Cast:
Daniel H. Jenkins (O.C.), Neill Barry (Mark Stiggs), Paul Dooley (Randall Schwab), Jane Curtin (Elinore Schwab), Jon Cryer (Randall Schwab, Jr), Laura Urstein (Lenore Schwab), Victor Ho (Frankie Tang), Ray Walston (Gramps), Donald May (Jack Stiggs), Carla Borelli (Stella Stiggs), Stephanie Elfrink (Missie Stiggs), Amanda Hull (Debbie Stiggs), James Gilsenan (Barney Beaugereaux), Tina Louise (Florence Beaugereaux), Cynthia Nixon (Michelle), Greg Wangler (Jefferson Washington), with Dennis Hopper (Sponson), Martin Mull (Pat Coletti), Melvin van Peebles (Wino Bob), Tiffany Helm (Charlotte), Dana Andersen (Robin), and Bob Uecker (himself) Directed by Robert Altman (#900 - Nashville, #1433 - M*A*S*H, #1890 - The Delinquents, #2061 - Health)
Review:
"[O.C. and Stiggs] was about how two teenage boys spend their summer, and it was also about cultural anarchy. Teenage exploitation films were all the rage at the time… I agreed to do it because I hated teenage movies so much. I thought I could do it as a satire of a teenage movie. But of course, it was sold as a teenage movie. It was a suspect project from the beginning."
It is strange, I'm not actually that much of an expert on the filmmaking of Robert Altman and yet here we are with something a bit on the odd side for a filmmaker with such a long and winding road over the span of multiple decades. This strange time would come around particularly after the double-edged sword of 1980's Health and Popeye, neither, where the former barely had a release and the latter wasn't as successful with audiences or critics as one hoped. Afterwards, he did a handful of plays and TV productions to go with smaller-scale films, such as Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) and Streamers (1983). But O.C. and Stiggs would be an attempt to get back in Hollywood. ...which went a certain type of way. For context, O.C. and Stiggs were originally characters in stories written for National Lampoon magazine by Ted Mann and Tod Carroll, most notably with the 1982 story ""The Utterly Monstrous Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs". One of the producers of this film was Peter Newman (who had been the production executive of the Jimmy Dean play that Altman had made into a film), who was interested in what he saw of the Stiggs stories. Newman had made an agreement to help produce the film, which would have had Mike Nichols eventually make the film after he finished his other commitments...and then one day Newman, in a conversation with Altman, found someone willing to do the film right then and there, complete with fast tracking for MGM because of their desperation for a teen-movie hit. It was shot in Arizona for MGM away from executives and screenwriters in 1983 that saw a party atmosphere (gambling, smoking pot, here is an informative article about that). While Mann and Carroll were given credit for the story, Carroll elected to take his name off the screenplay (which was credited to Mann and Donald Cantrell) for a film that Mann wasn't particularly big on anyway, calling it "of little interest and believe that the chatter of an ordinary street corner schizo is of equal weight and consequence." MGM hated the film in screenings done for the film in 1984 before limited screenings were eventually one in 1987. Of course, by 1987, Altman was already on the next thing, receiving some notice with Secret Honor (1984) to go along with subsequent notice with his TV production Tanner '88 alongside Vincent & Theo (1990) before his "comeback" with The Player (1992).
Sure, one could see the truth that Carroll and Mann had tried to seek out in their characters in "middle-class America" in a coming of age. Of course, I had a feeling that somehow, this film would remind me of Health (1980) in that "oh it seems kinda funny, but you just know only five people would like it in theaters". To see O.C. and Stiggs is to see a movie wrapped with plenty of seething amusement for the time and place it exists in. Imagine a film set in suburban Arizona of all godforsaken places and think that this would be a normal teen movie, although you do get a song courtesy of King Sunny Adé and His African Beats. Screw it, I kind of enjoyed this movie, which just manages to hit the sweet-spot when it comes to chaotic hellraisers. The few people that actually saw the movie upon release basically took the movie seriously without thinking of all the caricatures that are present in a world of self-absorbed weirdos (just get a look at the bomb shelter near the end). These folks really believe they are living the American Dream (consider one quote involving "Arkansas is one of the United States. All America is the same" coming from one of the parental figures to go alongside the other one that, well, is a bigot) that happens to have smug self-satisfied avengers for leads. It is a contorted and twisted film that happens to have a bevy of riches for its supporting cast (speaking of people in little-seen Altman films, Paul Dooley...) to support our two leads. It may seem mean, but the madcap bitterness is the point, and I think you could really interpret Mann's statement about the film as being bitter at being outclassed by a director who made a prank film at the expense of both writers and studio executives. Jenkins and Barry (each first-timer film stars) may not have ended up being a duo that had multiple films to engage in madcap stuff together, but I think they do pretty well together here. They smirk and engage with the world as if they were a trickster God, which actually seems pretty in line with what teenagers really seem to be to the ones around them: silly jerks with every-changing fashion sense (others probably had at least one person they treated like crap as a friend growing up anyway). The object of their bullying is Dooley, who is delightfully smarmy and amusing in the ways one would expect from a portrayal of a 1980s conservative in his suburban element, one that sees past the strangeness of his family in the known alcoholic to all but herself with Curtain and the stunted weirdo in Cryer to go along with a son-in-law who has the most decisive moment to finally speak after so many casual snipes at his Asian heritage. It is probably apt of something that Hopper appeared in this film the same year that he did a daredevil stunt in front of college students involving a chair and sticks of dynamite. Altman having Hopper doing a riff on the role he did in Apocalypse Now (1979) is crispy in its amusement, actually, one who gets to casually say lines such as calling guns a "disease" with worthwhile conviction, particularly when he gets to go loose for the climax. One sees plenty of presences of once and future presences in film/TV (such as a young bemused Nixon to go with a typically "on" Mull to go with a goofy codger in Walston), which probably takes the cake when one sees Bob Uecker ramble to essentially nobody for his cameo sequence. The 109-minute experience gives plenty of anarchy to see among the odd suburbanites (take one look at the places) that lands more often than not in Altman's practical joke among those looking for a typical teenage comedy in the 1980s without some sort of abject shot at society as one knows it. I found this movie by the stupidest of ways, googling random films to maybe transfer over to USB (after finding a copy on the Internet) for later use (this goes along with "amusing" perspectives on obscure stuff). I can't say the film is for everyone, but if one manages to find this film (Internet or otherwise), I recommend seeing the film in all of its zany idiocy as an Altman movie wrapped in the underbelly of artificiality for delightful hit-or-miss entertainment.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
Next up: Time enough at last with Nothing But Trouble.
