Happy Hour

This film should be a classic in American Film archives. What a better story line than a beer company trying to take over the world. This movie is an absolute must for beer lover and movie buffs alike. Anyone that misses out on this one is truly a neglected individual.

Marshall Industries of Denver makes the country's no. 1 beer. In fact, in this movie, beer is VERY popular. Most people seem to be drunk a lot of the time, and even 6-year-olds can drink. But Blake, despite being a Marshall employee, wants nothing to do with the beer outside the workplace. He doesn't want his children drinking either.

One day a mystery man shows up at Marshall looking for work. He is willing to do anything. I'm not exactly sure what he was trying to accomplish. He has one scene with Blake where he claims to be a Mormon. Later he has gotten access to the Marshall brewery by claiming to be Cary Grant. As far as I can tell, this is the one time Rich Little uses the skill for which he is best known. Other than that, his abilities weren't used to their potential. He is an okay actor, though.

As a M*A*S*H fan, I liked Jamie Farr the best. He too had a secret agenda of some kind which involved sneaking into the brewery of Marshall's leading competitor. Along the way, he had numerous mishaps. Farr's performance wasn't quite on the level of Corporal Klinger, but he didn't seem to have that much to work with. The other actors had the goofier lines and Farr seemed to play more straight when he spoke, instead ending up a victim of physical comedy.

I do know that there was some secret ingredient that everyone wanted their hands on. Supposedly, this ingredient would make the other beer number one.

I'm not sure what to think of this movie overall. At times it was a hilarious satire. But bad acting in a conventional movie doesn't look too different from good acting in a spoof. I'll give the people who made the movie the benefit of the doubt and say they made a good, but not great, satire. The situations were so silly that this movie was still entertaining, even if I didn't know exactly what was going on. Adding a lot to the movie: the physical comedy and elaborate plans for getting into ... wherever.

The ending was enjoyable in a goofy way. It was one of those cases where the characters knew they were in a movie.

This movie begins with two chemists named "Blakely Teegarden" (Richard Gilliland) and "Meredith Casey" (Deborah Gates) who accidentally create a chemical concoction which cannot be duplicated but makes whatever food source is available highly addictive. Upon hearing this their CEO, "Jack Marshall" (Jim Newell) decides to add this substance to a certain brand of beer made in a brewery he owns. When the sales skyrocket he promotes Blakely-but not Meredith. Not long afterward a rival beer company manages to get their hands on one of only two vials of this substance as well. Because both companies want to be #1 in beer sales they each hire corporate spies to try to steal the other companies container of this substance. What follows is a film with several good-looking females--most notably Debi Fares (as "Ms. Shepard"), Kathi Diamant ("Cathy Teegarden") and Tawny Kitaen ("Misty Roberts")--who managed to keep my interest for the most part. Unfortunately, the plot meandered all over the place and for a comedy the humor was noticeably absent. That said, I have rated this movie accordingly. Below average.

This was an example of some of the worst mugging and all-around bad acting since Plan 9 from Outer Space! The leads actually maintain a straight face throughout to their credit, but the supporting cast (every last one of 'em), are all horrendous! It could have been funny if it had been played a bit more realistically. Then the outrageous behavior shown by the characters' reaction to the "Marshall Beer secret ingredient" would have been hilarious. Oh well... it WAS filmed in 1987 after all.

This is quite good comedy. First of all it has to do with beer! It has weird & stupid humour, but not even once does the pace slow down for a bit. It goes all the way, almost fresh even during the ending sequence, which must as tradition to be silly in american films. This one has some nice jokes - not the best, but surely enough for those who are looking for a nice old-school comedy.

Fast pace & hillarious characters (not mentioning the general beer-frenzy depicted in the film) are the two factors that make this an OK film.