PORKY'S (1982)
**½/**** Image D Sound C-
starring Kim Cattrall, Scott Colomby, Kaki Hunter, Nancy Parsons
written and directed by Bob Clark
PORKY'S II: THE NEXT DAY (1983)
**½/**** Image D+ Sound C
starring Dan Monahan, Wyatt Knight, Mark Herrier, Roger Wilson
screenplay by Roger E. Swaybill & Alan Ormsby & Bob Clark
directed by Bob Clark
PORKY'S REVENGE (1985)
**/**** Image D- Sound D+
starring Dan Monahan, Wyatt Knight, Tony Ganios, Mark Herrier
screenplay by Ziggy Steinberg
directed by James Komack
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover There's nothing more obnoxious than someone being pointlessly revisionist and declaring some bit of cultural detritus a lost masterpiece. Still, I can't help but be guardedly pleased to discover several inches of depth charted in the legendarily foul waters of the Porky's franchise. By far the most notorious of the big-name '80s teen comedies, it was widely attacked for its misogyny–a charge I can't exactly support yet can't entirely dispel, either. But as a critic friend pointed out, they're the only movies that retroactively take place in the Eisenhower era to suggest that all was not well in the American Republic. In fact, the first two films insist on a pervasive racism in their small-town Florida setting, Porky's finding a character casting off his anti-Semite father and Porky's II: The Next Day baiting the Klan upon stupidly wading into a censorship fight. Coupled with Bob Clark's blunt-witted realism, it makes for intriguing viewing–which is not to say there wasn't room for improvement.
Of course, nobody was seeing these movies for their social realism. I can remember having a lab partner in high school who would ooze rotten enthusiasm for the T&A comedies of our youth while seeming oblivious to their finer points (and creeping me out in the process). Praising the politics of a Porky's entry may be a cul-de-sac along the lines of praising Russ Meyer for middle-class black roles that are obviously secondary to his fetish for enormous breasts–and try as I might, I just can't transform the horndog antics of Clark's films (at least the first one) into anything faintly resembling a feminist critique. Indeed, the verisimilitude of these pictures unfortunately extends to a male imperative that most would sooner forget. It's impossible for me to write off the series completely, though, as their tortuous ethics are a rather interesting case history in the annals of pop.
Set in 1954, the films centre on the antics of a group of high school friends: short and perennially undersexed Pee-Wee (Dan Monahan); barely-differentiated wiseacres Billy (Mark Herrier) and Tommy (Wyatt Knight); muscular–and reportedly well-endowed–Meat (Tony Ganios); and, for a dash of equality, infinitely mischievous Wendy (Kaki Hunter). In Porky's, the quintet's misadventures serve as a backdrop to the boys' dealings with Porky (Chuck Mitchell), whose across-county-lines strip bar is their Holy Grail. Lured there by the promise of back-room sex, they're ultimately humiliated by Porky and his brother, a fellow-travelling local lawman (Alex Karras) who trashes their ride. This will be the MacGuffin that holds together several strands of story, amongst other things a practical joke involving a prostitute and her apparently-vengeful black lover (which has Pee-Wee running naked into the night), the anti-Semitism experienced by new group member Brian (Scott Colomby), and Meat's unsuccessful attempts to get into Princeton.
It is, as I say, the racial angle that makes this film notable. Higher minds than Bob Clark's have failed at doing considerably less than sketching the bigotry that pervaded Eisenhower's America, and so we have a teenage character named Mickey (Roger Wilson) who is full of hatred for "niggers" and "kikes," though he appears to be operating under the influence of his loathsome father. There's a genuinely uncomfortable scene in which two of the boys try to explain to Brian their progressive stance AND their refusal to ditch Mickey as a friend, and Colomby does an excellent job of conveying Brian's coming to terms with their decision. That Mickey experiences an eleventh-hour conversion doesn't render Clark's guarded reminiscence any less disquieting–and while I'm not sure that the director doesn't let his characters off the hook for their laissez-faire attitude, it's probably a more honest rendering of the situation at hand.
The matter-of-factness with which it's put forth is also extremely refreshing: even at its most ridiculous, the film never wavers in its suggestion of realism. Alas, this is the icing on the cake of random nudity, which culminates in two sequences: the Porky's bar scene and the notorious Peeping Tom sequence wherein Pee-Wee and compatriots spy on the girls' shower. It's the latter scene that sticks in the craw of awarding Porky's top marks, since the girls' light hilarity at the spying is a tad unbelievable; and Clark's blithe acceptance of their actions without remorse shows that he's not exactly above-board about the consequences of his semi-remembrance of things past. It doesn't take away from the movie's achievement, but it does cast a pall over the proceedings.
What happened is of course legend: Porky's became the top-grossing Canadian film in history, conquering international markets with surprising ease. A sequel was inevitable, and Porky's II: The Next Day proves a worthy successor. Two additional screenwriters were brought on board (one of them Clark's frequent collaborator Alan Ormsby), meaning the intricately-plotted sequel is not nearly as amorphous as its predecessor. If this takes away some of the shambling charm of the original, it matches it with a little bit of cleverness. After the climactic destruction and humiliation of Porky, things are as they were at Angel Beach High, save that a group led by obnoxious Reverend Flavel (Bill Wiley) and bolstered by rotund gym teacher Miss Ballbricker (Nancy Parsons) is threatening to pull the plug on the school play of Shakespeare highlights. The students initially appeal to city councillor Gebhardt (Edward Winter), but his double-crossing (and prurient interest in Wendy) relegates him to a target in their grand revenge scheme.
Again Clark trots out the racial woes and sexual hypocrisies of the '50s milieu. Cleverly, the film conflates the racism of the Klan–who show up to both support Flavel and oppose the play's casting of a Seminole boy named John Henry (Joseph Running Fox) as Romeo opposite Wendy's Juliet–with sexual repression (and, as Flavel and his supporters run stag films on weekends, sexual hypocrisy). This time, however, he's not quite as cogent: unlike Brian, who remains a full-fledged character, the Native American is wheeled in to sanctify the leads and provide tribe members for the admittedly lavish final humiliation of the Klan. Happily, Wendy betrays more of a personality this time around, especially in a smashing sequence where, invited on a date with lecherous Gebhardt, she dresses up like a loud hussy and announces his predilection for teenage girls. It's a tour-de-force moment for Kaki Hunter.
The first two films squeeze by on sensibility and political novelty, but the things that gave the series its charge were gone by the advent of Porky's Revenge. Clark and his writers had moved on, and his successor, veteran TV producer James Komack (sort of the poor man's Norman Lear), fails to see that although the selling point is sex, the tipping point is race. Thus we have the gang menaced by the newly-reborn Porky, whose shattered strip club has been superseded by a riverboat gambling operation. When the basketball coach bets too much, the gang must promise to throw the championship game; when Meat is tied up with his daughter for reasons too tedious to enumerate here, Porky kidnaps him to marry them off. While there are divertissements involving a philandering pair of teachers, there's no real undertone of reality; it's just another teen sex romp, without the subtext of the first two films.
To be sure, the filmmakers have done a good job of approximating the Clark sensibility. There are no flights of ridiculousness–at least no more than the master himself would have allowed. Alas, the thin veneer of realism is fruitless if you have nothing to render realistically. Porky's Revenge lacks a certain amount of oomph as a result of the lack of shocking material to treat bluntly: it's a standard genre entry and no more. And if there's nothing here on which connoisseurs of the genre can't sate themselves, those expecting an actual movie are going to be left out in the cold. As time has passed, the thrill of R-rated nudity has fallen by the wayside: we're far too jaded to respond to the meagre bits of flesh on offer here. Without something else beyond half-porn to sustain it, the film looks pallid, if professional, next to its forebears.
THE DVD
Canadian distributor TVA packages the Porky's trilogy together for the first time on DVD in a "Special Collector's Edition," though aside from this marking the format's debut of Porky's Revenge, it's neither special nor collectible. Not only have the Quebecor people eschewed letterboxing for full-frame in the case of all three films, but the transfers themselves are consistently pathetic as well. Problems include saturation issues (such as skin tones that are way too orange), extremely poor definition, assorted age-related defects, compression artifacts, occasional ringing, combing, and moiré patterns whenever somebody wears a striped shirt. The DD 5.1 remixes are, by and large, almost as bad: problems begin with the sound being parked in the front mains (I can't remember the last time the rear channels got such short shrift) and continue with the fact that the films sound as muddy as they look, lacking sharpness and potency. And for what it's worth, the chapter menu for Porky's depicts scenes from Porky's Revenge!
Offered on a flipper disc with Porky's Revenge on the other side, Porky's II: The Next Day is a marginally more edible dog's breakfast of darkness and fuzziness. Nothing, however, will prepare you for the devastatingly awful A/V quality of Porky's Revenge, which I suspect was sourced from a VHS master, nay, rental cassette. Colours are pallid, edge-enhancement is a serious issue, and a blizzard of grain and video noise mars the image. It's a disaster not helped by the similar apathy with regard to the sound: that they call this a 5.1 mix is an insult, and now's a good time to mention that the 2.0 stereo alternatives on offer here are hardly preferable. I realize this is Porky's we're talking about, but discerning pervs deserve miles better, especially considering the first two films are readily available in state-of-the-art widescreen editions from stateside distributor Fox.
- Porky's
90 minutes; R; 1.33:1; English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0 (Stereo); DVD-5; Region One; Maple/TVA - Porky's II: The Next Day
93 minutes; R; 1.33:1; English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0 (Stereo); DVD-10; Region One; Maple/TVA - Porky's Revenge
93 minutes; R; 1.33:1; English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0 (Stereo); DVD-10; Region One; Maple/TVA
