Back to School (1986)

Summary

In an attempt to help his miserable son, a relatively uneducated businessman buys his way into college.

Director

Alan Metter

Downey Factor

Low. He was not really a star at this point.

Character

Derek Lutz, the weirdo roommate of Rodney Dangerfield's son.

Looks

Young, oddly dressed (even by '80s standards), occasionally has blue hair.

Performance

Decent entirely comedic performance. It is what it is.

Line

Violent ground-acquisition games such as football are in fact a crypto-fascist metaphor for nuclear war.

Dies, Gay or Villain

No, no, no.

Cast

Rodney Dangerfield, Sally Kellerman, Ned Beatty, Keith Gordon

Connection

Alan Metter's Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

Rodney Dangerfield in Natural Born Killers.

Keith Gordon's The Singing Detective.

RDJ Says

Rodney Dangerfield was a true original. Extremely kind. Wickedly funny. Forget the costumes—I had more gelatin in my hair than you'd use for 100 bowls of Jell-O! You could literally bounce a tennis ball off my hair. It was crispy—it turned into, like, they were like bamboo horns. It was the best... That was fun. My hair. I was such a nerd, I thought the higher my hair, the cooler I was ... I was doing Back to School and Saturday Night Live at the same time. So I'd fly back to Los Angeles for a couple of days during the week to shoot the movie and then fly back and, "Live from New York, it's a tired young man!" ... The first time I went to meet [Rodney Dangerfield], he opened the door of his apartment wearing a terry-cloth robe. The belt for the robe undid itself as he was opening the door — so the first part of Rodney Dangerfield I ever experienced were his kiwis. It was unadulterated joy from that moment. “Come on in. You mind if I smoke some shit?” “Nope, that’s not going to be a problem, Rodney.” Another time, we were shooting a scene, and he said: “Watch this. ‘Oh, my ankle! Ah, shit!’" That was on a Thursday. Three-day weekend.

Lit Reference

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dangerfield and Kellerman discuss The Great Gatsby in this movie, and Thornton Mellon shares common threads with Gatsby (nouveau riche man trying to use money to acquire something that can't be purchased).

Availability

Released in theaters 13 June 1986. On DVD in Region 1, 2 and 4. Available on Blu-ray.

Foreign Titles

Argentina: De Vuelta al Colegio (Return to School)
Brazil: De Volta às Aulas (Back to School)
Denmark: Med Næsen i Bøgerne (With His Nose in the Books
France: A Fond la Fac (Back to College)
Germany: Mach's Nochmal, Dad (Make It Again, Dad)
Israel: Back to Youth (English translation)
Italy: A Scuola con Papà (To School with Dad)
Poland: Powrót do Szkoly (Back to School)
Spain: Regreso a la Escuela (Back to School)

Rotten Tomatoes

88% Fresh | 24 Reviews

Critical View

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The most interesting thing about Back to School, which is otherwise a pleasant but routine comedy, is the puzzle of Rodney Dangerfield. Here is a man who reminds us of some of the great comedians of the early days of the talkies.

Kim Newman, Empire Magazine: Unlike many other star comedians, Dangerfield isn't afraid to let anyone else be funny.

Does It Hold Up

For 22 years (from 1986 until Iron Man came out in 2008), this was the highest-grossing movie Robert Downey Jr had ever been in. Considering how big of a hit it was in its day, does it still live up to that level of hype? Not really, but it is still entertaining.

2 Reasons to See It

1. His hair.
2. Rodney Dangerfield does the Triple Lindy.

Overall

It's an amusing movie to check out on an idle afternoon, but if it doesn't sound like your thing, it's not worth seeing just for Downey.

If You Liked It

You might also like Weird Science (1985), Johnny Be Good (1987), hanging out at the Friars Club

Photos

Video