Porky's: The Ultimate Collection – DVD Review

Film, Reviews

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Disc One: Porky’s (The One Size Fits All Edition):

Directed by
Bob Clark

Cast:
Dan Monahan … Pee Wee
Wyatt Knight … Tommy
Mark Herrier … Billy
Roger Wilson … Mickey
Cyril O’Reilly … Tim
Tony Ganios … Meat
Kaki Hunter … Wendy
Scott Colomby … Brian Schwartz
Nancy Parsons … Balbricker
Eric Christmas … Carter
Kim Cattrall … Honeywell


The Movie:

The Sex Comedy is a tradition that has spanned back decades. While The Wedding Crashers/40-Year-Old Virgin debate still rages as to which is the best from 00’s, the last few decades had clear winners. With Animal House and American Pie ruling the roost in their respective eras, the 1980’s was the time of Porky’s. Granted, the film could hardly be argued as a masterpiece of cinema, but Porky’s dutifully filled this important niche for audiences, with its raunchy tale of coming of age, even stopping along the way to make its characters one’s you cared about instead just filling its screen time with stupid horny teenagers.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of nudity in Porky’s, because there is. In fact, the movie caused quite a controversy when it premiered, but time has definitely been kind to the little $4 million comedy. Whether considered just a Cult Classic or even an institution of this type of cinema, Porky’s has achieved great fame since it first hit cinema screens and has had a great life on cable and video. Now with this new edition from 20th Century Fox, this film has finally gotten its due on DVD.

For those that didn’t grow up in the 80’s, the film is a semi-autobiographical tale by Director Bob Clark about a group of teenagers from Angel Beach, Florida in the 1950’s. Mostly focusing on the character of Pee-Wee Morris (Dan Monahan), the movie follows him and his friends on a journey of growing sexual awareness, as well as Clark throwing in a moral about racism for good measure. What’s refreshing about watching this film today is how deftly Clark is able to weave this tale about the 50’s and make it feel so natural, not just throwing in a bunch of actors that look like models and celebrities.

This especially goes for the women in this picture, namely the character of Wendy Williams (Kaki Hunter). The women here don’t look fake, and despite the loads of nudity, are treated with care and a degree of respect by late director Bob Clark. In fact, the most embarrassing scenes in the film all involve the film’s male characters, who are often caught nude in public and in other embarrassing situations. Clark stages hilarious sequences throughout the movie, including a peeping tom scene with an amazing punch line, and a follow-up scene that just doesn’t stop with the laughs. Another sequence has Kim Cattrall at her hottest, which also is highly amusing on a lot of levels.

The film also manages a plot about a local strip bar owner named Porky (Chuck Mitchell), who cheats the boys and terrorizes them to the point where they seek their revenge. The film’s finale is very well staged and makes for a satisfying conclusion to this romp, despite not getting a lot of screen time throughout the movie. Still it’s a small complaint compared to the fun this film first provides throughout.

Porky’s manages to be a time capsule of both the 1980’s in which it was made, as well as the 1950’s that it portrays. This film is a wonderful look back at the carefree periods of both eras while still giving you little life lessons amongst the depravity. This film may be trashy, but its enjoyable trash all the way.


Disc 2: Porky’s II: The Next Day:

Directed by
Bob Clark

Cast:
Dan Monahan … Pee Wee
Wyatt Knight … Tommy
Mark Herrier … Billy
Roger Wilson … Mickey
Cyril O’Reilly … Tim
Tony Ganios … Meat
Kaki Hunter … Wendy
Cisse Cameron … Sandy Le Toi
Ilse Earl … Mrs. Morris
Scott Colomby … Brian Schwartz
Nancy Parsons … Balbricker
Eric Christmas … Carter
Bill Wiley … Reverend Flavel


The Movie:

With the second installment of this trilogy, we start nearly exactly where we left off with the previous entry with the apt title of Porky’s II: The Next Day. Of course, the boys immediately get into more hi-jinks with one amazingly gratuitous sequence involving a belly-dancer posing as librarian, a graveyard, a zombie, rednecks with shotguns, and Pee-Wee streaking down the road once more. The majority of the film, though, is about a battle between the school’s drama class, who is trying to put on a production of William Shakespeare’s classics, and a group of religious zealots trying to shut them down.

Surprisingly, Porky’s II is actually a pretty strong sequel in this series, even with the retread of many of the original film’s themes. The racism angle from the first picture is a bit preachier, as instead of a personal struggle between two eventual friends, the KKK shows up as additional bad guys for the boys to foil. Still, the chemistry with this cast is still infectious, and we even get a few moments of tenderness with Pee-Wee and Wendy.

Also fun to note is that Bob Clark returned for this movie, and was directing A Christmas Story at the same time. Fans of the now holiday classic will recognize that movie’s famous leg lamp, which makes a cameo in this picture in a sword fight no less. Porky’s II doesn’t have the laugh quotient of the original, but enough to satisfy most fans, and with the cast being so likeable the movie is an easy sell. I wish there was a stronger storyline throughout and the movie’s more exploitable elements are more toned down this time, but the movie has a lot of merits that keep the laughs coming.


Disc 3: Porky’s Revenge:

Directed by
James Komack

Cast:
Dan Monahan … Pee Wee Morris
Wyatt Knight … Tommy Turner
Tony Ganios … Meat Tuperello
Mark Herrier … Billy
Kaki Hunter … Wendy Williams
Scott Colomby … Brian Schwartz
Nancy Parsons … Beulah Balbricker
Chuck Mitchell … Porky Wallace
Rose McVeigh … Miss Webster
Fred Buch … Mr. Dobish
Wendy Feign … Blossom
Eric Christmas … Mr. Carter
Ilse Earl … Mrs. Morris
Kim Evenson … Inga
Bill Hindman … Coach Goodenough


The Movie:

After two successful entries, perhaps the letdown was kind of inevitable. Easily the worst of this trilogy, Porky’s Revenge, features the return of Chuck Mitchell as Porky Wallace, the infamous racketeer and flesh peddler. This time out, he hassles the boys’ basketball coach (Bill Hindman), and the group has to take some elaborate action to get their coach off the hook. The guys are also embroiled in the basketball state tournament, while managing to keep Meat (Tony Ganios) on the team, keep from getting killed by Porky’s goons, and still find time to graduate high school.

This all leads to the most frenzied of the Porky’s films, and by now the seams are starting to show. The movie’s biggest problem is that it’s harder to buy that all of these actors are still in their teens, with Meat especially putting on a lot of weight between parts II and III. Also Director James Komack doesn’t seem to try as hard to keep the 50’s motif, resulting in a movie that looks cheaper than its predecessors despite having a budget that was about equal to the first two films combined. Not helping was the score by Composer Dave Edmunds, with its synthesizer tones that date the film more than any of the previous films’ 50’s classic tunes ever could.

Still the movie stays likeable from the standpoint of the actors involved. Despite its flaws, the film manages to be a loving send off to these sex starved teens and the other characters that have surrounded them. A subplot involving the series’ most consistent villain, Beulah Balbricker (Nancy Parsons), ends up being one of the sweetest moments of the entire series, and is shot with unexpected flair.

All in all the Porky’s Trilogy is a strong series for this subgenre. The films have a special place in the hearts of many of us that came up in the 80’s and will probably continue to do so. With each decade there seems to be new ways to keep shocking audiences with the titular adventures of the sexually starved, but with these films, there’s a real innocence underneath all the dirt, and a plethora of likable characters, which is actually quite rare for this genre. That indeed, is something to be celebrated.


The DVD’s:

The Video
The prints on the films seem to get gradually worse as the movie’s go along. The first film’s new special edition is definitely the nicest of the prints with the other two going in descending order. The films are presented in Anamorphic Widescreen with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

The Audio
The Audio tracks are presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and are generally nice throughout. I didn’t notice any glaring flaws with the audio, which should be sufficient for watching these films.

SPECIAL FEATURES: Commentary, Featurettes, Trailers.

Commentary by Director Bob Clark – This is just on the disc for Porky’s and is quite lively and informative the whole way through the film. Clark dishes on the film’s troubled production, and how difficult the studio was in making and distributing the picture. You really get a sense for Clark’s love of this movie though, and he seems to be extremely proud of it without making himself out to be Orson Welles or anything.

Porkys Through The Peephole: Bob Clark Looks Back – A lot of Clark’s commentary is covered again here, but this is a still a pretty informative little Featurette on the making of this film. Clark talks about running out of money halfway through production and having to fight to get the film finished. You can hear the vindication in his voice though, when his film became a hit despite the studio’s misgivings.

Porky’s: A Comedy Classic – This has a couple of comedians talking about their life long experiences with Porky’s. The guys are pretty vulgar, but this is pretty amusing and I’m sure a lot of the movie’s fans have many of the same feeling toward it.

Trailers – You get the theatrical trailer for Porky’s, Porky’s II: The Next Day Trailer, and the Porky’s Revenge Trailer on all three discs. The first disc also has the bizarre Porky’s Video Game trailer for the Atari 2600, as well as TV Promos for the first film.

The DVD Lounge’s Ratings for
Porky’s: The Ultimate Collection
CATEGORY
RATING
(OUT OF 10)
THE MOVIE

7.5
THE VIDEO

7.5
THE AUDIO

8
THE EXTRAS

4.5
REPLAY VALUE

8.5
OVERALL
7
(NOT AN AVERAGE)

Robert Sutton feels the most at home when he's watching some movie scumbag getting blown up, punched in the face, or kung fu'd to death, especially in that order. He's a founding writer for the movies section of Insidepulse.com, featured in his weekly column R0BTRAIN's Badass Cinema as well as a frequent reviewer of DVDs and Blu-rays. Also, he's a proud Sony fanboy, loves everything Star Wars and Superman related and hopes to someday be taken seriously by his friends and family.