If you weren’t aware that esteemed director Robert Altman made an ‘80s teen comedy, blame MGM’s decision to largely shelve the film. They made the right call: the film is an incoherent mess that makes the coke-addled excess of Altman’s Popeye seem downright conventional in comparison. Finally debuting on Blu-ray in the U.S., the film was a key contributor to Altman’s fall from Hollywood’s grace that didn’t start to turn around until The Player returned him to prominence in 1992.
Buy O.C. and Stiggs Blu-rayShot in 1983 but not released until 1987, the film follows the hijinks of two middle-class high school boys in Phoenix. Girls aren’t their prime motivation; instead, they target the family of a wealthy neighbor named Schwab, always looking for ways to prank him and his materialistic clan as payback for his role in committing O.C.’s grandfather to a group home. The story is based on characters featured in a string of humorous National Lampoon articles, with a script written by the original article writers, but Altman ignored that script to such a degree that one writer had his name removed and the other disavowed the final product. The central concept is still in there somewhere, that of teens battling the encroaching commercialism of ‘80s suburban life, but in Altman’s take that battle is overshadowed by juvenile pranks.
There’s no denying that Altman is a weird choice for a teen comedy, especially given his stated disdain for the genre. It’s possible to draw a feeble parallel between the wild boys and their older clowning surgeon counterparts in Altman’s M*A*S*H, but the biggest Altman touch is the stream-of-consciousness feel of the project, with the camera seemingly just turned on to capture whatever random nonsense happened. The stars are virtual unknowns, another detractor to its marketability, although it’s fun to spot the recognizable backup players pop in for limited time, most notably Dennis Hopper, Jane Curtain, Jon Cryer, Cynthia Nixon, and Altman veteran Paul Dooley as Schwab. With Cryer (Pretty in Pink) and Dooley (Sixteen Candles) both featuring in the epitome of earnest, mainstream ‘80s teen comedies by John Hughes, it’s fascinating to also see them in this subversive project that star Neill Barry (Stiggs) accurately describes as “anti-John Hughes.”
Radiance’s new Blu-ray is limited to 3000 copies. The film was restored by MGM at some undefined point, and supplied for this release as a hi-def digital master file in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio with original mono audio. Colors are vibrant, largely due to the vivid ‘80s preppy fashion and ever-changing flamboyant costumes worn by O.C. and Stiggs for no discernible reason, as well as the sun-drenched suburban setting in Phoenix. The cinematography is almost too bright, so sunny and candy-colored it rivals Barbie in sensory overload, while film grain is pleasantly understated.
The most fascinating aspect of the Blu-ray isn’t the film, it’s the feature-length bonus documentary that takes a deep dive into the film’s tumultuous history. Packed with new and archival interviews with the cast and crew, the documentary allows the principal players to describe the mayhem in their own unfiltered words. Altman’s comments only appear in written quotes culled from other interviews, but the cast members all look back fondly on the production, musing about what could have been while remaining amazed that they worked on an Altman film. The disc also includes a brief interview with Altman’s son, who worked as a crew member on this and many other Altman films.
Even after watching the film, I wasn’t entirely sure of what I saw or what any of it meant. I can confidently say I didn’t like it, even as a curiosity piece, but its utterly bizarre nature and lack of popular recognition mark it as an obvious candidate for cult-film status. Mostly, I think it was a paid vacation for the cast and crew to goof off in Phoenix on MGM’s dime. What’s left now is a weird smorgasbord of unfocused teen shenanigans bottled as a time capsule of prime ‘80s fashion missteps, and perhaps the most odd entry in Altman’s entire filmography. Proceed at your own peril.
