The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear
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| The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear | |
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 DVD cover |
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| Directed by | David Zucker |
| Produced by | Robert K. Weiss |
| Written by | Jim Abrahams (television series Police Squad) David Zucker Jerry Zucker Pat Proft |
| Starring | Leslie Nielsen Priscilla Presley George Kennedy O.J. Simpson |
| Music by | Ira Newborn |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | June 28, 1991 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 85 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | The Naked Gun |
| Followed by | The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult |
| IMDb profile | |
The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear is a 1991 comedy film starring Leslie Nielsen as the comically bumbling Police Lt. Frank Drebin of Police Squad!. Priscilla Presley plays the role of Jane, with O.J. Simpson as Nordberg and George Kennedy as police captain Ed Hocken. Also starring Robert Goulet (whom previously made a "special guest star" appearence on Police Squad!) as the villanous Quentin Hapsburg and Richard Griffiths as renewable fuel advocate Dr Albert S. Meinheimer (and also as his evil double, Earl Hacker).
Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mel Tormé and members of the Chicago Bears have cameo roles.
It is the first sequel to The Naked Gun. It was followed by The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult.
Tagline: Frank Drebin is back. Just accept it.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Despite the humorous nature of the film, with many sight gags and subtle and not so subtle jokes throughout, it has a quite complex plot. Of all the Naked Gun and related Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker projects (Airplane! included), the second Naked Gun film may have the strongest subtext of issue-oriented social satire. Beyond the gags, the movie takes a clear stand for alternative energy and conservation, and several environmental groups are cited by the production team in the closing credits.
A notable feature was the recurrence of many jokes already used in the predecessor series Police Squad:
- Drebin looking like a mess, stands up, brushes his hair back and looks completely okay again.
- The two-yard-distance shootout where no-one lands any hits.
[edit] Dinner at the White House
The movie begins with a pre-credit sequence at the White House in Washington, D.C., where Frank Drebin and his boss, city police commissioner Annabelle Brumford (played by Jacqueline Brookes) are at a Saturday-night dinner meeting of important people with President George Bush, his chief of staff, John Sununu, Nelson Mandela and his then-wife Winnie, and others.
The President announces that he will base his recommendation for the country's energy program on whatever Dr. Meinheimer recommends at the National Press Club dinner the following Tuesday night. The heads of fossil fuel and nuclear industry look over at each other suspiciously at this point. But the antics of Frank Drebin for the most part completely obscure what is going on; he accidentally beats up Barbara Bush several times (at the start of the film where he hits her when he comes through the door, he pulls out her chair for a beautiful woman who walks past and she falls over, he then bangs her head against the table trying to pick her up) Food flies all over the place as he is trying to eat there.
The names of the fossil fuel lobbies are funny acronyms: the oil industry's is Society of Petroleum Industry Leaders, SPIL; the coal industry's, Society for MOre Coal Energy - or SMOKE; and the nuclear industry's, the Key Atomic Benefits Office Of Mankind - or K.A.B.O.O.M.; ; . The rest of the movie involves the attempts by these fossil-fuel and nuclear industry people to stop Dr. Meinheimer from implementing environmentally friendly policies.
Interestingly, Dr. Meinheimer reveals (after the credits) that he was going to also give his results at the White House dinner at the start but because of Frank Drebin 'making such a ruckus' he was not able to - so almost all the events of the movie can be blamed at Frank Drebin's stupidity at the start of the movie. (The rest, of course, can be attributed to Drebin's investigation of the bombing at Meinheimer's office the night of the White House dinner.)
[edit] Red van
After the credits, the Priscilla Presley character, Jane Spencer, is then shown late at night at the Meinheimer research institute crying as she is thinking about Frank, whom she had dated in the first Naked Gun film, while Dr. Meinheimer, back from the White House dinner tries to console her. At one point Spencer looks out the window and sees a man run get into a red van and leave. In the background a maintenance man, emptying out garbage cans, picks up a bomb with an alarm clock on it and takes it down to the security guards downstairs. One guard looks at it and says "hey thats a pretty nice clock. I wonder why they threw it out" - the other turns to him and says "probably because its four minutes too slow" and changes the time, setting off the bomb.
The next morning we are shown the bomb scene in which Frank interviews Jane. He then is shown around the institute (where research-lab staffers are busily working, though on a Sunday) and meets Jane's boyfriend, Hexagon Oil executive Quentin Hapsburg, who he becomes exceedingly jealous of, calling him 'Mr. Poopy Pants' and telling him he probably read the book on male sexual dysfunction.
On Monday, at the police station, the Police Squad gang examines a wallet left near the institute -- the wallet belonging to the driver of the van, boxer Hector Savage. Frank, Ed and Nordberg head off to the red light district of Washington, DC's Little Italy to a sex shop where he has been tracked down to, where it turns out that Frank is known by name to one of the employees there. They spot the red van upon entering the store, which Nordberg is given the task of bugging.
While he is doing this, Savage takes off in the van and Nordberg sees him, so then he decides to leave, but as he tries to, his sleeve gets trapped and now Nordberg is trapped under the moving van, whilst at the same time Frank and Ed follow it in their car. Nordberg does eventually get himself free from the van, but as it's swiftly rolling down a hill, he ends up getting trapped under Frank's car. Nordberg is hit by several objects in the road as a running joke that he keeps getting hurt through the films. Frank and Ed pursue the signal (from what they think is Savage's van) in their car, and when he finally stops Nordberg is propelled forward and ends up getting stuck under a bus to Detroit.
Savage is held up in a suburban home, surrounded by police, and Frank commandeers a tank, which he drives into the house, missing Savage who was about to surrender, but once again due to the stupidity of Frank Drebin escapes. Frank then drives the tank into the National Zoo where many animals escape.
[edit] The kidnapping
At a meeting of the "old-energy" industry leaders on Sunday night, Quentin has revealed that he has kidnapped Dr. Meinheimer and found an exact double for him, Earl Hacker, who plays the part of the disabled doctor. This is so that Hacker will give a recommendation to the President endorsing fossil and nuclear fuels, rather than environmental ones. While the industry leaders would rather not see the alterative-fuel recommendations be made, they are audibly horrified at Hapsburg's taking Meinheimer hostage.
The next evening (Monday) -- hours after accidentally setting the National Zoo animals free -- Drebin arrives at a function where he sees the police commissioner and Quentin Hapsburg. After cutting in on Mel Torme, who is dancing with Jane Spencer, Frank starts dancing with Jane to make Hapsburg jealous. Later, attempting to "wheel" the Meinheimer double (Hacker, actually in an electric wheelchair) to the stage for a raffle drawing, Drebin ends up manhandling the double and slamming the wheelchair into a drinks tray, spilling drinks onto the wheelchair controls and causing them to short circuit, making the wheelchair go crazy, before being tossed to the floor. Hacker's electric wheelchair then goes flying through an upper-story window into the Washington DC night.
Frank then goes to Jane's apartment, where Savage arrives and tries to kill Jane in the bathroom. Frank and Savage fight until Frank sticks a fire hose in Savage's mouth and turns on the water. Savage fills up with water, the flow of which becomes fatally unstoppable when Drebin accidentally disconnects the water-flow valve. Drebin makes it into Spencer's flat just before a loud explosion is heard -- the sound of Savage's body bursting from the water pressure.
Nielsen's look of impending doom when Savage is about to blow up, and his turn-and-retreat to Spencer's apartment, echo his performance in Airplane!, when he (as Dr. Rumack) walks into the cockpit and discovers the flight attendant "manually inflating" the automatic pilot doll Otto below the doll's belt.
During the fight with Savage, Frank has picked up a card on Savage leading him to the dock of the Hexagon oil company's Hapsburg Valdez, a play on the Exxon Valdez tanker of oil-spill infamy. The next day, Frank goes with the police to investigate. He is bugged and accidentally falls through the roof of the meeting as he was being chased by a Doberman guard dog. Then Hapsburg has him tied up next to Dr. Meinheimer, who is also tied up. The police arrive and free them, not before Frank tries to free himself, knocking many objects onto Meinheimer's head. Captain Hocken (Kennedy) believing the Hapsburg goon guarding the doctor and Drebin beat up Meinheimer, tries to slug the guard, but is instead knocked out cold.
[edit] Function
The police then go to the hotel where Dr. Meinheimer will make his recommendation to President Bush, and where they hope to get Hapsburg. Police commissioner Brumford has ordered that if any member of Drebin's Police Squad unit is spotted he or she is to be arrested on sight, due to the damage Frank caused by having all the animals released from the National Zoo.
Drebin wants to get the jump on Hapsburg by having Jane Spencer let them in from the back entrance, but that plan is ruined when Hapsburg runs into Jane and takes her to his table at the ballroom. Drebin, Nordberg, Hocken and the real Meinheimer get into the place by appropriating a costume and instruments from a Mariachi band due to perform at the hotel, and wind up on stage, where they perform for the audience.
When the real Dr Meinheimer is put into one of the stage wings, Hacker appears and Ed starts a fight with him. Dr Meinheimer picks up a small hand axe and cuts some ropes, releasing weights onto Ed's and then Hacker's heads. The President's speech seemed to narrate what was happening. The President said that the people had to cut (Dr Meinheimer cuts the first rope and a weight falls onto Ed, knocking him out), and keep cutting (Dr Meinheimer cuts the second rope, releasing a second weight) until they make an impact (the weight falls onto Hacker's head and knocks him out). Meanwhile Frank has a shootout with Hapsburg's goons on the hotel roof, after which he goes into the rooftop control room to find Hapsburg with Jane, who has been gagged and had her hands tied behind her back. Hapsburg holds a gun at Frank, telling him that he is about to set off a small nuclear device which will destroy the function, so that it won't matter what Meinheimer will say in his speech. Nordberg tries to attack him by swinging on a rope but hits the wall. However, this distracts Hapsburg, at which point Frank suddenly disarms him and proceeds to aggresively subdue him.
Frank beats Hapsburg convincingly, and takes him to the window of the tall building, where he starts telling Frank the code for disarming the bomb. He starts telling him the numbers, but the Captain arrives and pushes him out the window, believing that he was still struggling with Frank. He manages to survive the fall thanks to an awning, but is then mauled to death by a gigantic lion, one of the animals presumably released by Frank from the zoo. Frank then frees Jane.
Meanwhile, Hocken and Nordberg run to the ballroom, where Hocken gets Meinheimer to rouse the slumbering Press Club (obviously bored from Meinheimer's boring speech) audience by reading a passage from an erotic book, entitled "Stroking the Love Muffin." Nordberg then gets the spectators to quietly leave the ballroom, but they freak out when Nordberg accidentally admits the presence of the bomb in the building. (In the ensuing chaos, a panicked Baggett, played by Lloyd Bochner, runs through the ballroom with a large volume emblazoned "To Serve Man" screaming "It's a cookbook, it's a cookbook!" -- a comic reference to the discovery Bochner's Twilight Zone character makes in an episode of that landmark anthology series.)
After several attempts to disarm the bomb, Frank then manages to disarm the bomb accidentally at the last second by tripping and unplugging the power cord.
He is then commended by the president, who offers him a special Police Squad role in his Administration. Drebin declines, vowing to take an environment-friendly approach to his police work instead and asking Jane to marry him. She accepts. They then go out to a balcony, where they wave at the crowd, and Frank turns around, knocking Barbara Bush off the balcony, but she manages to hold on. The movie ends with them waving at the crowd of reporters, who are pointing at Mrs. Bush but they don't notice and keep waving back.
[edit] Music
As with the first Naked Gun film, the original music for the second installment was composed and orchestrated by veteran soundtrack composer Ira Newborn, including the familiar big-band blues theme for the Naked Gun/Police Squad! franchise. Several of the orchestral movements revolve around two other Newborn pieces: "Drebin - Hero!" (used at the top of the pre-credit sequence) and the romantic "Thinking of Him" (right after the credits).
Singer Colleen Fitzpatrick (known to modern-rock fans as Vitamin C) appeared on camera as a saloon singer at a sad-sack restaurant called the Blue Note, to which a depressed Detective Lieutenant Drebin repairs after seeing former girlfriend Jane Spencer being wooed by villain Quentin Hapsburg. Fitzpatrick, then in her 20s, was made up to look like an aging, world-weary, chanteuse.
Other non-Newborn pieces make cameos in this Naked Gun installment. They include the standards "Tangerine" and "Satin Doll" and the Righteous Brothers' recordings of "Unchained Melody" (featured in Jerry Zucker's drama "Ghost") and "Ebb Tide." Nielsen himself voices the Latin-flavored pop standard "Besame Mucho" at the Press Club dinner.
In conjunction with the second Naked Gun film, Varese Sarabande released a soundtrack combining the best Newborn compositions from the first two films.
[edit] Opening Credits
Like the first movie, the opening credits appear over a video montage of the police siren going through various increasingly-absurd scenes. At the end, it pulls over a car, out of which emerges Zsa Zsa Gabor (played by herself). She walks to the police car and smacks the siren out, parodying her own 1989 arrest for slapping a police officer in Beverly Hills.
[edit] Full Cast
- Leslie Nielsen as Lt. Frank Drebin
- Priscilla Presley as Jane Spencer
- George Kennedy as Captain Ed Hocken
- O.J. Simpson as Nordberg
- Robert Goulet as Quentin Hapsburg
- Richard Griffiths as Dr. Albert S. Meinheimer/Earl Hacker
- Jacqueline Brookes as Commissioner Anabell Brumford
- Anthony James as Hector Savage
- Lloyd Bochner as Terence Baggett
- Tim O'Connor as Donald Fenswick
- Peter Mark Richman as Arthur Dunwell
- Ed Williams as Ted Olsen
- John Roarke as President George Bush
- Margery Ross as First Lady Barbara Bush
- Peter Van Norden as Chief of Staff John Sununu
- Gail Neely as Winnie Mandela
- Colleen Fitzpatrick as Blues Singer at Blue Note Club
- Sally Rosenblatt as Mrs. Redmond
- Alexander Folk as Crackhouse Cop
- "Weird Al" Yankovic as Police Station Thug
- Jose Gonzales-Gonzales as Mariachi (as José Gonzáles-Gonzáles)
- Larry McCormick as TV Reporter
- Cliff Bemis as Barbecue Dad
- D.D. Howard as Barbecue Mom
- William Woodson as Hexagon Oil Commercial Announcer
- Mel Tormé as Himself - Party Guest Dancing with Jane
- Zsa Zsa Gabor as Herself
[edit] External links
| The Naked Gun Series |
|---|
| Cast: Leslie Nielsen | Priscilla Presley | George Kennedy | O.J. Simpson |
| Crew: Jerry Zucker | Jim Abrahams | David Zucker | Robert K. Weiss |
| Police Squad! |
| The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! | The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear | The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult |
