The Naked Gun (1988): Favourite Films Series

The Naked Gun (1988): Favourite Films Series

 

People love to ask broad movie questions like, “What’s your favourite movie?” or “What’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?” or, the one most relevant to this entry in my favourite films series, “What’s the funniest movie you’ve ever seen?” I used to ask questions like that but I don’t anymore because now that I’ve seen so many movies they’re too hard to answer with just one example. I can think of many funny movie scenes, such as when Steve Carrell is made a fool of on the news by Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty or when Cameron Diaz takes the “hair gel” off Ben Stiller’s ear in There’s Something About Mary. I can also think of comedy sequels that are even funnier than the originals, like Scary Movie 3 and Hot Shots: Part Deux. But, if I had to pick just one movie as the funniest overall movie I can think of, for me that movie is The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

When it comes to spoof movies made by the creative team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (which include those two aforementioned superior comedy sequels), many people identify Airplane! as the best one, or Top Secret! which is also frequently seen as their most underrated one. I am in that group of Naked Gun fans who think the first film, inspired by the short-lived TV series Police Squad! is their best work. Of all the comedies I have ever seen, it is the one I have watched the most times over and reliably laughed at the most with repeat viewings.

One of the main reasons The Naked Gun never gets old is because of the number of quality jokes packed into its 85 minute runtime. Comedies, like any film in a particular genre, usually have to pace the elements that define them appropriately. A horror movie has to find an effective ebb and flow to the scary parts and the buildup of tension. An action movie finds a balance of action scenes and non-action scenes. A comedy works best when the jokes and gags and funny parts are balanced with parts that are not just meant to make you laugh; maybe they move the story along or help develop the characters. Naked Gun does not follow a typical comedy film formula and manages to succeed in a truly unique way.

The first blatantly “funny” part happens less than two minutes after the fade in of the Paramount logo, and there are no extended breaks from anything comical until the end credits start to roll. Even the opening credit sequence is packed with jokes. The concept is based around the camera being atop a speeding police cruiser with the siren in center frame. This shot was used only briefly in the opening of the TV series for the show’s title. In The Naked Gun, the camera angle is maintained for the whole credit intro, with the car moving from location to location. At first it’s just on the road, but then it goes onto the sidewalk, through the car wash, into someone’s house, the women’s locker room, up and down a rollercoaster, and finally comes to a stop outside the donut shop. The music is perfect for this intro, too (so perfect they re-used it for both sequels), because it’s repetitive without being annoying and somehow makes the credits funnier. The intro is also an effective way to let the audience know that what they are about to watch is going to get pretty absurd pretty fast. 

As a kid, I was a big fan of the spoof genre. I loved all of them, but as I got older, some of them got annoying, or were only worth a one-time watch with little repeat value. I realize now that the reason lies within the sources of humour. Many of the spoof movies with titles that end in “Movie” like Superhero Movie or Epic Movie were only funny because of the recognizable pop culture references and the twisting of those familiar elements into something goofy or self-aware or absurd. But, when that’s all the movie has to offer, it gets tiring pretty fast. What’s interesting is many of the later spoof movies used the same strategy as Naked Gun by throwing as much as possible against the wall to see what would stick. Instead of good quality jokes, why not just put as many jokes in as we can, and hope at least some of them land? Bombard the audience so they don’t even remember everything that happened and might feel the need to see it again because maybe they missed something funny the first time. The Naked Gun doesn’t bombard the audience with jokes so much as it feeds them at a steady, unending supply, but miraculously, all of the jokes hit their marks, and at no point does it feel like cramming jokes in just for the sake of it.

The Naked Gun really shouldn’t work as well as it does. It’s a demonstration of the maximum volume of hilarity you can contain to a comedy film. It does not rely on only one or two types of humour, either. There are sight gags, verbal puns, and anachronisms aplenty, but those are just the smaller jokes placed throughout every scene. The dialogue is hilarious throughout, with most of it delivered in such a sincere way that it’s funnier because it doesn’t come off as if it’s supposed to be as funny as it is. The plot is brilliant in that it allows for so many different kinds of funny moments to occur. A complex, layered plot is not what a spoof movie needs to have in order to succeed, but the cliché police procedural on display here is so cliché that it’s perfect for the kind of genre spoof the movie is going for, and it lets the story build up to funnier and funnier moments until it hits the comedy climax at the baseball game. Because it establishes an absurdist nature, things that could be pointed out as errors in a more grounded film, whether a comedy or not, just add to the overall comedic nature in this case. 

Somehow I’ve made it this far in explaining why The Naked Gun is one of the funniest movies of all-time without even mentioning the actor who should receive the most credit for why it has earned this prestigious honour. Leslie Neilsen had some great roles long before this movie and was known for being in some pretty serious films, but he was a standout in 1980’s Airplane! and I have no doubt that’s what led to his casting as Frank Drebin in the Police Squad! TV series two years later. Even though the show came first, the creators had wanted to make the concept as a feature film initially, and while the show and the movie don’t have much continuity, Leslie Neilsen plays Frank the same way in both. I absolutely believe his character has no idea he is in a comedy or that everything he does or says is hilarious. His versatility as an actor allows him to nail it with the slapstick physical jokes and gags as well as the dialogue and more “dramatic” moments. I have to give credit to the rest of the cast as well, including love interest Jane played by Priscilla Presley, the antagonist Vincent Ludwig played by Ricardo Montalban, and George Kennedy as Captain Ed: a character played by a different actor in the TV series. They all play off Neilsen in different funny ways.

It would not only be a disservice for me to just describe all the funny parts of this movie, but it would be virtually impossible because I would have to describe the entire movie! I don’t think any of the jokes are outright misses or fall flat, but there are definitely some bits that are less funny than others, though mostly just small moments that aren’t the focus of any scene. In fact, I appreciate some of the more subtle gags that you likely wouldn’t notice until a repeated viewing, like the expired Chinese food box crawling away in the background in Frank’s apartment. I’ll break down just one example from each kind of funny element at work:

Sight gag: the floating chalk line in the harbour.

Text gag: Frank and Jane come out of the movie theater laughing their asses off, then we see the marquee reads PLATOON.

Slapstick gag: When Nordberg (played by O.J. Simpson) gets shot several times and then every other bad thing that could possibly happen to him happens in rapid succession, like leaning on something with wet paint and touching a hot stove. 

Dialogue: “He's on life support. Doctors say he's got a 50-50 chance of living, though there's only a ten percent chance of that.” –Captain Ed

Combo of dialogue and visual gag: “Bingo,” Frank says, after he opens a drawer, then takes out a bingo card.

Specific elements of crime dramas/police procedurals being spoofed: the classic detective voiceover as Frank walks the streets at night (well, also hop scotches for a moment): “The attempt on Nordberg's life left me shaken and disturbed, and all the questions kept coming up over and over again, like bubbles in a case of club soda. Who was this character in the hospital? And why was he trying to kill Nordberg? And for whom? Did Ludwig lie to me? I didn't have any proof, but somehow, I didn't entirely trust him either. Why was the 'I Luv You' not listed in Ludwig's records? And if it was, did he know about it? And if he didn't, who did? And where the hell was I?” At the end the camera tilts up as he realizes he’s wandered out of the city into the woods.

Going back to those broad, hard-to-answer movie questions, I don’t think I could answer the question of what the absolute funniest part of this movie is. It would be like trying to pick your favourite child—you just don’t do it!

Some people claim that comedy is now dead because you can’t get away with so many kinds of jokes anymore and everyone is too easily offended by everything. While I do think comedy has changed a great deal in the past fifteen years, I don’t think it’s a matter of the entire genre being dead, but rather too much humour now being centered on shock value and vulgar topics and sex instead of it being clever and quick-witted. A movie like The Naked Gun probably wouldn’t work the same or as well if made today, but comedy always has been and always will be highly subjective and susceptible to losing relevance as culture continues to evolve. I think The Naked Gun is as funny today as it was when it first came out in 1988, and one day when I’m watching it for the 500th time as an octogenarian I will still laugh when Frank Drebin unwittingly visits the whiz palace during the Queen Elizabeth press conference with his microphone on and everyone hears what goes on in there.