“Police Academy” turns 40, a crazy comedy that started an inexhaustible trend – Corriere.it

On March 10, 1984, the public test premiere of a low-budget comedy took place in Los Angeles, which would soon become a huge success (it was released in American cinemas on the 23rd of the same month and in Italy in August). worldwide success and fueled a small cult among admirers of popular cinema of the 1980s: “Police Academy” by the then debutant and now deceased Hugh Wilson later also called for larger commercial attempts with big Hollywood stars (such as “Dear, unbearable Tess/Guarding Tess “, 1994; and especially “The First Wives Club”, 1996).

It wasn’t a new mix, but underpinned by elements that come directly from the “crazy” cinema between comedy and detective that was very popular at the time; and had its strength in the choice of an unusually successful ensemble cast. The film’s plot, which is essentially irrelevant and predictable despite being structured around a remarkably large number of comedic situations, revolves around the mayor of an unspecified American city’s decision to open the police academy to anyone who wishes to attend, regardless of their qualifications or without restricting race, gender, size or physical ability. This bizarre change in policy brings a large group of obviously bumbling aspiring police officers into the presence of the more affable and older Captain Lassard (George Gaynes) and the more timid and inflexible Lieutenant Harris (GW Bailey), who are determined to send home all the incompetents by they subject the group to nightmarish training sessions. Among them is the hot-headed young park ranger Carey Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg), who always gets away scot-free despite various minor crimes thanks to his late father’s friendship with Captain Reed (Ted Ross); who, after another stunt, forces him this time to turn himself in or alternatively go to prison. The boy reluctantly accepts; even if his goal is obviously expulsion.

And that’s how he gets to know his friends: the human “beatbox” and self-proclaimed doctor Larvell Jones (Michael Winslow), who is able to reproduce any type of sound with his mouth; the bumbling nerd Douglas Facker (Bruce Mahler), whose mistakes always lie with third parties; the womanizer George Martin (Andrew Rubin), who pretends to be Spanish; firearms fanatic Eugene Tackleberry (David Graf); the shy and insecure Laverne Hooks (Marion Ramsey); the overweight Leslie Barbara (Donovan Scott), who is bullied by everyone and especially his family; the slimy and racist Kyle (Brant Van Hoffman) and Chad (Scott Thomson) and, above all, the African-American “giant” Moses Hightower (Bubba Smith), a florist by profession, with whom he will share the honor of a medal during his visit at the end of the training, he manages to gain honor in a city uprising. And the beautiful and wealthy Karen Thompson (Kim Cattrall, aka the future Samantha Jones from “Sex and the City”), used to living in luxury, with whom she will fall in love, reciprocated.

Sorted by most classic and most MeccanThe

Regulate a military story (recruitment/training/temporary overthrow/redemption) with an involuntary look at themes of camaraderie and friendship according to the normative logic of the group of “marginalized” who overcome their differences and fears in the name of cooperation) and written by two professionals of crazy cinema such as the TV writer Neal Israel and the screenwriter Pat Proft (together they signed Tom Hanks’ debut comedy “Bachelor Party”, 1984, which Israel also directed; the second was involved in the In the style of small classics of the genre like the sagas “The Naked Gun”, “Hot Shots!” and “Scary Movie”), “Police Academy” became an unexpected success thanks to the obvious friendliness of the cast (with a hint of the actor Winslow and his onomatopoeic skills) and to the simultaneous presence of absolutely childish, if not downright childish, gags within a traditional comic structure (it is no coincidence that a successful series was published alongside numerous sequels). television with cartoons, with precisely this aim), combined with an almost silent cinematic slapstick and by no means sporadic moments of more exuberant or playful humor and in some cases even absurdly trivial (such as the well-known sequence under the podium in which Georgina Spelvin, hardcore Star of the seventies, who rewards the unsuspecting Lassard with one of his specialties.

And it also became the final launch pad for actor Steve Guttenberg (after the script was also suggested to Michael Keaton and Tom Hanks, who wisely declined), who not only recurred in the sequels up to the fourth chapter in 1987, but later became one of the most popular faces thanks to one impressive hat tricks with titles like Ron Howard’s “Cocoon” (1985), John Badham’s “Short Circuit” (1986) and “Three Bachelors and a baby/Three Men and a Baby” (1987) by Leonard Nimoy. It is, of course, nothing that screams miracle, neither then nor now in search of an impossible reassessment: but certainly a kind of essential prototype for much of the consumer cinema of the decade, capable of producing not only a series of seven sequels (from increasingly and tragically worse quality), but also to open a small parallel commercial line with us. Obviously and ideally he was the “hidden” inspirer of our “Scuola di ladri” (1986) by Neri Parenti with the fantastic trio Banfi/Boldi/Villaggio; but it also favored the theatrical release of some more or less contemporary American comedies, later distributed in Italy, whose local titles, unlike the original, referred to the magical “school of”/something (see “Scuola di geni/Real Genius”) , 1985, by Martha Coolidge”; “Medical School/Stitches,” 1985, by Alan Smithee; “School of Monsters/The Monster Squad”, 1987, by Fred Dekker and also “Driving School/Moving Violations”, 1985, strangely by the same co-author Neal Israel).

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