Thoughts on Pee-wee's Big Adventure

 

Courtesy The Dissolve/Warner Bros.

*Pee-wee Herman, having gotten knocked out during a rodeo, is tended to by a group of Texans.*

"What's your name?"

"I can't remember."

"Where are you from?"

"I can't remember."

"Can you remember anything?"

"I remember ... the Alamo."

*The Texans cheer.*

I was tempted to eschew my traditional Thoughts On format and just write nothing but memorable lines* from the Pee-wee's Big Adventure script. Paul Reubens, his co-writers Phil Hartman & Michael Varhol, director Tim Burton and several talented actors pulled off an impressive feat. They gave silliness a great name while also making a movie with the kind of commitment that puts many other works, in 1985 and beyond, to shame.

*You know a movie's a winner when even the relatively normal dialogue sticks in your vocabulary. "Let's see what Madame Ruby sees" is a favorite when checking my email or reviewing a layout.

Pee-wee (Reubens) loves his bike. It is the best bike in the whole world, one that wouldn't be sold even for "a hundred million, trillion, billion dollars!" Anyway, the bike's coveted by spoiled rich "boy" Fran-cis Buxton (Mark Holton). Cute as a button Dottie (Elizabeth Daily), meanwhile, likes Pee-wee and he likes (LIKES!) her, too. The bike gets stolen and Pee-wee, who can't prove Francis was behind it, alienates his friends before going on a fool's journey to "the basement ... of the Alamo."

Writing about Adventure at the late, lamented The Dissolve, Nathan Rabin observed that "it transforms the rambling, episodic nature of the road movie ... from a shortcoming to a strength." Even watching it again, I'm a little astonished at how much story is told in a 91-minute movie. There's room for memorable bit players, such as Large Marge (Alice Nunn) and the Satan's Helpers, and more than a little depth. It takes a special kind of man-child to make connections with, even briefly, people like Mickey the escaped convict (Judd Omen) and Simone the truck stop waitress (Diane Salinger). 

"Simone, you can't just wish and hope for something to come true. You have to make it happen."

There are so many valuable things I learned or had solidified thanks to Adventure: Abraham Lincoln is always funny. Men who've been in prison have needs. Very basic French. How to pronounce "adobe." There's no basement in the Alamo. How trompe-l'œil works. Innocent snakes, even if they're scary and maybe a little disgusting, still deserve to have their lives saved. I think we're all glad Reubens set aside the idea of placing Pee-wee in a Pollyanna situation. It couldn't** be as unforgettable as Adventure is.

**And isn't, if you're like me and believe Big Top Pee-wee functions as the "Pollyanna Pee-wee" movie.

Burton is a huge reason why Adventure is unforgettable. Rabin again: "(He) brings to the film an animator's control and meticulousness, which somehow only enhances the unstoppable momentum and energy." And from a guy making his first full-length live action movie, no less. After all the movies that seemed to exist to further Hot Topic and Spencer Gifts, it's striking to watch Adventure (or Batman, like I did last year) and remember what a hell of a director Burton was. He might still be.

I'm only partially joking when I say this: William Hurt better have brought his A game to Kiss of the Spider Woman. As it stands right now, I'm seriously considering the idea that Reubens gave the best leading man performance of 1985. For pete's sake, look at how much he could convey with giggling. As is often the case, genius wasn't immediately recognized. Almost every critic of note seemed more interested in finding legends to compare and contrast Pee-wee with rather than appraising the character and performance on its own terms.

"Come on, Dottie. Let's go."

"Let's go? Don't you want to see the rest of the movie?"

"I don't have to see it, Dottie. I lived it."

Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "IS THIS SOMETHING YOU CAN SHARE WITH THE REST OF US, AMAZING LARRY?"

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $41 million on a $7 million budget, this opened at No. 3 and came in at No. 19 for 1985.

-- AlienJesus shared a fascinating, heartwarming story about Adventure's release at The Dissolve. "Seeing this film play in packed houses proved such a giddy and joyous film going experience. And living in San Antonio, Texas, and still very young in exhibition, this film exploded with astounding crossover in age and diversity, which had older theater personnel and executives nationwide scratching their heads. They simply did not get it. (The Jerk, five years earlier, was another such movie). Understand, this was considered, at best, a two-week play off film dumped in mid-August and I am not sure it even opened in 800 theaters. The trailer produced was very flat, and the advertising budget quite modest. Hell, in San Antonio, the ad budget was like for a 'meh' horror film. But somehow, opening day exhibitors were begging for more prints, switching to larger auditoriums, adding showtimes, with Pee Wee playing as strongly at matinees as it did midnight and this (lasted) well into the end of September." 

-- Critic's Corner, Positive: "Somewhere between a parody of kitsch and a celebration of it, and it has the bouncing-along inventiveness of a good cartoon," according to Pauline Kael. "This is a visionary comedy, a lunatic odyssey spun out of childish delight and childish malice," David Edelstein wrote in Rolling Stone. "The movie captures childhood in its totality -- the darkness, lightness, innocent and self-absorption -- which helps explain why the film's cult extends beyond children to include just about everyone who appreciates awesomeness and joy," Rabin wrote. "The wrong crowd will find these antics infantile and offensive," Michael Wilmington wrote in the Los Angeles Times. "The right one will have a howling good time."

-- Critic's Corner, Negative: "Anyone who laughs ... ought to be put through an airport metal detector," wrote Gene Siskel, who insisted that he liked Pee-wee's appearances on Late Night with David Letterman but also said, "You have to be a lot funnier on the big screen than on the tube to sustain a feature-length story." "A collection of found objects from the garbage heap of low culture," Paul Attanasio wrote. People said the biggest laugh came from the "Deep in the Heart of Texas" singalong. "You have been warned," Vincent Canby sniffed.

-- Who Does Pee-wee Remind You Of?. MAD, spoofing Pee-wee's Playhouse: "Imagine if Jerry Lewis and Cyndi Lauper had a kid ... who was dropped on his head." Canby invoked Marcel Marceau, Jacques Tati and Lewis. "Like them all, (Pee-wee) desperately wants to be funny but, unlike them, he isn't." Siskel also mentioned Lewis and Tati, as well as Pinky Lee, feeling that "(Reubens is) flattering himself wildly, as far as this film is concerned." Wilmington suggested "Peter Lorre at his crawliest, poured into Pinky Lee? Soupy Sales on speed?" before observing that "(Reubens) inhabits this role with the eerily intense, fixed concentration of the late Andy Kaufman as Tony Clifton." Attanasio: "A cross between Our Gang's Alfalfa and Carol Channing." Edelstein: "A high-camp Buster Keaton." People: "And as the film lurches from situation to situation, it looks increasingly calculated to evoke comparisons to Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, who reign over a pantheon Pee-wee hasn't yet approached."

-- "There's a lotta things about me you don't know anything about, Dottie. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you couldn't understand. Things you shouldn't understand." "I don't understand." "You don't wanna get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel."

-- Hey, It's ...!: Professor Toru Tanaka, Ed Herlihy, Burton, Jan Hooks, John Moody, Robert Hegyes, Cassandra Peterson, Jason Hervey, Tony Bill, Milton Berle, John Paragon, Lynne Marie Stewart, Twisted Sister, James Brolin, Morgan Fairchild, Patrick Cranshaw, Varhol and Hartman.

-- Awards Watch: A nominee for Best Family Motion Picture -- Comedy or Musical at the Young Artist Awards, this lost to The Heavenly Kid. Amusingly enough, the next two movies on my viewing schedule, Real Genius and Summer Rental, were also nominated for that award.

-- Memorable Music: The score is 37-26, still favoring songs written for movies. Adventure has two previously-written selections, "Tequila" and "Burn in Hell." I'm also giving a point to the Danny Elfman score and retroactive points for the Prizzi's Honor and Back to the Future scores.

-- Adventure was the second of four 1985 movies with costumes by Aggie Guerard Rodgers (the others are Cocoon, Warning Sign and The Color Purple) and the first of two by production designer David L. Snyder (My Science Project). No one is credited for the especially simple choreography. As Idiotking pointed out, the Pee-wee dance largely consists of rapidly pointing to your crotch and ass crack.

-- Between Adventure and Animaniacs, kid me was convinced the Warner Bros. lot was maybe more exciting than the Disney parks or Universal Studios.

-- "Paging Mr. Herman. Mr. Herman, you have a telephone call at the front desk."

-- Brolin's cameo in the James Bond-style adaptation of Pee-wee's adventure is even funnier now that I know he screen tested for Octopussy. And would Fairchild have been any worse of a Bond girl than Tanya Roberts? 

-- I don't know if I've ever seen a more attentive tourist than the older guy behind Pee-wee's left shoulder at the Alamo.

-- Pee-wee's antics on the road could be adapted into at least a dozen shorts, Rabin wrote. He's right. "Pee-wee Goes Hitchhiking." "Pee-wee Meets Mickey." "Pee-wee Goes Driving." "Pee-wee Meets Large Marge." "Pee-wee Meets Simone." "Pee-wee Vs. Andy." We're onto the ones Rabin came up with ... "Pee-wee Rides The Rails." "Alamo Pee-wee." "Rodeo Pee-wee." "Roadhouse Pee-wee." "Pee-wee On The Lot." And one more ... "Pee-wee Saves The Day!" Heck, you could even make some shorts with what came before ("Wake Up With Pee-wee," "Trouble At The Mall!") and after ("Pee-wee Goes To The Movies"). 

-- Something I'm just now wondering ... did Dottie explain Pee-wee's adventure to Terry Hawthorne, and thus, get him off the hook? If so, she's even more girlfriend-worthy than I thought. On the other hand, this is the kind of movie where Terry might have figured than anyone who would disrupt production of four separate movies must have a story to tell.

-- Who wouldn't want to receive their newspaper from a bicycle-riding nun?

-- "Yes, there are thousands and thousands of uses for corn, all of which I will tell you about right now."

-- Next: Real Genius. On Deck: Summer Rental and Volunteers (Mega-Post), Year of the Dragon. Coming Soon: Teen Wolf, Better Off Dead.