr. Johnny Fever himself), and that reason is, to bask in the otherworldly beauty that is Fran Meshuggahumpin' Drescher. Though, to be fair to the film itself,  the opening credits sequence, the one that features a spry Dan Aykroyd power walking across town while Devo's "Theme from Doctor Detroit" blasts on the soundtrack, is kind of amazing. Who am I kidding? It's lots of amazing. I don't know, there's something about the sight of Dan Aykroyd walking really, really fast in red short shorts to the sound of Devo that brings me a shitload of joy.

Now, normally I would say something like this: Well, things can only go downhill from here. And, yes, while it's true, things do go downhill. The prospect that I will get to see Fran Drescher (UHF) tarting it up as Karen Blittstein, the slinkiest, leggiest whore this side of Archer Avenue, allowed me traverse this film's idiotic landscape with a buttery, Cumberbatchian ease.

That being said, I seriously have to question the logic of not sheathing Fran Drescher's womanly curves in a dress that boasted a slit during the Players Ball sequence. And if that's the case, how do you expect Fran's floozy character to shimmy without a slit? (The Players Ball, in case you don't know, is an annual event where pimps and their hos alike get to strut their stuff in front of their peers.)

I mean, Jasmine Wu (Lydia Lei, Vice Squad), the Asian one (I love how she uses a fake Engrish accent when speaking to men), Thelma Carter (Lynn Whitfield), the black one, and Monica McNeil (Donna Dixon), the blonde one, all get slits. What gives, Doctor Detroit?

Oh, and please don't make me play the anti-semitism card, as I don't want this review to become a scathing indictment of Hollywood discrimination (Jews can never seem to catch a break in the movie business). But I couldn't help but think that's what was happening as I watched Fran Drescher struggle to bust-a-move in her slitless gown. It's more tragic than anything else.

Did I let the fact that Fran Drescher's dress had no slit ruin my enjoyment of an otherwise harmless piece of filmed entertainment. Of course not, as the film provided no real enjoyment in the first place.

Just kidding, it's not that bad. The montage where Howard Hesseman's "Smooth Walker," and the aforementioned foursome of high-end escorts (a walking, talking Benetton Ad in heels), take a nerdy comparative literature professor named Clifford Skridlow (Dan Aykroyd) out to every nightclub in Chicago, for example, is teeming with righteous energy. If only the entire film could have maintained that "righteous energy" from start to finish. Oh, well.

I think the biggest problem is Doctor Detroit himself. The quality of the film seemed  to take a nosedive the moment Clifford Skridlow becomes Doctor Detroit. Seriously, I don't know what they were thinking when they came up with the Doctor Detroit's voice, as it's beyond irritating.

The reason the mild-mannered Clifford Skridlow becomes über-pimp Doctor Detroit is a convoluted as you might expect. To deflect attention away from his own pimp-related problems, Smooth tells Mom (Kate Murtagh), a powerful pimp who rules Chicago's criminal underworld with an iron fist, that a pimp named "Doctor Detroit" is taking over her turf. And since Doctor Detroit doesn't really exist, Smooth convinces Clifford Skridlow to play the part.

First noticing him while he was out power walking to Devo, Smooth runs into Clifford Skridlow later that day while dining at an Indian restaurant. Using Fran Drescher and the other three ladies as bait, Smooth manages to win over Cliff over. It also didn't hurt that Smooth drowns Cliff's nervous system in drugs and alcohol.

After his crazy night is over, Cliff goes back to work at Monroe College. Little does he know, but Cliff's a pimp now. He even has a limo driver, played by T.K. Carter (The Thing), and access to a vulgar penthouse filled with utterly tasteless furnishings.

Even though Fran Drescher's legs are visible multiple times over the course of the film, Dan Aykroyd's legs are mentioned at least four times. As you might expect, this annoyed me like you wouldn't believe. Granted, it wasn't as annoying as the whole slit debacle during the Players Ball sequence, but it still irked me.

Did anyone else find it mildly interesting that Smooth refers to Mom's minions as the "Yul Brynner clones" and as a "cue-ball convention" at one point? The only reason I ask is because society viewed male baldness differently thirty years ago. Nowadays, you see men with shaved heads almost everywhere and no one seems to care. But back in 1983, it was still pretty rare. In fact, in some circles, male baldness was met with open hostility. Simply put, if you weren't a Buddhist monk or Yul Brynner/Telly Savalas you and your hairless dome were viewed with suspicion.

What the? Why am I talking about male baldness when I could be blathering on and on about Fran Drescher's wicked organic structure? Bizarre. Truly bizarre. Anyway, take special note of Clifford's dream sequence, as it's your best opportunity to see Fran Drescher in sexy lingerie in the entire film. Unfortunately, the camera doesn't linger on Fran's stocking encased gams for all that long, so you might have to pause the video to get the full effect. Which is a shame, because Frannies shouldn't have to resort to such flapdoodle to get an eyeful of Fran.

In a surprise twist, Lynn Whitfield gets a nice stocking-related close-up near the end of the film. Of course, you might miss it, as it takes place as T.K. Carter and Fran Drescher are on-screen (since actor Howard Hesseman collected his check and got the hell out of there, T.K. and Fran are saddled with doing the majority of the heavy-lifting, comedy-wise... which makes sense, as they're both talented comedians). At any rate, if you look at the left side of the screen, you will notice that Lynn is sheepishly putting her stockings on. I can't believe I almost missed this.

In closing, Doctor Detroit doesn't really deserve the amount of attention I've given it. If you're fan of Fran Drescher or even Dan Aykroyd, I guess you should watch it. On the other hand, you''re probably better off just watching Jekyl and Hyde... Together Again, as it as way funnier and way more politically incorrect.

Oh, and why is Glenne Headly (Making Mr. Right) listed in the credits as "Miss Debbylike"? She has no dialogue and she's only on-screen for a few seconds. I'm thinking there must have been a subplot involving Dan Aykroyd and one of his students, and it was obviously cut out of the movie.

Rubin and Ed (Trent Harris, 1991)

It is written somewhere that living in an inside world is different than living in an outside world. In the former, the events that take place mainly occur within the spacious confines of your own head. In other words, not much happens beyond the odd hallucination and the occasional parental disruption. Well, the complete opposite happens when faced with an outdoor existence, as your weather-beaten psyche is literally inundated with all kinds of newfangled stimuli. Sure, the hallucinations remain, but you will probably notice that they have expanded not only in scope, but also in terms of intensity (if you wear platform shoes, for example, they will seem larger than they really are). One particular individual meets this inside-outside culture shock criteria perfectly, and that is, Rubin in the delightfully off-kilter Rubin and Ed, a little film with big ideas about a man with a watermelon-eating cat named Simon and another man with substitute hair. Encompassing a wide birth of deep and meaningful topics, the film, written and directed by Trent Harris (Plan 10 from Outer Space), somehow manages to successfully bridge the gap between the absurd and the deranged. Announcing its charm almost immediately with the introduction of its playful music score (Fred Myrow), we learn that even a set of thick blue curtains, a stack of old newspapers and a boombox (one that sports the coveted "auto reverse" feature) can't shield you from the real world forever.

We all know what it's like to mourn the loss of a furry loved one. My black cat died at the ripe old age of seventeen and recall being quite shaken by the experience. It's true, I kept their remains unburied for longer than I should have, but my situation never got to the point where I found myself drinking the sweat that had accumulated in my platform shoe's insole after walking for hours in the arid, extra dry wilderness of Utah, a state located in the United States of America with the kind of skies that would even impress a fluffy cloud expert like Rickie Lee Jones.

The advantage the person mourning his dead kitty in this film has is refrigeration. In that, he can hold on to the idea that his four-legged pal is still around without having to worry about decomposition. Unfortunately, Rubin (Crispin Glover), the dead kitty person, is confronted by outside forces who unwittingly compel him to bury the deceased animal. It begins with his mother, who tells Rubin that he can't listen to Gustav Mahler (his late cat's favourite) and squeak the yellow rubber mouse (his late cat's favourite) until he leaves the house (or in this case, his hotel room) and makes a friend ("No friend, no music!"). However, it's ultimately a fella named Ed (Howard Hesseman) who puts the unorthodox burial adventure in motion after he knocks Simon out of the freezer ("Why don't you keep you hands off other people's refrigerators").

The odd pairing both have ulterior motives: Rubin wants Ed to come over and meet his mother (proving to her that he has in fact made a friend). Ed wants Rubin to attend a seminar run by the mysterious "The Organization," a self-help group (run by Michael Greene from To Live and Die in L.A.) for successful salespeople, in order to show Rula (Karen Black), his smoking hot wife, that he is not a total failure. With his mother awol, Ed agrees to help Rubin bury his cat in the desert. Sounds simple enough (lay cat to rest, swing on by the seminar), but things get a tad weird when Rubin decides that the spot they chosen isn't quite right. The high-strung Ed, lounging in the dirt by a smallish hole that, thanks to Rubin's indecisiveness, bares not a single dead cat, even direly points out the impending weirdness that is about to transpire. While some may not appreciate this sort of self-aware candor, I found it to be refreshing, as most films of this nature seem to shy away from acknowledging their own strangeness.

The scene where a sexier-than-usual Karen Black (Mirror Mirror), sheathed in an alluring red dress (the camera even slowly pans up her supple frame as if she were a curvy pin-up model circa 1949), can be seen screaming while entangled in the fender Ed's company car is just the first of many outlandish dream sequences peppered throughout Rubin and Ed, a film that isn't afraid to show a cat water-skiing. And even though Crispin Glover can be seen at one point wearing a hubcap on his head, the film isn't completely enamoured with its own kookiness. On the contrary, the way the film deftly mixed unexplained nuttiness ("Andy Warhol sucks a big one") with moments of pure pathos was elegant and smooth; like droplets of liquid slowly oozing out of a recently discarded can of beer. I mean, call me a nonsensical sack of deformed hammers, but I thought the scene in the cave where Ed bonds with Rubin to be quite touching. You really got the sense that Ed genuinely cared about Rubin's loss.

In a flash, your mind immediately stops thinking about the exquisite paleness of the legs sprouting out from the torso of that woman Rubin harasses by the hotel's pool–Rubin inadvertently utters one of the worst pick-up lines ever ("You wanna meet my mom?")–and the film starts making you ponder the meaning of life. Okay, maybe I wouldn't go that far (her legs were crossed after all). But it does capture what it must feel like to inhabit the specific skin of two men on the cusp of scoring an existential breakthrough.

Employing the word "asswipe" like it were a badge of honour, Howard Hesseman, an actor best known as the iconic Dr. Johnny Fever (his slacker diskjockey character from WKRP in Cincinnati), gives a complex performance as the beaten down Ed, a man reduced to repeating corporate nonsense in the presence of others. Affixed with a questionable wig (hair substitute), Howard, whether displaying his cringe-worthy habit of adding an unnecessary Spanish flair to everyday Anglo phrases (I know for a fact I heard him say, "el weirdo" at least twice) or extolling the virtues of Cat Ballou, imbues the defeated Ed with an unhinged tenderness.

While it doesn't seem to get thrown around that much nowadays, I've always preferred "asswipe" over "asshole," its more popular cousin in the high stakes realm of anal-based insults. I don't know, "asshole" just seems to sit there like a lump of coarse nothingness. On the other hand, "asswipe" seems to glide off the tongue with a gentle grace.

The phantom-like Brittney Lewis appears every now and then as Rubin's nameless dream girl. Usually dressed in swimwear–the kind that was fashionable during the late 1980s, Brittney helps Rubin when he is lost–this comes in handy when he finds himself aimlessly drifting amongst the desert's penis-shaped rock formations (similar to ones found in the music video for 2 Unlimited's "Magic Friend"), and builds up his self-esteem when he is down. You could say: The magic friend is what she is.

A demented humanitarian who almost kicked David Letterman in the head, Crispin "I'm making my lunch!" Glover is an awkward revelation as the platform shoe-wearing Rubin. Unafraid to rock a pair of gaudy bellbottom trousers in a desert setting, Crispin captures the despair of a desolate pet owner in a way that only an actor of his unique reputation could summon. And while the ridiculousness of appearance may at times dampen the weightiness of his predicament, the eccentric actor always manages to advance his character's spiritual cause.

The year may be 1991, but the black and blue ensemble Karen Black wears while talking on the phone in her kitchen was definitely purchased in 1986.*

Why my viewing expanse (the eyeball-centric area I use to watch things with) and this wacky adventure have never got around to molesting each other until now will probably remain a mystery. I love movies where mismatched oddballs wander the desert in search of themselves. Wait a minute, no I don't. But I did love this one. We all need someone to help us let go of the coolers that contain the partially frozen remains of our dead pets.

video uploaded by dtnehring

* Just because the film was released in 1991, doesn't mean it was shot in 1991; Miss Black's outfit could have been only a couple of years old.

Anyway, thanks to Tenebrous Kate over at Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire for making me more aware of this film than I already was.

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