CRAZY PEOPLE

CRAZY PEOPLE

Welcome back and Happy New Year.  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season.  There are a lot of movies up for discussion this year, so we’d best get started.  I am kicking things off with a fun little number entitled Crazy People which came out in 1990.  Rather than offering any deep insights or profound concepts, this is simply a nutty movie that is truly enjoyable to watch.  The cast includes Dudley Moore, best known for 10, Darryl Hannah who will always be remembered as Adelle in Steel Magnolias, Mercedes Ruehl, who you may recall as Anne in The Fisher King, J.T. Walsh who excelled in playing villains like the disgusting Bushman in Sling Blade, and David Paymer, a character actor that portrayed both serious and comedic roles in his 90 plus film career.   

Crazy People opens with a plethora of ads on billboards, buildings, and buses then quickly draws the audience’s attention to a Madison Avenue office building where ad executive Stephen Bachman (Paul Reiser) is nervously awaiting the arrival of his coworker Emory Leeson (Dudley Moore) because they have a very important presentation to give.  Emory, however, is stuck in a traffic jam and having a meltdown because people won’t get out of his way.  When the meeting starts, autocratic manager Drucker (J.T. Walsh) immediately notes the absence and by the time Emory gets to work, the gathering is over, and he and Stephen are in big trouble.  Emory’s complaint that he loves his job, but hates lying for a living, falls on deaf ears and he is given 24 hours to create an ad for United Airlines or else.

Emory goes home and comes up with numerous ideas, none of which are for the airline, and the next day presents them to Drucker.  One warns people that they’ll get cancer and die if they don’t drink Metamucil, another promises free plants to those who are obese and call the company to admit they are fat.  A third says car buyers can avoid getting STDs by purchasing Volvos because the cars aren’t sexy and a fourth promises hand jobs to men who drive Jaguars.   Enraged, Drucker throws Emory out of his office.  Fearing his friend is losing his mind, Stephen encourages him to speak with Dr, Baylor but doesn’t explain that she is a psychiatrist.  Emory promises that he will, but instead he goes home and writes an advertisement for the airline.  When he learns that the ad encourages people to fly United because its planes crash less often than those of other airlines, however, Stephen is terrified that Emory is going to get them both fired.  He convinces his friend to enjoy a short stent at Dr. Baylor’s facility and promises that the company will pay for it. 

The next day Stephen drops Emory off at the facility and drives away.  Emory is perfectly content there until he encounters a female patient who introduces herself as William Holden and he realizes that the place is a mental hospital.  He is on the verge of leaving when a lovely young woman named Kathy (Darryl Hannah) introduces herself, says she is on her way to the support group, and invites him along.  Immediately smitten, Emory readily agrees to accompany her and he meets patients Robles (Paul Bates), a black man who thinks he is a Latino, George (David Paymer) whose entire vocabulary consists of the word ‘Hello’, and Saab (Danton Stone) so nicknamed because the only thing he talks about is the Swedish made car, along with others.   When it’s her turn, Kathy confesses that she came to the hospital when her brother Adam left for the military and stays there so he will be able to find her when he is discharged.  The group asks Emory why he is there, and he says it is because he is tired of having to lie all the time.  Deeply touched, the patients give him a group hug and invite him to join their handball game when they go outside.

Back at the office, someone accidentally sends Emory’s ads to newspapers and magazines nationwide.  Because he can’t reach Emory, however, Drucker blames Stephen and fires him.  When it turns out that the ads actually work, Stephen is rehired and told to get Emory back no matter how much it costs.  He immediately heads to the hospital, but Emory has decided he is happy there and refuses to leave for any amount of money.  In retaliation, Drucker cancels his health insurance, but instead of letting himself be bullied, Emory declares that he is starting his own ad company.  The other patients hear of this and help the fledgling project by writing an advertisement for Porsche that says even though the car is too small for drivers to get laid in, they will be laid the minute they get out.  Emory thinks their idea is great which puts him in such a good mood that he asks Kathy for a date. In response, she shows him a stack of letters her brother has written and reiterates that she can’t go anywhere because he will not be able to find her if she isn’t at the hospital. 

Drucker and his cronies come to the hospital to hear the patients’ pitches, which are even wilder than Emory’s, and love them.  Just then Dr. Koch (Ben Hammer), the facility’s owner, arrives and finds the place in total chaos.  He immediately blames Dr. Baylor, who counters that the patients are doing better than they ever have.  She then calms him down by promising a new hospital wing named in his honor.  The ads are well received by the public and Emory is lulled into believing that the relationship between the company and the hospital is going to work until he sees Drucker on television taking credit for their creations.  He tells the patients to stand up for themselves, but they decline because they don’t want to rock the boat.  When Drucker only pays them with cheap pens, however, Emory objects, and Drucker fires all of them.  His men are too dishonest to come up with truthful advertisements on their own, however, so he entices the patients to come back by giving them expensive cars.   

Dr. Koch see the patients driving their cars around the grounds and decides to stop their affiliation with the ad company but knowing how much money their work is bringing in, Drucker offers the doctor kickbacks to change his mind.   The two men come up with a scheme to control the patients by offering them individual contracts, which puts them in competition with one another, and by discharging Emory.  When Dr. Baylor comes to Dr. Koch and tells him that Kathy has decided to leave with Emory, however, the doctor refuses to let the patient go, fires Dr. Baylor, and tells Emory that Kathy doesn’t even have a brother and wrote the letters herself.   Confused, Emory confronts Kathy who admits to having difficulty telling fantasy from reality and says she could have imagined that her brother is coming for her.  Disheartened, Emory decides to leave alone.  The patients beg him to stay because they have a big presentation for Sony coming up and need his help, but when they see he will not be swayed, they say goodbye with mementos.  After Emory gets home, he goes through the gifts and finds a picture of Kathy with her brother which means that she has been telling the truth all along.   Back at the hospital, the presentation for Sony doesn’t go well because the patients are unable to work individually, and an enraged Drucker tells them to try harder.  When they refuse, he threatens to send them someplace truly awful if they don’t cooperate. 

I’m going to stop here so as not to ruin the ending.  When you watch the movie, you will note that its primary message is basically intuitive; greedy people are bad and honest people are good.  Like What About Bob? the story also calls into question our definition of sanity.  Do people have to follow convention in order to be considered sane or can they differ from the norm and still be okay?   Right now, unless you have an Amazon Prime membership, it will cost you around three dollars to rent the movie from steaming services like You Tube, Google Play, and Apple TV.  You can find it for sale, but because the film is considered rare, a used DVD could run you $20 or more.  I saw a new one for a hundred bucks.  Although the movie is only rated 37% on Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon and eBay, along with quite a few other sites, give it 4 plus stars.

Next time we’ll begin a trilogy of series that contain movies I believe any decent collection should include (some of which I am still missing).  The first series consists of my three favorite teen movies from the eighties, starting with Valley Girl which starred a relatively unknown actor by the name of Nicholas Cage. Until then, choose some favorite flicks and start your own ‘must have’ list.