Earlier this week, I posted Hard Times: Money And Sex, which included an aside about movie hookers portrayed by Julia Roberts and Barbara Streisand.
Hookers with hearts of gold
When, a day or two later, Working Girls (and Boy): Our Five Favorite Movie Hookers from Spout blog1 appeared unbidden but not unwelcomed on my screen, I recognized it was no mere coincidence but a divine sign. Consequently, I am passing along a couple of especially toothsome tidbits from this piece,2 one today and one in a future post.
An Employee Run Prostitution Ring In A Morgue – Great Idea For A Funny Movie, Right?
Spout: Shelley Long as Belinda Keaton in Ron Howard’s Night Shift
The plot of this 1982 farce is set in motion when Chuck Lumley (Henry Winkler), an intensely passive morgue supervisor, is transferred as part of a nepotistic maneuver, to the night shift where he is partnered with a new assistant, Billy “Blaze” Blazejowski (Michael Keaton in his screen debut), is a fount of entrepreneurial concepts (“I’m an idea man Chuck, I get ideas, sometimes I get so many ideas that I can’t even fight them off!”). Blaze inevitably realizes that the morgue at night is the ideal location for a brothel run by Chuck’s neighbor, Belinda (Shelley Long), a sweet, clean, and, considering her profession, innocent prostitute who is serendipitously between pimps. Hilarity ensues. Really.
I know what you’re thinking – Why did it take until 1982 for the movie industry to come up with such a classic comic concept?
It’s a puzzlement.
The Funny Side Of Morgue-based Prostitution
As Spout notes, “Shelley Long … shine[s] as hooker Belinda Keaton in a way that showed she could hold her own onscreen opposite heavier hitters like Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton.” A pre-Cheers Ms Long is shown below holding her own while simultaneously preparing breakfast in polka dot panties .
Shelley Long in Night Shift
Michael Keaton’s manic, Beetlejuice-foreshadowing antics as Billy “Blaze” Blazejowski, the fast-talking (“I wash my hands and my feet of you!”), fast-moving personification of narcissistic exuberance, reliably moves the action along, encourages the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief, and tosses off ideas and funny lines (often into his always present tape recorder) indiscriminately.
What if you mix the mayonnaise in the can, WITH the tunafish? Or… hold it! Chuck! I got it! Take LIVE tuna fish, and FEED ‘em mayonnaise! Oh this is great.
[speaks into tape recorder] Call Starkist!
We’re all adults here – we can talk about this openly…
[writing on chalkboard] PROSTITUTION! But what does that mean really? Sometimes it helps to understand a word if you break it down, so let’s do that now shall we? Pros… it doesn’t mean anything, you can forget about that… Tit, I think we all know what that means, Tu, two tit and TION of course, from the Latin to shun… to say uh-uh no thank you anyway I don’t want it, to push away… it doesn’t even belong in this word really
Winkler plays the anti-Fonzie as a quiet nebbish who grows into a man of action.
Ron Howard’s direction finesses away the potentially lurid consequences of both death in a morgue and gritty sex in a brothel for most of the movie.
The soundtrack is better than respectable with “Night Shift” by Quarterflash (the opening theme song), “You Really Got Me” by Van Halen, and a live version of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by The Rolling Stones. “That’s What Friends Are For,” performed by Rod Stewart, plays over the final credits.3
The Downside Of Sex and Death
Night Shift misses greatness by ending not with a bang but a whimper.
Why Watch Night Shift?
This is a funny, satisfying, good-time movie about 1980s entrepreneurs who start a brothel in a morgue. What’s not to like?
Scenes from Night Shift
Bonus
Extra points for spotting Kevin Costner,4 Shannen Doherty,5 and Ron Howard.6
Credit Due Department
The Shelley Long publicity still from Night Shift is from Hard To Find Actresses.
Coming Attractions
Floozies In Flicks – Phenomenal: Julie Christie as Constance Miller in Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller
- Spout is a movie blog which appears to specialize in lists of the “10 Worst Updates of 1930s Classics” sort [↩]
- While I am focusing on two of the movies, the list has several interesting qualities, including the absence of the two afore mentioned gold hearted ladies of the night, that make it worth reading. [↩]
- A cover of “That’s What Friends Are For” by Dionne Warwick & Friends (Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, and Elton John) won a Grammy and raised millions for AIDS causes. [↩]
- Frat Boy #1 [↩]
- Girl Scout [↩]
- Appears with his wife in real life (Cheryl) as the couple making out in front of Chuck’s apartment building [↩]
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