Under the Rainbow (1981) Orion/Comedy RT: 98 minutes Rated PG (language, crude humor, mild violence, brief partial nudity) Director: Steve Rash Screenplay: Pat McCormick, Harry Hurwitz, Martin Smith, Pat Bradley and Fred Bauer Music: Joe Renzetti Cinematography: Frank Stanley Release date: July 31, 1981 (US) Cast: Chevy Chase, Carrie Fisher, Eve Arden, Adam Arkin, Billy Barty, Robert Donner, Cork Hubbert, Joseph Maher, Mako, Pat McCormick, Richard Stahl, Freeman King, Peter Isacksen, Jack Kruschen, Bennett Ohta, Leonard Barr, Louisa Moritz, Ruth Brown, Twink Caplan, Gary Friedkin, Michael Lee Gogin, Pam Vance, Zelda Rubinstein, Bobby Porter, Little Pat Bilon, Tony Cox, Phil Fondacaro, Debbie Carrington. Box Office: $18.8M (US)
Rating: *** ½
I saw Under the Rainbow on a Sunday afternoon in early August at a theater about a 45-minute drive from where I lived at the time. It was the first movie I saw after an involuntary two-week hiatus- the family vacation in Ocean City, NJ- from my normal moviegoing activities. I was already pissed about missing Zorro the Gay Blade; I wasn’t about to miss this one. It looked like a funny picture despite all the negative reviews. I wasn’t disappointed; I thought it was a riot. Talk about screwball comedies, Under the Rainbow is one of the screwiest!
It’s important to remember Under the Rainbow came out in the years before PC was a thing. It didn’t occur to me how politically incorrect it is until I was well into adulthood. By then, the PC Nazis were hard at work making everything as inoffensive as possible. There’s no way in hell a movie like Under the Rainbow would be made today with its jokes about Germans, Italians, Asians, blacks and little people. It would surely be accused of reinforcing negative stereotypes. I disagree. There’s a vast difference between humor and hate speech. Under the Rainbow is NOT hate speech. It’s about as offensive as a pre-Ted Turner Looney Tune. As such, I don’t feel guilty laughing at the Japanese Amateur Photographic Society (check out the initials) or anything else in Under the Rainbow.
The action centers mainly on the making of The Wizard of Oz. A young production assistant, Annie Clark (Fisher, Star Wars), is tasked with looking after the 150 diminutive extras hired to play the Munchkins in the classic film. Her dimwitted assistant Homer (Isacksen, Grand Theft Auto) checks them into the hotel across the street where the owner (Stahl, High Anxiety) has left his nephew (Arkin, Full Moon High) in charge for the weekend. Needless to say, all hell is about to break loose. Over the course of a single night, the midgets nearly destroy the renamed Rainbow Hotel with their wild antics.
They’re not the hotel’s only guests that weekend. Secret Service agent Bruce Thorpe (Chase, Caddyshack) checks in with two dignitaries, a paranoid Duke (Maher, Going Ape!) and dizzy Duchess (Arden, Grease). He dons all sorts of silly disguises due to his irrational fear of assassination. She refuses to wear her glasses and can’t see a thing. The irony is somebody really is trying to kill the Duke, an inept Italian assassin (Donner, Mork & Mindy) with a personal score to settle.
It’s not a party without a Nazi spy and we get one in the form of Otto (Barty, Night Patrol), an agent of Hitler sent to deliver vital information on America’s defense system to a Japanese spy (Mako, Conan the Barbarian). Naturally, there’s going to be a huge mix-up with the busload of Japanese tourists and 150 midgets also staying at the hotel. The map ends up in Annie’s hands. The bad guys spend the rest of the movie trying to get it back.
Have I forgotten anything? A romance develops between Bruce and Annie as he tries to protect her from the enemy spies. It was inevitable. One of the little actors is Rollo Sweet (Hubbert, Caveman), a big dreamer from an encampment for the destitute in Kansas. He’s doesn’t let anything get him down, not even the Great Depression. He comes to Hollywood with dreams of stardom. His fellow little people, seeing he’s in need, take him in as one of their own.
What can I say about the acting? Chase and Fisher play it somewhat straight amidst all the chaos. It’s the supporting cast that generates most of the laughs. Maher, Arden, Donner (whose Italian accent crosses the border into parody), Arkin and Isacksen are all very funny. Barty, with his cartoonish Nazi caricature and exaggerated German accent (not to mention the nifty monocle), is hysterical. Pat McCormick, playing the drunken house detective, is a natural choice to appear opposite a bunch of midgets having previously acted alongside diminutive Paul Williams in the Smokey and the Bandit films. Hubbert’s character Rollo is sweet (hence the surname Sweet). He lives by the motto “There’s no dream too big and no dreamer too small.”
Director Steve Rash (The Buddy Holly Story) assembled an awesome cast for the chaotic Under the Rainbow and manages to orchestrate the chaos very well. There’s plenty of slapstick humor involving midgets engaging in mischief like riding away on the housekeeper’s favorite bucket or borrowing a little elevator cable. A dwarf takes great pleasure is stuffing dollar bills in the cigarette girl’s cleavage while standing on the bar. It ends with a wild chase scene across the MGM lot as a midget posse tears through the sets of other movies including Gone with the Wind. Of course, one ends up under Vivien Leigh’s petticoat. Who didn’t see that coming? The only thing I didn’t find especially amusing is the running joke about the fate of the Duchess’ little dog Strudel (all of them!).
Even after 40 years, I still laugh like hell at Under the Rainbow. It’s a great madcap comedy that deserved more attention than it got. It was a box office disappointment grossing only $18 million against a $20 million budget. In all fairness, it faced serious competition at the box office going up against serious hitters like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman II, The Cannonball Run, Arthur and Stripes. It wasn’t promoted as a Chevy Chase movie. It was before he proved himself a bankable star in the Vacation movies. It took a long time for Warner to release Under the Rainbow on DVD and I’m glad they finally did. It’s a welcome addition to my movie library. It always puts a goofy smile on my face. As for it falling outside the limits of PC standards, I think we can let this one slide. There has to be a grandfather clause, right?
