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| Images courtesy of Universal Pictures |
Years before frequent television director Michael Pressman
did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze as well as
his meta self-referential comedy Frankie and Johnny Are Married, the
film worker in 1983 helmed the first movie Dan Aykroyd made in the wake of his
longtime collaborator and friend John Belushi’s passing as well as the actor’s
first bit of top poster billing: the outlandish screwball ‘King of the Pimps’ crime
caper comedy Doctor Detroit. Known
for being the film Aykroyd met his wife and recurring costar Donna Dixon on as
well as featuring original tracks created for the film by Devo, James Brown and
composer Lalo Schifrin, the sexy stupid summer comedy gave the actor ample latitude
to dive into one of many of his soon-to-come patently absurd comedy
caricatures. While not as strong as The
Blues Brothers ala It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, this mistaken
identity mobster and call girl driven comedy definitely echoes aspects of The
Nutty Professor by way of Some Like It Hot.
Dorky nebbish nerdy college professor Clifford Skridlow (Dan
Aykroyd) finds himself in over his head with his college in near financial ruin
when he crosses paths with pimp Smooth Walker (Howard Hesseman) who himself
owes $80K to Chicago based mob boss “Mom” (Kate Murtagh). Coming up with a fictional flamboyant chiropractor
pimp dubbed “Doctor Detroit”, Smooth Walker furnishes Clifford with a night
with his girls Monica (Donna Dixon), Jasmine (Lydia Lei), Karen (Fran Drescher)
and Thelma (Lynn Whitfield) only to skip town, pin the $80K debt on the girls
and leave Clifford with a royal mess on his hands. However, when cornered the unlikely Clifford
is forced to dive into the alter ego of Doctor Detroit to protect the
ladies and thwart the criminals, turning into a superhero kind of hustler that
feels like Superfly starring Dr. Strangelove replete with a
bionic hand, blown out white hair, bright green pants, a yellow suit jacket and
red plaid buttoned shirt. Not to mention
the schtick of Aykroyd giving Doctor Detroit a high pitched nasally eyes-squinted
comedy creation.
Co-written by Jaws screenwriter Carl Gottlieb, Bruce
Jay Friedman and Robert Boris and produced by Bernie Brillstein, Dan Aykroyd’s
ensemble super-pimp comedy feels on film a bit like The Blues Brothers right
down to including James Brown onscreen for an Aykroyd duet only with another
foot firmly planted in New Wave and synthpop.
Though the title track used in the trailer by James Brown Get Up Offa
That Thing suggests a film continuing the bluesy Chicago vibes of the John
Landis comedy epic, the actual film sounds a bit closer to the work of John
Hughes who incidentally would hire co-composer Ira Newborn on Ferris Bueller’s
Day Off and Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Lalo Schifrin’s original score is
appropriately throwing back to sleazier sounding elements of his 1980s scores
for Dirty Harry and Enter the Dragon but mostly people watching Doctor
Detroit are going to think of Devo.
The film’s bright and colorful daytime college university
vistas underscored by the dangerous nighttime alleyways of Chicago lensed by Revenge
of the Nerds and The Last Starfighter cinematographer King Baggot
has the patina of an early 80s John Landis comedy. Where the film really shines is how it works
in an ensemble mix of comedy and dramatic actors with Flight of the
Navigator actor Howard Hesseman as fast-talking pimp Smooth Walker providing
another villainous adversary and The Thing actor T.K. Carter making an
unlikely comic turn as Doctor Detroit’s limo driver. Mostly the film dances between the fiercely wicked
comic energies of Dan Aykroyd and how he plays off of the actresses portraying
the prostitutes with Fran Drescher giving an especially memorably hilarious
performance. Aykroyd when he disappears
into a character can either make or break a film but somehow Aykroyd and Pressman
keep the piece from flying apart into patent ridiculousness ala Nothing But
Trouble and as such winds up being a sweet natured romantic comedy of
sorts.
Though the film only just barely broke even at the box office,
taking in just over $10 million against an $8 million budget, the film went
over well with critics and further cemented the box office draw of Dan Aykroyd
just one year before he and three other comedy actors would join forces for one
of the biggest epic comedies of all time.
Yes the appearance of James Brown did tend to take me back into the church
gospel songs of The Blues Brothers, but most of the rest of it finds its
own distinctly 80s synthpop comic attitude which would or would not factor into
John Hughes’ soundtracks. Aykroyd’s caricature
is obnoxious, yes, but also oddly kind of a heroic goofball that would pave the
way for other like-minded offerings involving ridiculous cartoonish pimps going
into turf war with one another. The
treatment of the subject of pimps and prostitution could’ve been really tawdry
or raunchy but in Aykroyd and Pressman’s hands it achieves a kind of Strangelovian
James Bond villain level of silliness and oddly moments of sweetness. Plus Dan Aykroyd and Donna Dixon look so cute
onscreen together.
--Andrew Kotwicki
