There’s an old adage that reads “at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” and despite the comedic team of ZAZ (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker) nailing the spoof genre on their first try with Airplane!, their subsequent ventures into over the top spoofery hadn’t gone on as well as you’d think. Not only did their masterful, 1984 WWII movie parody, Top Secret! fail to do the business despite easily as being as funny and genius as Airplane!, but their short lived, 1982 spoof cop show, Police Squad! was axed after only four of the six episodes had aired making it seem like the age of the non-Mel Brooks spoof was over before it ever truly had a chance to begin.
However, ZAZ obviously still saw gold in the bumbling exploits of Leslie Neilsen’s dead-pan Police detective and in 1988, Police Squad! rode again thanks to The Naked Gun, a movie spin off that not only inserted fresh bullets into the chamber of the service revolver of spoof comedy, but it fired them directly into our funny bones to be one of the greatest comedies of all time. Hop into the squad car and cue thode flashing red lights, crime’s about to take one hell of a pratfall.
Lieutenant Frank Drebin of Police Squad has just returned from a holiday in Beirut where he beat the shit out of all of America’s accumulated enemies, to discover that his marriage is all but over and his partner Nordberg is in a coma after a drugs bust went terribly wrong. While he recovers from getting shot multiple times, bashing his head, burning his hand on a stove, shutting his fingers in a window frame and stepping on a bear trap, Frank is put on the case you try and figure out what happens and is eventually led to businessman Vincent Ludwig who seems to be the mastermind behind the whole thing.
However, while Drebin’s attention is drawn from Ludwig thanks to the presence of his striking assistant, Jane – who catches Frank’s eye thanks to her impressive looking beaver (the stuffed one on her shelf, that is) – the corrupt businessman is put in charge of mounting the assassination of Queen Elizibeth II when she visits LA. Conjuring up an insidious plan that involves turning some unknowing, poor sap into an unwitting assassin by post hypnotic suggestion, Ludwig plans to have the deed carried out at a baseball game at the Anaheim stadium between the California Angels and the Seattle Mariners.
Caught between trying to clear Nordburg’s name and save the Queen from this baseball related conspiracy, Frank also questions his trust in Jane as he suspects she was merely a honey trap to lead him away from the case; but as our unflappable hero battles thugs, international assassination plots, city hall and even his bladder’s capacity to hold water at a press conference, can he manage to prevail and save the day?
From the opening scene that sees Leslie Neilsen punch the turban clean off the Ayatollah Khomeini to reveal a bright orange mowhawk, to the last that sees none other than a wheelchair bound O.J. Simpson get launched down a flight of stairs and catapulted dozens of feet into the air, The Naked Gun stands proud as one of the greatest comedies of the 80s. While I would personally argue that it isn’t quite as majestic as Airplane!, it manages to boast a gag-per minute hit rate that most modern comedies (assuming anyone actually made any anymore) would struggle to even approach and a huge part of its appeal is that it’s simply a bunch of smart guys making the most stupid movie they possibly can. Sight gags, pratfalls, broad parody and groan inducing one liners all converge like Infinity Stones to create a complete blizzard of humour that doubles you up with laughs quicker than an unexpected gut shot by Mike Tyson.
Steering the ship is the impeccable comic timing of Leslie Neilsen who, after a scene stealing supporting role in Airplane! and the tanking of Police Squad!, finally gets his comedy dues as the lead and he still is the undisputed king of the dead-delivery. In fact, his ability to say the stupidest shit with a delivery as cold as stone really needs to be studied by the keenest comedy minds for posterity, as he treats every punchline with the same amount of overblown gravity as an episode of Columbo. “Cuban?” says Ricardo Montalban’s villain, while offering a distracted Drebin a cigar, “No, Dutch Irish. My father was from Wales.” shoots back Neilsen without missing a beat – it’s a stupid joke, but the delivery is so normal, the gag just fucking kills.
In comparison, everyone else is sort of the straight man, but the rest of the cast, which includes Montalban, George Kennedy and Priscilla Presley matches his throwback acting style of unwavering seriousness. Of course, we can’t discuss the cast of The Naked Gun without bringing up the fact that an infamous, pre-murder trial O.J. Simpson has something of a sizable role, and yet while a lot of things from 80s comedies age badly these days, using the character Norberg to poke fun of the trope that the black partner to the lead always gets messed up by literally having Simpson have the crap kicked out of him in every scene he’s in has amusingly aged magnificently.
Elsewhere, the trifecta of Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker go all out with many other cop movie tropes, from the opening credits that sees a speeding cop car careering through people’s houses, a rollercoaster and even ladies locker rooms (again, it was the 80s, remember), to possibly the greatest safe sex sex scene in history, literally no scene escapes without a dozen or so gags hurled in its general direction. But it’s the sheer range of jokes that truly impresses – yes, there’s the type of bawldy, sexually charged stuff that involves a genius moment with a wayward stone penis broken off a statue, but we also get the type of classic gags you’d see in the like of the a Marx brothers movie as Drebin attempts to salvage all the priceless artifacts in a burning office with catastrophic results.
However, maybe the best thing about The Naked Gun is, much like the other ZAZ spoofs, the only thing it’s concerned with is just making you laugh and it doesn’t care what it has to do to do it. More importantly, it’s one of those rare comedies that can be counted along with the greats as something that always remains steadfastly funny no matter how old it gets. I’ve seen the film a great many times and surely the fact that I’m still busting a gut over such things as the learner driver car chase, the baseball montage and some dude yelling “It’s Enrico Palazzo!” surely signifies the gold standard of comedy cinema. Frank may have faked every orgasm, but I certainly didn’t fake those laughs.
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