Dirty Laundry

My review was written in July 1987 after watching the film on Sony video cassette.

Spurred on by a goofball cast, "Dirty Laundry" is a crazy comedy that provides lots of fun before sputtering to a sentimental, unsatisfying conclusion. Picture is headed for a home video release in fall via Sony.

Leigh McCloskey toplines as a rock concert sound man working for corrupt manager Sonny Bono. Bono's involved in a drug deal that goes awry in a drop at a laundry, with McCloskey accidentally walking off with a laundry bag filled with money. Hero is soon on the run, accompanied by dizzy journalist Jeanne O'Brien, with Bono's gangster boss Frankie Valli ordering his henchmen to get them and the money, or else!

Among the numerou casting oddities of this feature are, in additon to Valli and Bono at odds with their singer images, Olympic stars Greg Louganis and Carl Lewis who show up respectively as McCloskey's party animal roommate and a spoof of Phillip Michael Thomas' "Miami Vice" character Tubbs. Edy Williams also is on board shaking her moneymakers and wrestler Deanna Booher is typecast as a dominatrix. Stars McCloskey and O'Brien make a pleasant, romantic sparring team and Robbie Rist is fun aas their nerdish helper.

Believe it or not, I actually had a very small role in this movie that was spliced out during editing and I actually dozed off on several occasions waiting to see myself(before I discovered that I had been deleted). Now just ask yourself, how bad must a movie be if one of the background 'actors' actually falls asleep while viewing the movie and checking to see his debut? However, I did get to see Leigh McCloskey from Dallas while I spent an afternoon in Watts of all places with a bunch of other slugs filming this movie. But I must admit, I enjoyed the experience and my presence didn't add or take from the movie since I was about as essential as a contorted cigarette butt. The movie does contain an interesting ensemble(I hope I spelled that big word correctly, anyway, I'm too dam lazy to check the dictionary) but I digress, the interesting characters include Carl Lewis, Frankie Valli, Abe Vigoda(Fish from Barney Miller) and quite a few other Love Boat bound Hollywood legends. Well, as far as my 'movie career' is concerned, I did two other blockbusters during the same year of filming, 1986 and I have trouble remembering the other 2 since they didn't get anywhere either. I guess I was a bad luck charm when it comes to movies.

1st watched 7/21/2002 - 2 out of 10(Dir-William Webb): Lame, chase comedy with pretty flat performances from pretty much everyone except Franki Valli, who does an ok job as a mobster boss. The storyline involves a bag of mistakenly misplaced "Dirty Laundry"(hence the title) with 1 million dollars in drug money and our hero just happens to have the bag of money. He is chased, and chased, and chased until the movie finally ends. I'm actually pretty proud of myself for making it to the end of this one without dozing despite the boring plot. Skip this one if at all possible

That would have at least given it some merit. Concert sound man Jay (Leigh McCloskey, fresh off the classic HAMBURGER: THE MOTION PICTURE) finds himself in a pickle after he accidentally picks up a sack of cash during a coke deal (involving two grandmas) at a laundromat. This puts him in the cross-hairs of mobster "Macho" Marty (Frankie Valli), his goon Vito (Nicholas Worth), and music manager Maurice (Sonny Bono). Teaming with music reporter Trish (Jeanne O'Brien) and neighbor kid inventor Oscar (Robbie Rist), Jay runs all over L.A. trying to escape the villains.

The only thing worse than this flick is knowing that some loser in his thirties - yours truly - was compelled to watch it based off that cover art. Because we all know this POLICE ACADEMY style drawing means hilarity. Director William Webb has no idea what comedy is with the film falling flat at every turn. To give you an example, Webb's idea of humor is to have two male cops with the last names Betty and Veronica. Or Crockett & Tubbs look-a-likes slipping on a wet floor with a cheap-o Miami Vice riff on the soundtrack. Or the top F.B.I. guy being named Zimbalist and everyone making cracks about it. It is so odd a cast of "legit" folks like Valli and Bono got signed onto this. To be fair, Bono's character completely disappears halfway through and never shows up again. Maybe he was embarrassed and didn't show up for work? Even odder are the brief appearances by two Olympians, Carl Lewis and Greg Louganis. Lewis is one of the Miami VICE cops and Louganis is cast as Jay's womanizing surfer roommate (yeah right!).