'80s Roulette: NEIGHBORS
The last film John Belushi ever made teamed him with his best friend, but also led to endless battles on the set that ultimately derailed it.
I have (almost) every single movie released in theaters in the ‘80s in the United States on a hard drive, and once a week, I’m going to hit shuffle and review whatever film comes up first.
Welcome to ‘80s Roulette!
DECEMBER 18, 1981
Neighbors
John Belushi, Kathryn Walker, Cathy Moriarty, Dan Aykroyd, Igors Gavon, Dru-Ann Chuckran, Tim Kazurinsky, Tino Insana, P.L. Brown, Henry Judd Baker, Lauren-Marie Taylor, Sherman G. Lloyd, Bert Kittel, J.B. Friend, Bernie Friedman, Edward S. Kotkin, Michael Manoogian, Dale Two Eagles
cinematography by Gerald Hirschfeld
music by Bill Conti
screenplay by Larry Gelbart
based on the novel by Thomas Berger
produced by David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck
directed by John G. Avildsen
Rated R
1 hr 34 mins
When a strange new couple moves in next door, Earl Keese finds himself trapped in what feels like a waking nightmare.
Thomas Berger was a chameleon on the page. He was in the Army during WWII, and then returned to civilian life and school. He wrote several books while working several different day jobs before he broke through with Little Big Man, his third book. I get it. It’s an enormously entertaining read, the story of Jack Crabb, a white man who was raised in the American West by Cheyennes, eventually living to the age of 111. The book is a memory piece as he tells his story, dipping in and out of history as he crosses paths with Wyatt Earp and Custer and Wild Bill Hickok. The book wasn’t an immediate hit when it came out in 1964, but it’s one of those books that just quietly kept selling and selling. Marlon Brando spent a few years trying to get it made, but eventually let go of the rights, and Arthur Penn ended up making the movie in 1970. At that point, Berger’s book caught a second wind and the rest of his career was one book after another, his last one published in 2004. I think his best book was probably The Feud, but just before that, he published a book called Neighbors, which I discovered on a stack of my mom’s library books, before I ever knew it was going to be a movie.