A NIGHT IN HEAVEN (1983)

 

1983 was a good year for bad movies: THE LONELY LADY, JAWS 3-D, AMITYVILLE 3-D, STAYING ALIVE, PRIVATE SCHOOL, CHAINED HEAT, or this next main topic film, A NIGHT IN HEAVEN, a pre-MAGIC MIKE fiasco which promises to be hot and steamy but barely delivers. I was still in the closet during that time (coming out just a year later), struggling to find my ways and survive. So you can imagine how freaking excited I was catching this film on opening day. Yes, opening day.

 

THE BLUE LAGOON Christopher Atkins stars as an obnoxious college student who, by day, struggles to make the grade and, by night, strips down to his skivvies at a Florida hotspot for ladies only. One of whom ends up being the teacher who is actually flunking him. Leslie Ann Warren is that teacher, just off from her hilariously stellar performance in VICTOR/VICTORIA. In A NIGHT IN HEAVEN she plays a repressed married woman who, though she has a hot husband (77 SUNSET STRIP Robert Logan), can’t get her hands off Atkins. Atkins, however, just wants a passing grade so he can eventually graduate. Or is there more to it than that? It all comes down to Warren’s hubby finding out about the affair, Atkins almost giving the hubby a lap dance (don’t ask), and Warren saving her marriage by talking it through with her husband.

 

Clearly A NIGHT IN HEAVEN is far from being perfect. The whole premise is pretty much an unintentional laughing streak. The script, penned by NASHVILLE  alumna  Joan Tewkesbury, barely makes any sense at all, and the performances go from average (Warren, Logan) to simply amateurish (Atkins, who won a Razzie for worst actor that year). But despite all of those negative attributes, A NIGHT IN HEAVEN still beckons with its ‘80s flair, its then-pushing of the envelope (naked men), not to mention its high aura of camp. I swear, it’s almost impossible to stray away from the screen, once pretty much invested. It’s like watching an argument happening right in front your eyes. You may find it distasteful and immature, but the temptation to see it through still remains.

 

The film is directed by John G. Avildsen, the guy who six years prior won an Academy Award for ROCKY and later on took the reins of THE KARATE KID saga. Just go to show you that every acclaimed directors, whether from Hollywood or somewhere else, has at least one bad movie in them. Thank heavens for that, for we, lovers of such films, wouldn’t have it any other way. We just have to be patient and in the end hope for the worst.   

 

 

Until next post—Martin