O.C. and Stiggs
With Daniel H. Jenkins, Neill Barry, Paul Dooley.
US, 1987, 35mm, color, 109 min.
Print source: Park Circus
Based on a series of articles in National Lampoon magazine, O.C. and Stiggs was ostensibly pitched, produced and marketed under an assumption of it as a conventionally entertaining teen sex comedy made to build off the subgenre’s success in the early Eighties. Needless to say, Altman’s finished film, a carnival ride through suburban Arizona lacking in both clear-cut jokes and a clear-cut target for its satire, did not strike box office gold quite like its predecessors. The movie’s unhinged flashback structure follows, but struggles to keep up with, the hijinks of two obnoxious loafers as they terrorize an upper-class family with the help of a throng of Scottsdale miscreants. Over the course of two hours, gaudy sets full of expensive props are gleefully vandalized and rearranged in long shots that seem both amused and horrified by the booze-fueled recklessness. It is no surprise that Melvin Van Peebles and Dennis Hopper show up in preposterous supporting roles; Altman’s madcap comedy pits the lingering outrage of Seventies counterculture against the urbane complacency of Reagan’s middle class and finds only more confusion in the aftermath of the conflict.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
Vincent & Theo
Fool for Love
Prêt-à-porter
California Split
Thieves Like Us
A Perfect Couple
A Prairie Home Companion
O.C. and Stiggs
That Cold Day in the Park
Corn's-A-Poppin'
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Gingerbread Man
Dr. T and the Women
Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
