The 'Burbs

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The 'Burbs

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Joe Dante
Produced by Larry Brezner
Michael Finnell
Written by Dana Olsen
Starring Tom Hanks
Bruce Dern
Carrie Fisher
Rick Ducommun
Corey Feldman
Courtney Gains
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography Robert M. Stevens
Editing by Marshall Harvey
Distributed by Universal Studios
Release date(s) February 17, 1989
Running time 101 min.
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The 'Burbs is a 1989 black comedy directed by Joe Dante and starring, amongst others, Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, Corey Feldman, and Bruce Dern, and written by Dana Olsen, who also briefly appears in the movie. The film pokes fun at suburban environments (particularly in the US), and their eccentric dwellers.

In his typical "good guy" mode, Hanks plays Ray Peterson, a loving family-man with an ordinary life in a stereotypical "white bread" suburban neighborhood. This changes when a mysterious family, the Klopeks, move in next door. Ray's two neighbors (work-shy slacker Art and paramilitary nut Rumsfield) believe the Klopeks are actually a family of murderers who killed Walter, the old man in the next house over. Ray, along with the other two civilians-turned-detectives, attempt to solve the mystery.

Contents

[edit] Production

Screenwriter Dana Olsen based the script, under the working title Life in the 'Burbs, on experiences from his own childhood: "I had an ultranormal middle-class upbringing, but our town had its share of psychos. There was a legendary hatchet murder in the thirties, and every once in awhile, you'd pick up the local paper and read something like 'LIBRARIAN KILLS FAMILY, SELF'. As a kid, it was fascinating to think that Mr. Flanagan down the street could turn out to be Jack the Ripper. And where there's fear, there's comedy. So I approached The 'Burbs as Ozzie and Harriet Meet Charles Manson."[1]

Olsen's script attracted producer Larry Brezner, who brought it to Imagine Films. It was greeted with a warm reception from Brian Grazer. "I liked the concept of a regular guy taking a vacation in his own neighborhood, plus it was funny and well written. It suddenly dawned on me that Joe Dante would be fantastic [as a director] because it's a mixture of comedy, horror, and reality."[1]

Dante, the director of Gremlins and Innerspace, and his partner, Michael Finnell, were immediately impressed by the concept of the movie. Dante, who specializes in offbeat subject matters, was intrigued by the blending of real-life situations with elements of the supernatural. "When I tell people about the story, a remarkable number say, 'On my grandmother's block there were people like that. They never mowed their lawn, and they never came out, and they let their mail stack up, and nobody knew who they were'. And I must confess that in my own neighborhood there's a house like that, falling to wrack and ruin. I think this is perhaps a more common even than most people are aware of."[1]

Dante, Brezner and Finnell agreed that Tom Hanks would be the most suitable actor to portray the harried Ray Peterson, a conservative man who tries to introduce excitement into his life by investigating the activities of his strange neighbors. Dante referred to Hanks as "the reigning everyman, a guy that everybody can identify with""[1] and went on to give the umpteenth comparison between Hanks and Jimmy Stewart. Brezner echoed the sentiments, saying, "Hanks is an actor capable of acting funny rather than funny acting. He also has no problem with transition from comedy to pathos, as he showed in Nothing in Common, and he's now proving himself as one of the country's most versatile actors."[1]

Hanks accepted the role of Ray with enthusiasm. "What's so bizarrely interesting about this black psychocomedy is that the stuff that goes on in real life in a regular neighborhood will make your hair stand up on the back of your neck."[1] He was also intrigued by his character with distinctive personality traits. "Sometimes there's more of an opportunity to create than others. Here's a guy with a great life — a nice house, a wife, a beautiful tree, a nice neighborhood — and he's happy. Next day, he hates it all. I thought something must've happened to him offstage. And that's the challenge for me of the part: to communicate Ray's offscreen dilemma. One of the reasons Ray doesn't go away on vacation is because it's another extension of the normalcy he's fallen into. So he thinks he'll try a more Bohemian thing, which is to just hang around the house. With a week's worth of free time on his hands, Ray is drawn into the pre-occupations of his neighbors, who always seem to be at home. But what I did is just back-story embellishment that any actor will do. Perhaps from my repertory experience. I don't ask a director for motivation. If he says, 'Go over to the window', I find the reason myself."[1]

Hanks found admiration for Dante's directorial style, saying "Joe has a stylized, visionary way of looking at the entire movie. It's pure film-making — the story is told from the camera's point of view, and that's a type of movie I haven't made." Dante, in turn, praised his star. "The most impressive thing about Tom Hanks as a comic actor is how effortless he makes it seem. He actually is very diligent about his acting, but his comic sense of what is going to work — and what isn't — is really unparalleled."[1]

The ten-week shoot took place during the summer of 1988, with Dante directing Hanks and the high-profile supporting cast. Dante's laid-back, casual style encouraged improvisation among the actors. He noted, "Tom doesn't like to do scenes the way they're always done. He goes out of his way to put a different spin on everything and his being good as he is and as open as he is encouraged the other actors to do the same. It set a tone for the movie that made it a lot of fun to make."[1]

[edit] The set

Filmed entirely at Universal Studios, The 'Burbs presented technical and logistical problems for Dante and the crew. "I can't think of many pictures since Lifeboat that all take place in the same area," Dante said as production got under way. "There was a lot of temptation to broaden it and go outside the neighborhood, but it seemed to violate the spirit of the piece. It's almost the kind of thing that could be a stage play except that you could never do on-stage what we've done in this movie."[1]

Dante used the Colonial Street set on the back lot for the Mayfield Place cul-de-sac. The set was being used at the time as the location for the Still the Beaver television series — the 1980s follow-up to Leave It to Beaver, so the entire area 'reeked' of normalcy. Dante said, "I asked [production designer James Spencer, a veteran of Poltergeist and Gremlins if he thought he could turn that street into the neighborhood we needed in that period of time. Spencer rose to the challenge, and within a few days they began work on sketching out the proposed designs for the sets. Spencer observed, "We had to be on the spot. Due to the lack of time, it would have been ludicrous to do our drawing elsewhere."[1]

The sacred Beaver household had to be carted away to make room for the dilapidated Klopek home. By the time Spencer was through, the entire street had been reconfigured.

The Klopeks' house was not completely destroyed, and remained almost intact as it appeared in The 'Burbs for a number of years, albeit without the tower. The whole building can be clearly seen in a season-two episode of Quantum Leap. The house no longer exists in an easily recognizable form (the Van de Kamp house in Desperate Housewives) but the right-façade does still have some features of the original style. The original Klopek garage sits alongside the house, in much the same style as in The 'Burbs.

The other houses (many of which are just façades) have been used in countless television shows, movies and music videos through the years. Perhaps the most notable is The Munsters' house, which is home to the Butler family in The 'Burbs. Due to its recognizability, the house's facade is never completely shown in the film. Two new houses, which were built specifically for the movie, were Walter Seznick's (which is still there to this day, see Desperate Housewives) and the Klopeks'.

[edit] Cast

[edit] The residents of Mayfield Place

  • 667: Walter Seznik (and Queenie the dog)
  • 668: The Barkelows (not in the movie, but referenced in its script)
  • 669: Werner, Reuben, and Hans Klopek
  • 670: Mark and Bonnie Rumsfield
  • 671: Ray, Carol, and Dave Peterson (and Vince the dog)
  • 672: Ricky Butler
  • 673: Art and Suzette Weingartner

[edit] Opening sequence

Mayfield Place and the surrounding neighborhood from above during the opening sequence.
Mayfield Place and the surrounding neighborhood from above during the opening sequence.
And again, closer in.
And again, closer in.

The opening sequence features a zoom-in on the Universal globe to an area in the Midwestern United States. As the camera zooms in further, a city becomes visible, then a street (a model of the Mayfield Place set), before settling on a view of the façade of the Klopek house.

For more information on the opening sequence, see here.

[edit] Plot

Sunday night/Monday morning: Much to Carol's consternation, Ray gets out of bed to investigate the noises coming from next door. On his way back inside, he sees the cigar-smoking Rumsfield watching from his bedroom window.

Monday AM: Paper delivery. Ray watches Queenie dump on Rumsfield's lawn and the latter stepping in the former's poop. Art almost kills Ray while attempting to shoot some crows. Invites self in for breakfast. Ray and Art attempt to speak with their new neighbors, but are thwarted by an attack of the bees.

Monday PM: Storytelling: Ray, Art, and Ricky. Art interrupts Ray and Carol's watching of Jeopardy together for a spy session on the Klopeks. They, together with Rumsfield, watch Hans "drive the garbage down to the street and bang the hell out of it with a stick". Rain delay. Bummer. During the night, Ray watches the Klopeks digging in their back yard with pick-axes in the middle of a rainstorm.

Tuesday AM: Garbage collection. Art runs out to check the contents of the garbage truck. He is soon joined by Rumsfield and Ray — the latter taking a time-out from an argument with Carol about going up to the lake. Their search in the hope of finding human remains is futile. Bonnie finds Queenie is out on the loose and wonders if Walter went away and forgot to feed her. Ray, Art, Bonnie, and Ricky go over to Walter's house. Rumsfield lets them in. Inside, they find Walter's toupee. That, added to the fact that the television was left on and a chair was turned over, sets the alarm bells ringing in Art and Rumsfield's head. Ray writes a note to Walter explaining that he has his dog.

Tuesday PM: Ray and Art have a meeting in the Peterson's basement. Art puts theories of satanic rituals in Ray's head. Ray dreams about a satanic ritual, with him as the offering.

Wednesday AM: Rumsfield and Art go over to No. 671 to see if Ray can come out to play. Negative: Carol has grounded him. The duo write a note to the Klopeks and slip it under their door. Art goes next door to tell Ray of the deed. Ray flips out. At Carol's request, she, Ray, Rumsfield, and Bonnie pay the Klopeks a visit. Art, intentionally not invited, snoops around in the Klopeks' back yard while the visitors meet Hans, Reuben, and Werner inside.

Wednesday PM: Back at No. 671, Ray has a meeting with Art and Rumsfield in the Den. Ray reveals that he found Walter's toupee in the Klopeks' basement the previous day after initially putting it through Walter's mailbox. The trio agree to investigate the contents of the Klopeks' back yard when the owners leave in the morning.

Thursday AM: The Klopeks leave for a meeting at the university. Carol, Dave, and the two dogs, Vince and Queenie, go to visit Carol's sister, Evelyn, leaving Ray free to carry out his dirty deed. 'Red Rover, Red Rover, let Art go on over.' Art and Ray vault the fence into the Klopeks' back yard while Rumsfield watches proceedings from his look-out position (the roof of his house). After having no luck after hours of (Ray's) digging, Ray and Art venture into the Klopek house, where they discover in the basement a furnace with a capability of reaching a temperature of 5,000 degrees. Ray begins to dig in the loose soil that constitutes the basement floor, believing there may be dead bodies buried there.

Thursday PM: The Klopeks drive back into Mayfield Place, only to reverse back out when they see their house has been occupied. Not long after, Rumsfield, Art, and Ricky are perturbed to see Walter return home. Then the Klopeks return "with coppers". Art tells Ricky to delay them while he goes in and gets Ray. Ray hits the gas line with his pick-axe and yells at Art to get out. Just as Art does so, the Klopek house explodes into flames with Ray still inside. A few minutes later, a disheveled Ray emerges from the flames just as his wife returns from dropping Dave at her sister's house. Ray is read the charges against him. He ignores them in favour of admiring Carol's new hairstyle. Ray snaps at Art and gives his "We're the lunatics, not them" speech, before lunging at Art and then throwing himself into an ambulance on a gurney. Werner Klopek joins Ray in the ambulance a short while later and decides that, since Ray must have seen the skull of one of the Knapps in the basement, he would like his as a replacement. Hans assumes the role of the ambulance driver, but crashes into the Weingartners' house during the three-way struggle. The gurney, with Ray and Werner aboard, rolls out of the ambulance and down the street. Ray makes a citizen's arrest on his would-be assassin. Ricky uncovers a large selection of bones in the Klopeks' trunk; the Klopeks are arrested and Ray is off the hook. Bonnie: "Arrrrrt, your wife is home!" Rumsfield: "And your house is on fire!" Art: "My wife is home?!" With the local media descended on his street, Ray decides it's a good time to go away for a while. He asks Ricky to keep an eye on things while he's gone. "You betcha, Mr. Peterson".

[edit] Alternate ending

The DVD release contains an alternate ending feature. It is similar to the original but less action-oriented. Dr. Klopek attempts to kill Ray while wearing a sinister white coat, but he is caught by Rumsfield and Carol doing so. While being arrested, he gives a satirically-themed monologue talking about how the Klopeks moved to the suburbs for "quiet, the good life" but "if you do anything different, people say 'Oh look, there goes the weirdo.'"

Scenes involving Rumsfield speaking to the police as well as talking to Ray remain, but are filmed in different locations. Also there is a brief scene of a befuddled Hans being questioned by one of the two detectives. This ending also closes with Ricky, but he is shot from above rather than in close-up.

There is also a third ending, from the original script, wherein the Klopeks succeed in killing Ray in the back of the ambulance. The garbagemen are then found in the Klopeks' trunk after they have escaped.[citation needed]

[edit] Releases

The first DVD release of The 'Burbs was Region 1, which contains English and French languages since it was sold in North America and Canada. This was followed in 2004 by the European/Australian Region 2/4 release entitled The 'Burbs Uncut. The 'uncut' in the title refers only to scenes removed from the TV versions are present on the DVD; there is nothing additional from the theatrical release.

On UK terrestrial TV, The 'Burbs has traditionally been shown late at night, uncut, on BBC One but ITV have since bought the rights to show it and it has enjoyed Sunday mid-afternoon showings on ITV 1 and late-night showings on ITV 3.

[edit] Music in the movie

[edit] Soundtrack

The extremely rare thirteen-track orchestral soundtrack was composed by Jerry Goldsmith and in some places parodies some of his other work, or well-known signature tunes, from other movies (Patton and Once Upon a Time in the West, for example).

  1. Main Title - 2:23
  2. Welcome to Mayfield Place - 2.20
  3. New Neighbours - 2:06
  4. Klopek House - 2:02
  5. Storytelling - 3:20
  6. Neighbourhood Watch - 2:01
  7. A Nightmare in the 'Burbs - 2:30
  8. Brownies? - 0:47
  9. The Assault - 2:36
  10. Ray Peterson, Neighbour from Hell - 1:43
  11. Runaway Ambulance - 2:24
  12. Vacation's End - 2:12
  13. End Titles - 4:10

Total duration: 30:34

Deluxe edition, also by Varèse Sarabande:

  1. Night Work (Main Title) (2:38)
  2. The Window / Home Delivery (2:22)
  3. The Raven (:51)
  4. Nocturnal Feeders (:27)
  5. Good Neighbors (2:06)
  6. Let’s Go (2:04)
  7. Bad Karma (:38)
  8. The Sentinel (3:22)
  9. My Neighborhood (2:04)
  10. The Garage (4:24)
  11. Spare Key (1:19)
  12. The Note (1:00)
  13. Devil Worship (1:12)
  14. The Dream (2:34)
  15. The Note #2 (1:28)
  16. This is Walter (2:00)
  17. Snooping Around (:50)
  18. I’m O.K. (1:02)
  19. Ask Him (1:24)
  20. What’s in the Cellar? (1:00)
  21. The Wig (2:23)
  22. Hot Wires (2:39)
  23. Red Rover, Red Rover (1:11)
  24. No Beer (3:07)
  25. Home Furnace (1:44)
  26. No Lights (:48)
  27. Walter’s Home (1:58)
  28. Something is Moving (1:46)
  29. There’s a Body (1:04)
  30. My Skull / The Gurney (2:24)
  31. The Trunk (1:41)
  32. Pack Your Bags (2:15)
  33. Square One (End Credits) (4:14)

[edit] Incidental music

  • "Machine" by Circus of Power (to which Ricky Butler plays air guitar when he is about to paint his house)
  • "Bloodstone" by Jetboy ("No tan lines this morning — looks nice."
  • "Questa o Quella" by Enrico Caruso ("I thought the candles would be romantic for the ladies.")
  • "Locked in a Cage" by Jetboy (when the car lights go on to illuminate Ricky and his friends' pizza-eating)
  • "Make Some Noise" by Jetboy
  • "The Showdown" by Ennio Morricone
  • "My Fault" by Ennio Morricone. This is the theme that plays as Ray and Art first walk up to the Klopeks' house (16:31 into the movie), and ends as the camera zooms out of Queenie's face. It's a Western-ish style theme and appears in the 1973 movie My Name is Nobody.

[edit] References to other Dante movies

Joe Dante uses many of the cast in his other movies (particularly Dick Miller (garbageman "Vic"), Robert Picardo (garbageman "Joe"), and Henry Gibson). He also likes to add little references to his other movies:

  • Art points at a picture in the book he and Ray are reading in the basement. This same picture appears in a book in The Howling.
  • While Dave Peterson is eating his breakfast, there is a box of Gremlins breakfast cereal.

[edit] Demonology book

The book The Theory and Practice of Demonology is fictional but the author is listed as Julian Karswell. Dr. Julian Karswell was a character in the 1957 movie Night of the Demon, which was in turn based on the classic ghost story Casting the Runes by the author M.R. James.

[edit] Green lights

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

There are many green lights used in this movie, and only on the Klopeks property but the relevance of them (if any) is not understood. For instance:

  • When the Klopeks go out (the day of "The Assault") there is a green light inside the garage
  • In the alternative ending on the DVD there is a green light in the upstairs window of the Klopeks' house
  • When Hans Klopek is "banging the garbage with a stick" there is a green light cast onto the driveway in the background, from an upstairs window in the house.
  • There are green lights in the basement of the Klopeks' house.

One theory is the connection to the saying quoted by Ricky and Ray: "Green sky at morning, neighbor take warning" -- Ricky. "Green sky at night?" -- Ray, "Neighbor take flight" -- Ricky.

[edit] Fire extinguishers

There are several fire extinguishers throughout the Klopeks' house, which is ironic given its fate.

[edit] Other observations

  • Early in the film, Rumsfield says of Ricky: "That kid next door's a meatball." Feldman went on to star in Meatballs 4 in 1993.
  • The tree in the first film Ray sees on TV is the same shape to the one in the Klopeks' front yard, suggesting that the Klopeks are into ritualistic sacrifices. Ray later has a dream in which the Klopeks are performing a similar ritual.
  • 666. The Klopeks live at 669 Mayfield Place; while Ray and Art are knocking on the door of the Klopek residence for the first time in the film, the '9' swings round for the number to read '666', a number commonly associated with evil.
  • Art's "rifle" he uses in an attempt to kill off the crows in the neighborhood is actually a Daisy brand, pump-action BB/pellet gun.
  • While the group is searching Walter's house, a picture of Walter (Gale Gordon) and Lucille Ball can be seen on top of his television set. Gordon appeared with Ball on The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy.
  • When Carol and Dave Peterson are in the car waiting to go to Evelyn's, it can be seen that the car seat headrests are missing. They were in place before Carol reversed out of the driveway.
  • The Klopeks' pet dog is named Landru, possibly after the notorious French serial killer Henri Landru.
  • Aside from his constant supply of military-style clothing, Mark Rumsfield always wears a bullet pendant round his neck, even when dressed in just his robe. Also, the posts supporting Rumsfield's mailbox at the bottom of his driveway are made from artillery shells and his car has a camouflage cover.
  • Art disastrously cuts the power lines to the Klopeks' house. A year earlier, Ducommun had a small role as a city engineer in the blockbuster movie Die Hard, in which he was ordered by FBI agents Johnson and Johnson to cut the power to the Nakatomi Building. "Lose the power, or you lose your job!"
  • Carol pleads with Ray, Art and Rumsfield to calm down before "someone falls off a roof or sets themselves on fire." This advice was unheeded as later Rumsfield falls off his roof and Ray sets himself on fire.
  • The garbagemen, Vic (Dick Miller) and Joe (Robert Picardo) talk of a big bowling game coming up against Roselli Plumbing. At the beginning of the scene mentioned in the above paragraph, when Carol is lecturing the men before they visit the Klopeks, a Roselli Plumbing van can be seen out of the window driving along the street.
  • At the end of the film, it is stated that Geraldo Rivera will be fronting a live investigation of the Klopeks' cellar, a reference to The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault.

[edit] See also

  • The Sentinel, a movie referenced by Ricky Butler during the movie. The "gateway to hell" apartment in the movie reminded him of the Klopeks' house.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Pfeiffer, Lee and Lewis, Michael (1996), The Films of Tom Hanks (ISBN 0806517174)

[edit] External links

Colonial Street at the Universal City Backlot
v • d • e
Films directed by Joe Dante