The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! **** (1988, Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, Ricardo Montalban, O J Simpson) – Classic Movie Review 3433

Director David Zucker’s hilarious 1988 police drama spoof thriller stars the superbly droll Leslie Nielsen as incompetent crackpot LA cop Lieutenant Frank Drebin. He has to get to frenzied slapstick work when he uncovers a plot to kill Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England (impersonator Jeanette Charles) on a visit to Los Angeles and falls in love with the gorgeous heroine Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley).

The Naked Gun also stars disaster movie king George Kennedy as Ed Hocken, Ricardo Montalban as Vincent Ludwig and O J Simpson as Nordberg. Montalban’s Vincent Ludwig has plans to assassinate the Queen using brainwashed baseball player Nordberg.

Made by the makers of the hysterical Airplane! (1980), it is very nearly as funny, thanks to the lovely, funny stuff in the screenplay by Jim Abrahams, Pat Proft, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, full of brilliant sight-gags, crazy non-sequiturs and corny jokes ‘(Would you like a nightcap?’ – ‘No, thank you, I don’t wear them!’). Based on Abrahams and the Zucker brothers’ short-lived TV show Police Squad! (which starred Nielsen as Drebin and was cancelled after only six episodes), it piles on the wacky gags so thick and fast that you’ll want to see it at least half a dozen times.

It is one of the few hit films ever to be based on a flop TV show. It was a much deserved, enormous hit, and spawned two sequels: The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991) and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994).

Also in the cast are Susan Beaubian as Mrs. Nordberg, Nancy Marchand as the Mayor, Raye Birk, John Houseman, Reggie Jackson, Weird Al Yankovic, Joyce Brothers and Bob Arthur.

Leslie Nielsen (1926 – 2010) eventually got to meet the real Queen Elizabeth II – in 2005.

George Kennedy, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Cool Hand Luke (1967), died on February 28 2016, aged 91. He was memorable in Charade (1963) and was a fixture of Seventies disaster movies, including Airport (1970) and its three sequels and Earthquake (1974). The studio wanted an Oscar winner in one of the star roles, which led to the casting of Kennedy, who had been campaigning for the role of Ed Hocken for months, disgruntled at having missed his chance to spoof his Airport roles in Airplane! (1980).

The 70-year-old former football star O J Simpson was granted parole during a 20 July 2017 hearing following his 2007 Las Vegas robbery arrest. Prison officials put him in protective custody at Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada until he goes free on 1 October.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3433

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/