Troop Beverly Hills
“Can anyone explain to me why Tori Spelling is in this movie? …Anyone?”
I’d never seen this eighties gem, lent to me nearly a year ago by Rey, and I enjoyed it much more than I’d expected to — never in my life did I think I’d root for a movie character to get back together with Craig T. Nelson, certainly, but that’s just what happened, and it took me a while to figure out how TBH impressed me so much and why it holds together so well, but I think I’ve got it.
It’s not Great Cinema, of course, but it’s an extremely likeable movie because of the way it approaches Phyllis specifically, and class/wealth issues generally. Whatever the ostensible plot of an eighties movie aimed at a younger demographic, the lion’s share of the conflict centers on the divide between haves and have-nots, and the ethical implications of that divide; the “major” films from that era all make explicit cases in favor of the salt-of-the-earth, creative, caring working-class kids, versus the cruelly manipulative “richies.” Wealthy characters who don’t repent their bank balances must receive a comeuppance (Hardy Jenns), but even if they do come to see the error of their ways, the films often portray them as weak-willed moral relativists who only come to realize how badly/wimpily they’ve behaved by heeding the protagonist’s example (see: Amanda Jones, Blane McDonnagh). For the audience to buy the transformation, the reformed blue-blood must renounce the high-toned tastes of old (see: Joanna/Annie drinking a beer — straight from the bottle, in case you hadn’t already gotten it — at the end of Overboard; Roberta in the second half of Desperately Seeking Susan; and just about any other movie from the decade).
But Troop Beverly Hills doesn’t indict Phyllis for her shoe-amassing, champagne-on-a-camping-trip-drinking ways; it pokes fun at her, sure, but the send-up is gentler and orders of magnitude less bitter than what audiences had become accustomed to. Phyllis does Learn A Valuable Lesson, but it’s not that her fortune (or, more properly, spending her husband’s fortune) has corrupted her and she must turn her back on that life; it’s that she’s a good parent who can bring her talents (niche though they may be) to bear on challenging situations. The movie doesn’t force her to re-learn simple pleasures, or punish her for caring about jewelry; her tastes and her heart aren’t mutually exclusive.
The message is just as simplistic as any from the Brat Pack films, don’t get me wrong. TBH has a lot of good qualities, but it isn’t subtle. What it does have that many similar movies of the era do not is a tolerant core; the running “Mr. and Mrs. Dictator” gag is a great example of the way it accepts its characters for what they are. The Imelda subtext of that joke didn’t age real well, but the teasing tone dates better than the smug “rich people are mean, and if you think Craig Sheffer is cute, you’re part of the problem” tone of Some Kind Of Wonderful.
Tags: movies
oh, sars. i DO love your references! i remember TBH as being a silly, shelley long vehicle that couldn’t compare to, say, the money pit, but was entertaining nonetheless. thanks for that quick walk down memory lane.
oh, and i LOVED “some kind of wonderful.” craig sheffer, while hot, was hardy jenns and therefore despicable, but i did always had a soft spot for eric stoltz.
Ha ha! I loved this movie when I was a kid. I was trying to tell people about it just the other day, but couldn’t remember the title. Thanks.
Thank you for explaining to me exactly why I always watch this when it pops up on cable.
heh. I never even realized that Tori Spelling was in this movie. I guess because I was always rooting for TBH (my friend played Lily, the dictator’s daughter) and just thought those Red Feathers were all a buncha uglies. haha
This movie marks the beginning of my awareness of Shelley Morrison, and Will and Grace marks the only other thing I know her from. For both roles, I noticed her because I was so surprised to see that the other characters and the script treated The Maid as a real person, not just The Maid. (Karen Walker not withstanding, as she universally belittled everyone.)
I readily acknowledge, though am not proud of, the fact that this movie made me seek out Rilo Kiley. To put Jenny Lewis in this context next to Jenny Lewis in that context is hilarious, though it does add a layer to “Rabbit Fur Coat.”
I adore this movie. Yes, it was because I saw it at a formative age (i.e. when the blonde trooper was the most famous one because she was Margot on Punky Brewster, ‘Tessa’ was a girl from Saved by the Bell, it was my introduction to Carla Gugino, who I still have a mad girl-crush on, and all the girls were my age-ish). I thought that Long’s curly red hair was fabulous and was PISSED that no one else was talking about it. The main kid character had an entire gym in her house (as in gymnastics, not weights). At the time, Giorgio Beverly Hills was THE go-to in-group perfume at my school, and my low-end-of-middle-class parents wouldn’t even slow down in the cosmetics section of the deparment store, as if the scent and sight themselves were made of gold. The fact that every bit of camping equipment they had was branded by Giorgio made me goggle.
I recall fondly that there was only one plot point about which I was unable to suspend my disbelief: once all the other adults saw how fantastically remade all of the main character’s uniforms were, HOW COULD THEY STAND TO WEAR THE SAME OLD DOWDY CRAP? Okay, they’re the suburbs surrounding Beverly Hills, and the class difference was kind of the point, but what, no one sewed? Or had a tailor friend? Or could petition the national head guru and ask about some uniforms more recent than turn-of-the-century in style for everyone?
This was one of favorites, right up there with “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. Plus, it has Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley.
Oh man. I used to be so obsessed with this movie. Mostly, because I wanted to get those patches, rather than stupid knot tying or sewing or what have you. Though fishing was fun. Also, I wanted to be rich. And look as stylish as the girls in the movie did.
Good times. Going in the queue, this one is.
ps: Tori Spelling is in this movie? WHAT? (For a second I thought of Tori Amos.) And Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley, -and the Watson Twins) is in there too! Woah.
Thanks for this! I admit this soft-hearted movie is a guilty “basic cable” pleasure. Worth it for the scene where Shelley Long does the “Freddie” alone — not to mention her parade of ridiculous ’80s fashion that would make Christian Dior weep. Movies like this are comforting — how pleasant to retreat into the amniotic fluid of this movie, and watch the Good Troop battle the Evil Troop in the big Color Wars finish. It makes me nostalgic for my own Girl Scouts days; I was always jealous of the girls’ success at selling cookies since I was an awful cookie salesperson (we lived in the country & didn’t really have neighbors I could walk to, plus the girls who always sold lots of boxes had parents who worked in big offices or a hospital or something, an advantage which I also lacked).
I’ve always loved this movie, and I don’t even care if it’s not cool. If I had a daughter who ended up being half as smart and sassy and hilarious as those girls, it would be amazing.
Do the Freddy! I love this movie, and any time I try to raise it seriously in any conversation I get the high-brow sneer, but seriously, it is a keeper. And I was totally one of those people who preferred Diane to Rebecca on Cheers, so it was extra-fun for me.
I searched everywhere for some version of Phyllis’s fund-raising gala gown to have as my very own. Giant bows, you are well and truly missed in the aughts.
I love this movie! My mom took me to the theater to see this and I thought it was so great. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this movie. Awesome.
I LOVE this movie!! It makes me so happy. I watch it every time I see it on tv.
Now I can put my finger on why so many 80s movies just never sat right with me – the intolerance. Thanks, Sars. (Although Kurt’s shirtlessness throughout much of Overboard… well, nuff said.) You know what other 80s movie has a “tolerant core”? Footloose! One of my favorite screenplays of all time. Pump Up the Volume kind of falls in the same camp too. Even though the rich girl microwaves her pearls, that movie is not really about class at all.
I adored this movie as a kid, as in wanted to be one of those girls in real life. I just bought it on dvd recently and it still holds up pretty well, too. It was just good, campy fun and I watched it over and over as a kid, never tiring of it.
Man, I loved Footloose. I still have it on VHS, and watch it more than I care to admit.
That, and Flashdance. Welder goes Ballet, that’s some good stuff. Not to mention that I immediately taught myself that trick of how to take a bra off without taking a shirt off.
Love it! And recently bought it at a yard sale and I was thrilled. I was a girl scout for TWELVE years so I think that had something to do with my enjoyment of it.
LOVE! This movie ties with “Neverending Story 2” as my all-time top video rental as a kiddo. In college, one of my assigned roommates and I didn’t share much common ground. Seeing TBH in her video collection made me give her a chance, and the year went by pretty well.
I loved this movie. I think it’s funny that I never even *noticed* Tori Spelling in it! (I’ve had that damn “cookie time” song stuck in my head, though…)
I want that troop’s merit patches, don’t you? Heh.
I always had a soft spot for this movie, and still do. It’s nice that spoiled does not equal evil. :)
oh god. now i’ve got that song in my head again…
“we’re the girls from beverly hills….shopping is our greatest thrill…5,6,7,8…”
I can’t tell you how many times i’ve seen this movie. i owned the VHS for years, and still watch it when it comes on TBS, or Lifetime, or whatever.
I never cared how cheesy the movie was–i loved it then and i love it now.
Re: Blane McDonnough…I read (probably on the IMDB) that the original ending of “Pretty In Pink”, one of my all-time favorite movies, had Duckie and Andie getting together, but they changed it b/c test audiences took that to mean that rich kids and poor kids didn’t “belong together”. Bugged me to no end, not because I think the classes can’t mix, but because I always thought Duckie really loved Andie, whereas Blane was too much of a pixiebutt to stand up for her. Then again, Andie didn’t love Duckie that way, so whatever.
“That…that’s an APPLIANCE, that’s not a NAME!”
Personally, I am singing the Neffler the Muffler Man song. You know, the one to the tune of The Muffin Man.
Oh, man, did I love TBH. It was, and is, such a guilty pleasure and I try to catch it when I see it’s on cable somewhere. I love that line, “Patches? We don’t need no stinkin’ patches!” I had no idea they were playing off “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” until a few years ago. One of those things that they throw in their for the adults who had been dragged to the movie, I suppose, and I think it’s pretty funny.
I also love, love, love “Some Kind of Wonderful.” I replay that scene where Keith and Watts do their “practice” kiss and cry when he gives her the diamond earrings at the end. Oh, John Hughes, how you speak to me. What would my adolecence have been without you? The only thing that would have made SKoW better is Spader, but I guess he couldn’t have been in every movie made between ’84 and ’90, but wouldn’t they have been better if he had? Yes, yes they would.
@Jaybird: That’s in Bernstein’s book, and I have to agree with the test audiences, not because Andie and Duckie are both “poor” but because Andie and Duckie are not both straight.
I actually don’t really like that movie; Jon Cryer’s performance is beyond annoying, so is Annie Potts’s, the notorious hacked vintage dress is fecking hideous, and if James Spader isn’t onscreen, it just isn’t very interesting. None of the movies in that cohort has aged very well, but that one bugged me contemporaneously.
Oh, but 33 minutes into ‘Pretty in Pink’, when Duckie lipsynchs…I fell in love w/Duckie. But I hear ya on James Spader. His characters are usually asshats, but he’s hot.
OK, I’m, not positive about this, but I believe Amanda Jones was not a wealthy character at all — she was from the same neighborhood as Keith and was just dating a rich guy. And once they broke up the rich kids wanted nothing to do with her.
Margaret, you’re right — Amanda isn’t wealthy, and gets cut dead by the rich girls after she breaks up with Hardy. I class her with the other “richies” in that type of movie because, initially, that’s what she wants and how she acts.
It’s more about this — “weak-willed moral relativists who only come to realize how badly/wimpily they’ve behaved by heeding the protagonist’s example” — than about her family’s relative wealth/poverty. We’re supposed to think she’s had her eyes opened by Keith (who is just as misguided when he tries to buy her love with the earrings).
There it is TBH nestling in comfortably among all my other Shelley Long films (about a dozen) I wish I knew why I like Shelley so much but there it is I do and it seems people either love her or hate her. In Cheers I found her the piece of class amongst a great many not very funny and coarse people. TBH though with her throwing her legs up in the air and singing the Freddie and the kerbside disco with her doing her singing bit and very professionally I might add. Why didn,t she take up singing because she has a lovely voice. Recently I found her on Youtube singing sweet can and also This time of the Month absolutely brilliant. Lets hope Two white chicks at the hairdressers comes out on DVD. I think Shelley is one of the most underated comedy actresses there is and to keep painting her career after Chers as a failure is not true just not as successful as Cheers.
re: Andie/Duckie – I watched the special features on the PiP DVD and they changed the ending pretty much because Molly Ringwald didn’t feel like she had chemistry with Jon Cryer and wanted her character to be with Andrew McCarthy because he was hotter. In fact, she was deeply disappointed that Charlie Sheen had not been chosen for Duckie’s part (at least, I think I’m remembering it was Sheen) because she felt he was so attractive and that they had chemistry. It was a bizarre, self-absorbed interview that totally turned me off to Molly Ringwald.
So excited to see TBH reviewed! I loved this movie as a kid, still makes me laugh today. I love the mom who is a romance novelist. Watching it now, I still am amused at how phrases like “His manhood rose to a frenzy” just flew right by me as a kid. Ahh, youth.
@Sara: that is really dreadfully sad if that is true about Molly Ringwald. I am turned off her, too. I love PiP irrationally. She is so whiny and uptight in it. And Andrew McCarthy is such a spineless coward. But I love Duckie, I love the music and I love the us vs. them, outsiders vs. richies, and stuff like that. (I’m so eloquent)
Craig Sheffer circa A River Runs Through It *serious drool*
Hmm. I’ve never seen this, and that seems odd, since I actually do like Shelley Long. Then I realized that when this movie came out, I was 25, married, and working two $4.00-an-hour jobs. No wonder it slipped past me. (1980s cultural references seem to be all about the affluence and excess, but my 1980s were about poverty, school, self-denial, and working 65 hours a week just to get by.) I recently saw Overboard, from around the same time, and I identified more with “Annie” than I did with Johanna”, that’s for sure.
Awww, MAN. I didn’t know a lot of this stuff y’all are telling me about PiP or Ringwald, and it bums me out mightily. I’ve always had a soft spot for Ringwald b/c my younger sister, at the time, was a [brunette] dead ringer for her. I know, not exactly a dead ringer, but there was enough of a resemblance that everybody remarked on it. And she ended up in a similar situation to Andie’s a few years later, although our Mom is still around and our Dad had a job.
And another thing: CHARLIE SHEEN? Seriously? She was willing to let him in the same room with her w/o a note from his doctor? Feh.
I own Troop Beverly Hills. On DVD. What else can be said for me?
“Must’ve been the squirrel meat.”
Ohhh, I loved this movie. I always cried when Carla Gugino’s parents forgot her birthday. And then the story about Phyllis’s credit cards! DRAMA, man.
Oh my god, that was Tori Spelling? Holy shit.
I have seen this movie, I would venture to say, more than fifty times. I have watched it with my mother. I have watched it with my sister. I have watched it with several incarnations of my Girl Scout troop. I never stop loving it.
w/r/t to Andie/Duckie in PiP, yes, they cannot be a couple on account of the Duckie’s sexuality, but I do not like that she throws him over (with his very strange permission) for Blane at the prom. How about a little solidarity?
And on a similar note, I like that Keith chooses Watts over Amanda, but I do not buy Watts as straight. I don’t think I am just responding to her butchness, here; I really think that there’s a combination of writing and acting choices leading me there.
Also, how weird is this as a motif in John Hughes films? It actually did reflect my experience in high school as a closeted lesbian who felt betrayed by my friends’ straight relationships. But, seriously, that is one teeny niche market.
I was JUST singing the Cookie Time song at work the other day cos we were talking about Girl Scout Cookies, and *horror!* no one knew what the hell I was talking about! 20 minutes later, they were all dying to seek out TBH on DVD…
I adored this movie as a kid, and still do. The first thing I said when I saw Rilo Kiley was, “Hey, it’s the girl from Troop Beverly Hills! I totally wanted to be her as a kid!”
Funny enough, though, I never noticed Tori Spelling in that movie. Wow.