There are a few decades in film history that have been as scrutinized as the 1980s, but to really understand the decade and its movies, it's going to take a couple of someone's who were there for it the first time around.

Drew McQueenie and Scott Weinberg are ready to review every major film of the decade, one month at a time. The look at what worked then, what endoers now, and how it felt to be there when it all went down. Turn back to calendar with us. It's the 80s all over. I'm gonna have to go back to the hotel.

I'm gonna have to go back to the hotel.

I'm gonna have to go back to the hotel. It's the 80s all over. with a deep awareness of the responsibility conferred by your trust. I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States. Ronald Reagan was nominated for president by the Republicans to their convention in Detroit. Bjorn Bjork beat John McEnroe at Wimbledon. Billy Joel's glass house is set on top of the charts and the U.S. sat out the Moscow Olympics officially. On top of all of that, it was a huge month for movies in July of 1980. Good intro, Drew. What's up Scott? I am so happy that we have this month to talk about because it is filled with genuinely great movies and it's a real pleasure. July of 1980 was kind of awesome. You know, it's not awesome, Drew, that we pulled so many boners.

How did we, and by we I mean you, no, I'm kidding, I'm joking. How did we pull so many mistakes so far? Well, a lot of these movies that, and we're gonna do a little catch-up here of some of these films, a lot of these are smaller movies, and their hard films to pin down release dates on, But I wanted to go back and make sure that we get these movies covered because I don't want to miss something.

So we're going to do these really quick. their hard films to pin down release dates on, but I wanted to go back and make sure that we get these movies covered

because I don't want to miss something. So we're gonna do these really quickly. We're just gonna go through and talk about them. There's a couple that I want to kind of blow out because I think they're really great films. The first one is Night of the Juggler, which is this filthy little thriller that you can find on YouTube if you're curious about it. in which james brolin is a cop whose daughter gets kidnapped by mistake

uh... the kid never thinks she's a rich kid

it's kind of high and low but it's high and low via absolutely cd late seventies thriller and uh... the guy who directed this is the same guy who went on to direct turbulence later the radio to film uh... you ever seen this once can i i have not seen out of the jugular the title is familiar to me for so it's a good sticks out because it's a weird title it is uh... and it's not about a circus right now cliff gorman is the bag i and he's he's scenery chewing posterity harry psycho who is terrorizing the city and he's gonna kill this hostage maybe and he just does terrible shit all the way through the movie

What where's the juggling come in? I think that it's a reference to the fact that the cop is kind of keeping everything up in the air while he's trying to find his daughter All right, well that's a stupid title the next one and that was May of 1980 also in either May or June of 1980 Was the happy hooker goes Hollywood? which was the third in the trilogy and it is a very weird meta movie because it's

about when she wrote her book and sold it to film and then came to hollywood while they were making the happy hooker, the first film in the trilogy. I've never seen any of the happy hooker. This one is by far the most overt comedy of the three. They're all comedies, but this one is making fun of Hollywood and making fun of how everybody in Hollywood is also a prostitute and Adam West is in it and a ton of character actors, you know, comedy character actors show up in it. It's actually not a bad little comedy, especially to give you a look at how financing worked in the world of Hollywood, sort of in the early 80s. It kind of serves as an accurate picture of that.

I have seen the next omission. Ah, now see, I haven't. It is a deservedly obscure Joseph Cotton stars in the Hearse. I know the car. I know the van. I know some of the other car related horror films from this time, but I've never seen the Hearse. Yeah, it's very dry, not particularly eventful.

It's going for like kind of an old school ghost vibe. It's kind of atmospheric. Some of the shots at a funeral home, funeral home, funeral home are pretty good, but not much I remember about it. The guy who directed it, we're gonna see him several more times during the eighties because he directed a lot of

fairly high-profile trashy exploitation films his name is George Bowers. He was an editor first and foremost, but we'll see him again We'll get to him later in the podcast The next mission is a very good film Drew. What do you think of this one? I'm a little flattened that we miss this, but I was looking at how it was released and it's one of those movies it played a couple of festivals it leaked into theaters and as a result we missed the April 1980 release of Return of the Sakaaka 7 by John sales. John Refan's will of course know John sales because he wrote lots of cool horror movies in this era like um Burrana and alligator and the howling but he really cut his teeth on this very earnest, very heartfelt, funny prototype for the big chill in a way. The strange title, Return of the Sikakis 7, Sikakis being a city in New Jersey. But I think it's great. It's funny that we caught up to it this week because the movie that he wrote that you mentioned, alligator, that we'll cover later this week, is the movie that financed Return of the Sikakis 70, 70 took everything you earned on alligator and put it right back into this film he was a guy who very early divided things between the jobs he did for money and the jobs he did because he really believed in the film and he had he had to very distinct careers which makes him very interesting I think this next one is a movie that I adore and is almost fitting that we missed it because this was a movie that got leaked in the theaters and the distributor Didn't know what to do with it and they kind of released it and then they pulled it and they released it again And then they tried to figure out what to do with it. It's a movie called Over the Edge directed by Jonathan Kaplan And it stars a young Matt Dillon it is written by Tim Hunter who also wrote River's Edge and in my my opinion like rivers edge it is one of the great movies about disaffected youth yeah occasionally you'll see a studio film that is willing to like really delve into the dark areas of young adulthood and suicide and depression and represent is obviously one permanent record is another one over the edges of a sober film, if you see it like I did when I was 15. Well, it's great. It's just about one of these pre-plan communities and the kids are just bored and there's nothing for them to do and everything is so snapped into place and sort of Lego that when they break, they go nuts. And it is about that moment when the kids just kind of go crazy in this neighborhood. So good, so well made. And then finally, the last film that we missed

was from February of 1980 and this is a pretty well-known exploitation title if you know black exploitation at all chances are you know both Kamafanaka who is the filmmaker here and this film penitentiary when you're you know a teenager you take this stuff is just basic action and then you get a little older and you look back over especially the the better black exploitation films and you're like oh these weren't just fun or funny or salacious these were made by filmmakers who were trying to make a point yeah i i think finaka is one of those guys he was really trying to do something and this this movie it is just a prison movie It's about a guy who gets caught in a shitty situation. He gets thrown in jail and it's about him surviving in jail and then eventually getting out. And it is about how racist the system is about how it is designed to break you. There's some really progressive trans stuff in here. There is a lot of stuff that is really confrontational about race and especially race in the late 70s, early 80s. And on top of it all, Leon Isaac Kennedy is just a badass in the movie. There's a phenomenal early fight in there. It's the first night when he's in the penitentiary and he asked to decide how he's gonna be with his cellmate. The fight between them is amazing. It's a great hand to hand-hand whatever you have to do to stay alive fight and

it is really harrowing. All right, well listen, those are the ones we missed. I am so sorry for each one of those and I'm glad that we went back and covered them. Some of them are absolutely worth you tracking them down, but they're all worth mentioning. Some of the movies that came out this month, we already discussed because we had the dates wrong, including middle age crazy, but hang your 18 and how to beat the high cost of living. So now that

we have the dates wrong, including middle-aged, crazy, but hangar 18. And how to beat the high cost of living. So now that we have those three out of the way and we've caught up on everything, it's time to jump in and we are gonna start this month with an undisputed, comedy classic on the same level as the Blues Brothers which we did last month. And this is a film that I think is more beloved in some ways.

It was a bigger mainstream hit at the time, and it is shaggy and imperfect, and I adore

it.

Let's talk about Caddy Shack.

For me growing up the four classics for Animal House blues brothers Caddy Shack and Stripes Caddy Shack and to a larger degree animal house which unfortunately we won't be able to cover because it came out in 1978. Cadyshack is a continuation of the very durable snob versus slob's format, which is really just a very thin premise on which to hang simple jokes and material for well-known comedians. Cadyshack is pure chaos. It kind of bounces around between a collection of subplots and goofball characters. doesn't really add up much in the story department but gives you just enough of a uh... low key plot to string all the all the funny people together as a great energy is gleefully raunchy it is not embarrassed about it it is uh... pure fun watch just brought watch ronny danger fields performance and you could just tell that they just wanted to make a fun movie Well a fun movie. Well, and this one had a direct impact on me. When I turned 14 and was living in Chattanooga, I lived near a golf course that was the sister course to the master's course where they play the master's tournament. I was owned by the same people, designed by the same people as called the honors course, but it was the private one. I got a job there as a caddy, and the whole reason that I was interested was because of

this movie. And I think what they get right is that when you're a caddy, you are the lowest class person possible working at a country club, which is all about snobbery. And there is something great about that friction. Being a caddy is the perfect way into that world. It's weird that the least successful part of the film is really Danny Noonan in his story. It almost feels perfunctory like we need an audience surrogate so he's the nice kid trying to finance his way into college and he has a couple of speed bumps on the way. It's again it's a thin framework on which to hang Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and the rest. The problem is the pregnancy storyline with Maggie. Every time she shows up in the film, the movie grinds to a halt. For her terrible Irish accent, there's two or three scenes where she comes in just stops the movie cold and then thankfully we move on and I think they shaved all of that back in post-production. You can tell they cut that movie to the bone. Yeah, it's it seems like it's there just to you know represent the impending adult responsibilities that are if you can't go to college then oh no we might get stuck raising his own child dunked on. The miracle is that the movie works at all because the movie was a unbelievable mess on set and it's one of those productions where nobody associated with it thought it was gonna cut together once they were finished because none of it Seemed like it was working But what I love about it is that each of the comedians in it each of the main comic forces I think is a totally different style you have Chevy Chase you have Bill Murray you have Rodney dangerous you have Ted Knight. got to take a moment to just appreciate Ted Knight, who almost always gets undersold when you're talking about this movie. But I think Ted Knight is terrific in the film. He is like the wealthy Dowager in a three-stugious short, and he is absolutely blustery, befuddled, inept,udent, and hilarious without Ted Knight, then it kind of plays like three comedians riffing for each other. When you have such a great performance and such a great comedic villain, it raises the movie, it raises the stakes immediately. You put him in Dangerfield in a scene together and Danger field is such an attack dog that you put him in that scene

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