Once a member of a group of actors dubbed ‘The Brat Pack,’ Andrew McCarthy also counts three insane comedy films among his work…
The 80s and 90s were a special time for the comedy genre. Aside from classic comedies with brilliant concepts, such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles, the era was also known for concepts which were deranged, bonkers, wholly misguided, plain daft, or in some cases a combination of all of the above.
That’s not to say these head-scratching concepts never worked, because occasionally a daft idea, such as Weird Science (where a couple of geeks design and bring a hot woman to life with their computer), would roll into the absurdity with great results. A master of 80s concept comedy was John Hughes. He was responsible for Weird Science and Planes, Trains and also wondered what comedy could be mined from a streetwise kid skipping school for a day, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, or a 10-year-old kid getting left Home Alone by absent-minded parents, and fighting off burglars.
Hughes was also the brainchild behind a new wave of hot young stars of the 1980s dubbed ‘The Brat Pack’, casting them in an array of his projects. These included the likes of James Spader, Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, but also Andrew McCarthy.
McCarthy would largely become synonymous in his early days for playing douchebags or slackers (or douchebag slackers). Good looking, an easy charm and just enough awkwardness beneath that handsome facade to be just the right shade of nerdy if needed.
As far as McCarthy’s most iconic work, some lay away from the John Hughes stable (which included Pretty in Pink and St Elmo’s Fire), and three in particular were high concept comedies with, in hindsight, pretty ludicrous and surprisingly grim concepts (especially in the case of one and its sequel). It’s time to take a look back at these dementedly bonkers Andrew McCarthy comedies…
Weekend at Bernie’s
In the grand pantheon of “who the hell greenlit this?” comes Weekend at Bernie’s. It was also directed by the late, great Ted Kotcheff (an example of his genre-hopping adaptability). A couple of young wasters, struggling to stand out in an insurance company, find discrepancies in payouts and take the news to their boss, Bernie. He’s a bigshot, wealthy, with a girl on his arm at all times. They long to have his money and power, but studious Richard (Jonathan Silverman) still lives with his parents and Larry (McCarthy) half asses his way through life and lives in a roach infested apartment. Expecting this financial irregularity discovery to put them in Bernie’s good books, all plays out as expected as he invites them to his beachhouse getaway for the weekend.
As it turns out, Bernie has been fleecing the company and is tied up with the mafia. He intends to kill the two shmucks but little does he know, the mafia put the order to take Bernie out. Now, for reasons convoluted, Bernie ends up dead, but Rich and Larry stop short at calling the cops at every turn and soon keep up the pretence that Bernie is still alive. This results in comedy hijinx galore, not limited to Bernie’s friends conversing with him, blissfully unaware he’s actually dead, the pair propping him up and taking him out for golf cart rides and even one of Bernie’s mistresses having it off with Bernie and proclaiming he was “better than ever.”
Yes, this would probably not get made in 2025, but more’s the pity. Sure, it teeters on macabre at times, but the film is energetic and raucous and throws plenty of curveballs at every turn. McCarthy plays Larry with a gleeful impishness, and what could be discerned as psychopathic tendencies were this in another genre. Somehow, too, Terry Kiser spends two-thirds of the movie dead but delivers a stellar performance. It really does stretch logic and taste to the limit here, but this old childhood favourite still tickles my funny bone.
Weekend at Bernie’s II
In the history of ill-advised, terrible comedy ideas, Weekend at Bernie’s II is pretty special but probably wouldn’t get close to something like Mr Nanny, Ernest Goes to Africa, or Soul Man (where white, C Thomas Howell, poses as a black man to get a Harvard scholarship). Still, there’s flogging a dead horse and then there’s flogging a dead Bernie. Widely regarded as a dire cash grab sequel, Weekend at Bernie’s II mines a lot of the gags from the first film, where Bernie is partially revived via voodoo magic so gangsters can find where he’s hidden millions in loot.
Coming four years after the original, this film felt as much as anything like it was too late to capitalise on McCarthy’s 80s appeal. At this juncture, his box office power had plunged, whilst Silverman had just had the misfortune of releasing (admittedly fine) time loop movie, 12:01, the same year as Groundhog Day. Neither quite managed to raise their game to the effortless dynamic of the original film, but they’re not helped by the original film’s writer, Robert Klane’s misfiring sequel script and his lacklustre direction.
All that being said, it’s so ridiculous that it’s still pretty entertaining, even if you’re often found laughing at it and not with it.
Mannequin
The dead are pretty inanimate, and the deranged McCarthy comedy formula seemed to work well with him propping up lifeless beings. In the case of Mannequin, we get an atypically cheesy 80s rom-com with an added pinch of fantasy. A girl, forced into a marriage in Ancient Egypt, prays to the Gods and ends up being transported into the body of a mannequin, McCarthy’s Jonathan spent many hours carefully crafting. After getting fired, Jonathan goes from job to job but spots his beloved dummy in a shop window. He sets about trying to get a job in the store to be reunited with his mannequin.
Now…here’s the thing: Before we even throw into the equation that the dummy will come to life at night (only for Jonathan’s eyes), in the dazzling form of Kim Cattrall, this cat is already smitten with the fibreclass female. Like creepily obsessed with his carefully crafted creation. Seriously…who greenlit this one, and how much cocaine was involved? To no surprise, given their crazy catalogue, this was distributed by Cannon Films. If there was a consistent criticism of the female love interest in 80s cinema, it was often that the characters were one-dimensional and might as well have been inanimate. This film is literally built on that ideology, with Cattrall’s character very literally objectified.
Okay, she’s there as eye-candy, with a fibreglass stand-in whenever another character shares the room with McCarthy, but Mannequin is still sort of delightful. Unsurprisingly, this was savaged by critics, with the most memorable part of the film being the major soundtrack hit, Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now by Starship. In time, there’s been a lot more appreciation for this one with audiences more willing to roll with the inherent silliness and how over the top many of the performances are (not least James Spader, as one of the antagonists). A big part of the reason it works is that McCarthy somehow fuses oddball awkwardness with a leading man charm and looks. So much of the comedy is built on the support cast questioning Jonathan’s increasing (and assumed sexual) fascination with his dummy, whilst also overlooking his erratic behaviour because he’s evidently mastering the store’s marketing and image.
Above all, and thanks in part to its colourful design, characters and uplifting soundtrack, Mannequin is a real crowd pleaser.
What’s your favourite demented Andrew McCarthy comedy? Drop us a comment on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe
