The 1980s were a magical time for many reasons: shoulder pads, Reaganomics, the sweet, synthy sounds of Depeche Mode. But there were also a great decade for comedies about writers, everyone’s favorite fake profession.
Throw Momma From The Train (1987)
Billy Crystal stars as struggling novelist Larry Donner, whose evil ex-wife (played by Orange is The New Black‘s Kate Mulgrew, in her pre-Star Trek: Voyager days) stole his novel and published it to critical and commercial success. (It really pays to mail that stuff to yourself, kids.) Danny Devito plays Owen Lift, one of Larry’s writing students, whose overbearing mother makes his life hell. After seeing Strangers on a Train, Owen becomes convinced that the solution to both his and Larry’s frustration is for them to swap murders: Owen will do in Larry’s ex-wife, and Larry will do in Owen’s mother. Oh, and Owen decides on this without actually informing Larry. Hijinks (but no actual murders) ensue. Everybody gets a book deal.
Should you see it? Absolutely. Crystal and Devito are both in their prime here, and character actress Anne Ramsey was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Owen’s battleaxe mother.
Here Crystal struggles with writer’s block, all while completely ignoring Elmore Leonard’s “Never open a book with weather” rule:
Romancing The Stone (1984)
Mild-mannered romance novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner, shown above) is rocked out of her boring, giant-headphone-wearing life in New York City by news of her sister’s kidnapping in Cartagena, Colombia. (It’s a comedy, I swear.) She must fly down to South America to deliver a treasure map (leading to the eponymous stone) to the captors. Wilder doesn’t speak Spanish, packs absolutely the wrong shoes, and can’t even get on the right bus, thanks to the machinations of the menacing Colonel Zolo. Eventually, she makes the acquaintance of exotic bird smuggler Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas), who agrees to help her rescue her sister. BUT IS THAT ALL HE’S AFTER? Danny Devito shows up again, this time as a “bumbling antiquities smuggler.” Turner eventually loses the flannel jammies in favor of a fetching peasant blouse.
Should you watch it? Yes, right now. Go. It basically launched Kathleen Turner into super-stardom, and it’s easy to see why. Spawned a mediocre sequel called Jewel of the Nile that you can skip.
Her Alibi (1989)
Tom Selleck, hot off Magnum, PI, starred in this action-comedy about mystery writer Philip Blackwood, who invents an alibi for Romanian murder suspect Nina (Paulina Porizkova) because he happens to be in the courtroom the day she’s arraigned and she happens to be really pretty. For some reason, she then has to go live with him, where he finds himself equally drawn to and terrified of her, as he can’t really be sure she isn’t a murderer, but she certainly IS pretty. Eventually, there are clowns.
Should you see it? Probably not. I’d just rent Three Men and A Baby instead. That one has a baby! (He’s an architect in that one.) Or stream it. Or torrent it. Or whatever you kids do these days.
Delirious (1990)
John Candy stars as a soap opera writer who gets knocked on the head and wakes up in his own show. He soon discovers that he can control the events of this fictional (yet suddenly oh-so-real) world, and he uses it to manipulate the woman of his dreams (Emma Sams) into being attracted to him. Neat! It’s not like women are people with feelings or desires of their own. Eventually, the plot, as it were, gets away from him, and he only wants to get out of there. Also, I think Mariel Hemingway shows up as the “less glamorous” love interest. And by “less glamorous” I mean she’s actually prettier than the other woman but she occasionally falls down, which is not a charming or endearing thing one would want in a partner.
Should you see it? GOD NO. Watch Soapdish instead. Whoopi Goldberg does a way better self-hating soap opera writer. Or you could watch the Eddie Murphy comedy special of the same name, which is no doubt equally as sexist, but probably a lot funnier. It isn’t about writers, though.
Cocktail (1988)
This one’s kind of cheating, but Tom Cruise does bill himself as the “world’s last barman poet” in it, and proceeds to rhyme “Sex on the Beach” with “schnapps made from peach,” so I’m including it. Cruise’s young entrepreneur Brian Flanagan never does publish a liqueur-themed chapbook, but he does somehow manage to open a TGIFridays-like Irish pub called Cocktails & Dreams, where he occasionally subjects the remarkably game clientele to his flights of linguistic fancy. COCKTAILS & DREAMS! Considering the current state of publishing, perhaps we should all take a page (haha, get it?) out of his book. (See what I’m doing? Oh, you do? Never mind).
Should you see it? YES YES YES I SAID YES. Have I told you how, at the end, when he’s at his awesome CHAIN PUB that he OWNS, like a first-rate CAPITALIST POET, and is up there on the bar, RECITING HIS TERRIBLE POETRY, he also learns that his pregnant wife, played by the great Elisabeth Shue, is actually HAVING TWINS? I didn’t? Well, that totally happens. You will never know the true meaning of schlock until you have seen COCKTAIL. The soundtrack also includes Bobby McFerrin’s classic ode to chillin’, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Why are you still reading this? Go.
I’ll leave you now with some sage advice from Owen Lift’s mom.