The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

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The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
The Naked Gun movie poster
Directed by	David Zucker
Produced by	Robert K. Weiss
Written by	Jerry Zucker Jim Abrahams David Zucker Pat Proft
Starring	Leslie Nielsen Priscilla Presley George Kennedy O.J. Simpson Nancy Marchand
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	December 2, 1988 (USA)
Running time	85 minutes
Language	English
Followed by	The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
IMDb profile

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! is the first film in a series of comedy movies starring Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, and O.J. Simpson. The three films (the other two being The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, and The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult) chronicle the adventures of Nielsen's character, the bumbling police detective Lieutenant Frank Drebin.

The film's title parodies The Nude Bomb, another film spun-off from a satirical TV series (Get Smart).

The movie series is based on the character created by Nielsen in the television series Police Squad! The core creative team behind Police Squad! and the movie series includes Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Pat Proft in varying combinations.

The films all feature extremely fast-paced, off-the-wall, slapstick style comedy, including a lot of visual and verbal puns and gags.

In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted the first Naked Gun the 39th greatest comedy film of all time^{[citation needed]}. It was also voted the 14th best comedy of all time in a Channel 4 poll [1].

In addition to the aforementioned cast, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! co-stars Ricardo Montalban, Jeannette Charles, Raye Birk, and Nancy Marchand. "Weird Al" Yankovic, Joe Grifasi, Lawrence Tierney, John Houseman (his last film), and Mark Holton have cameo roles.

Major League Baseball players Reggie Jackson, and Jay Johnstone have cameo roles as themselves, as do umpires Joe West and Hank Robinson. Professional announcers Curt Gowdy, Jim Palmer, Tim McCarver, Mel Allen, Dick Enberg and Dick Vitale appear as play-by-play commentators, as does Dr. Joyce Brothers.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Film links and references 2.1 Police Squad 2.2 Gags 2.3 Film spoofs 2.4 Movie references 3 Translations 4 External links

[edit] Plot

The plot of the series is a basic parody of detective film clichés, featuring stereotypical characters, settings, and situations. Many other film genres and styles are mocked as well, and the movies are full of references to current events and contemporary pop culture.

The movie starts in a meeting in Beirut with a collection of anti-American leaders; Ayatollah Khomeni, Mikhail Gorbachev (who claims he has the Americans believing he is "a nice guy"), Yasser Arafat, Colonel Gaddafi and Idi Amin, who are planning a terrorist act. The man who is later shown to be Papshmir is seen at this meeting. It turns out that Frank Drebin has been posing undercover as a waiter; he beats up all the attendees, wipes off Gorbachev's forehead birthmark, and escapes/falls out the window.

Back in Los Angeles, Officer Nordberg (Simpson) is investigating a heroin drug operation at the docks when he is seen by villain-in-disguise Vincent Ludwig (Montalbán), and is shot numerous times by Ludwig's goons before falling into the harbor. (It is a running gag that Nordberg keeps getting badly injured, but somehow manages to survive). After being briefed on the case by his colleague Ed (Kennedy), Frank visits Nordberg in hospital, where there is later another attempt on the injured man's life. Frank chases the assassin (a doctor) in a commandeered car operated by a panicked student driver and Houseman's unflappable instructor, until the luckless assassin crashes an army rocket into a fireworks factory. Over the ensuing carnage, Drebin proclaims "There's nothing to see here!" to the assembled onlookers.

Papshmir is seen meeting with Vincent Ludwig in his office, where Ludwig says that he will assassinate Queen Elizabeth II (who is on a state visit to the USA) for $20 million. Ludwig demonstrates that he has a way of turning anyone into an unknowing assassin at the press of Ludwig's beeper; it appears that the victims are responding to a post-hypnotic suggestion, but the film makes no effort to clarify the point.

As he works on the case, Drebin meets and falls in love with Ludwig's assistant Jane Spencer (Presley). It is eventually revealed that Jane knows nothing about Ludwig's plot, and after the pair spend the night together, she helps Frank with his investigation.

Following Drebin-inspired disasters at a reception for the Queen and Ludwig's penthouse, the climax of the film centers on the Queen's visit to a California Angels baseball game. Frank must find out how Ludwig plans to assassinate her, while also hiding from his fellow policemen, who are now under orders to arrest him. Frank knocks out "renowned opera singer" Enrico Pallazzo, takes his clothes and proceeds to brutally mangle the national anthem, along with Pallazzo's reputation. Frank then pretends to be an umpire to search the players for the assassin. He knows the assassination will take place during the seventh-inning stretch, and when he tries to delay the end of the top of the seventh inning by intentionally making bad calls, he inadvertently triggers an all-out brawl between the Angels and their opponent the Seattle Mariners. He eventually saves the Queen's life by accidentally shooting a fat woman with a sleep-inducing dart fired from his cufflinks; the woman falls on top of the hypnotized player (Reggie Jackson) who was about to shoot the Queen. The crowd cheers "Enrico Pallazzo's" heroics.

Ludwig escapes to the top of the stadium, and holds Jane hostage at gun-point, where Frank shoots him with his other cufflink dart. Ludwig falls several stories off the stadium balcony, smashing to earth in the parking lot and getting run over by both a bus and a steamroller. A marching band then tromps over his flattened body, pressing the beeper which makes Jane try to kill Frank with Ludwig's gun. Frank talks her out of it, and gives her an engagement ring. His speech is broadcast on the stadium screen, causing the teams to stop fighting and make up. The mayor thanks Frank, saying the whole world owes him a debt of gratitude, and he is also congratulated by Nordberg. The latter, while still wheelchair-bound, seems much better until Frank pats him on the back, sending him zooming down the aisle and up over the edge of the stadium as the movie ends.

[edit] Film links and references

[edit] Police Squad

In one scene, the mayor refers to Frank's police department as "Police Squad, a special division of the police force".

[edit] Gags

• During the montage sequence (to the song, Something Tells Me I'm into Something Good)) of them falling madly in love, Frank and Jane are seen laughing blissfully at everything – including as they come out of a cinema: it is revealed they have seen Platoon.

• During their love scene, Frank and Jane agree that they should use protection. In the next shot, they are wearing full-body condoms.

• When searching Ludwigs office, Frank opens a drawer and exclaims "Bingo!". He then picks up a bingo card.

• When attempting to break into Ludwigs office, Frank tries to jimmy open the lock with a credit card. When it fails to work, he tries a different one and it works.

• When Ludwig is killed, he falls from the top floor of the LA stadium. When he lands he is first run over by a bus, then a steam roller, then a marching band playing the song "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen. After which, Ed, Frank's boss at Police Squad, cries into Frank's shoulder saying, "My father went the same way."

[edit] Film spoofs

• The plot is mostly based on the 1977 Charles Bronson movie Telefon.
• When Frank and Ed are scolded by the mayor for destroying Ludwig's office, Frank adapts a sentence about him shooting apparent murderers (who have turned out to be actors) with similar lines used by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry.
• Ludwig's enraged rant against Drebin ("I want him dead! I want his family dead! I want his house burned to the ground! " etc.) comes word-for-word from Al Capone's tirade against Eliot Ness in The Untouchables. Note that this scene is present only in the Director's Cut and was not shown in the theatrical release.
• Frank's introduction to Jane, especially the voice-over, is lifted from the 1975 version of Farewell, My Lovely - right up to where she hits the wall.
• Frank's speech (and proposal) to Jane parodies Casablanca a number of times, most obviously the lines including "a hill of beans."

[edit] Movie references

• The 2005 "PTV" episode of Family Guy parodied the Naked Gun films, namely the first scene in the first Naked Gun film in which Drebin spies on a terrorist meeting and starts a brawl. In the Family Guy version Stewie Griffin is spying on Osama bin Laden's terrorist meeting; the scene, in which Stewie attacks the terrorists, is accompanied by the overture "Drebin - Hero!", from the second Naked Gun film's pre-credit sequence. It goes on to mimic lines of dialogue and camera angles from the film, including a moment where Stewie tells the terrorists "Don't ever let me catch you in Quahog" before he falls backwards out of a cave window. Afterwards, the show parodied the opening sequence of the film series, in which a police car (in this case, Stewie on his tricycle) goes through unusual areas like a gay pride parade, Oz, Hoth and even the video game Doom. Before finally ending up running over Homer Simpson on his way into the Griffin's garage.
• The Simpsons episode Alone Again, Natura-Diddily spoofs the death of Ricardo Montalban's character, when Maude Flanders is knocked over a guard-rail of a stadium and falls into the parking lot. In the episode Cape Feare, Sideshow Bob is run over by a marching band and elephants in a similar fashion.
• One could argue that the ending of the 2006 movie Blood Diamond references the ending of this movie. A character convinces a brainwashed relative not to kill him, pleading with memories of past unconditional love.

[edit] Translations

• French : Y a-t-il un flic pour sauver la reine ?

[edit] External links

• Naked Gun quotes at MovieWavs.com
• Naked Gun at the Internet Movie Database

The Naked Gun Series
Leslie Nielsen
Alan North | Peter Lupus | Priscilla Presley | George Kennedy | O.J. Simpson
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