Going Ape!

Going Ape!

April 10, 1981

Paramount

Comedy

VHS

C

In some ways, this is like a low-rent late-release '70s Disney movie, smashed up police cars and all, with the additions of the orangutans and writer/director of Every Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can.  (The exclamation point in the title seems more like a '60s throwback.)  But the movie also has a lot of profanity, as well as one of the "apes" flipping people off, not to mention the two female leads being kissed while dressed as nuns, so I'm not really sure who the audience is.  I don't think the movie even works as a dumb comedy.  It's just sort of there, not painful but pretty forgettable, even with odd moments like a mother-daughter swordfight (40-year-old Jessica Walter vs. 21-year-old Stacey Nelkin), and 36-year-old Danny DeVito as Lazlo, the bearded Gypsy (I think) in a French maid's uniform.  Then almost 30-year-old Tony Danza is the main character (named Foster, rather than Tony), who's inherited the three simians and has to keep them alive for two years in order to get the bulk of his father's estate.  Mild hijinks ensue.  This was in the middle of Taxi's run, so it's interesting to see Danza and DeVito interact as different characters.  And Danza has a scene where he's shirtless, so there's beefcake.  I don't recommend the movie but you know, shrug.

Leon Askin, who's the landlord Zebrewski here, was the chief eunuch in John Goldfarb.  Ruth Gillette, who's Marianne here, was the Song Chairman [sic] in The Shaggy D.A.  Of the actresses playing Danza's sisters, Poppy Lagos was a reporter in I Wanna Hold Your Hand; Marji Martin was Kay in Scavenger Hunt; D. J. Sullivan was Mrs. Williams in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (and apparently did several of the sequels).  Luke Andreas, who plays Carter, was Police Officer in Alley in I Wanna Hold Your Hand.