'Stripes' helped confirm Bill Murray as a movie star by packaging his rebelliousness in a fundamentally safe comedy filled with half-hearted jabs at authority.
Stripes is precisely the kind of film that I’ve watched exactly once based on who was in it (I even remember being jazzed about the presence of SCTV vets Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty in the cast list) and never thought I’d ever need to watch again.
Years ago, me saw Bill Murray do Q&A with Elvis Mitchell, who asked about him ad-libbing on set. He said he not really have to since Rushmore, because he gets good scrips, but on early movies, he would get script pages in morning and think, "well, we obviously not filming this bullshit." And me remember two movies he singled out in that story were Meatballs and Stripes.
Boy, you really can tell when Murray is having to carry a big improvisational load. When you see what he's been able to do with Wes Anderson, it makes you wonder if the effort put into salvaging dodgy scripts might have stunted his potential as an actor.
Me think it no accident that his best early roles are Caddyshack — where they had him improv because he was coming up with hilarious stuff and they wanted more, not becuase they needed him to save movie — and Ghostbusters, which already had solid script that he and Moranis were able to cram even more jokes into. It like putting frosting on top of delicious cookie, instead of putting frosting on cardboard to cover up lack of flavor.
I saw this in the theater with my dad (I was a huge Bill Murray fan, from Meatballs and SNL) and thought this was about the best thing ever. My dad enjoyed it even more than I did and as we didn’t go to a lot of movies together, that was memorable. I haven’t watched it in several years and I’m sure there’s a lot to not like about it but it remains a personal touchstone.
May 31, 2023·edited May 31, 2023Liked by Scott Tobias
Stripes got my high school marching band briefly in trouble. This was around 1983 or 84, when the movie was in heavy rotation on cable. At one point, during a night practice, we were at attention and were being addressed by the drum major. She gave us some sort of command, and, as pre-planned by some group of smart-alecks (I'm guessing it was the trumpet section), we all shouted back, "That's the fact, Jack!"
From my perspective, and I think the rest of the band's, it was an innocent bit of goofballism. And would have likely have been seen as such except for one thing: We were a majority white school, and the drum major was Black. And our band director had no idea or context about the Stripes reference: All he saw was a bunch of white kids (and a handful of Black kids) giving some sass (with an admittedly jive-y tone) to a Black girl. So the band director, bless him, started pacing across the field giving us a dressing-down about racism. IIRC, it was the drum major who talked him down and explained what had happened, and what the reference was, and that our intentions were to surprise her and make her laugh, not to bully her.
It's funny: At the time, that incident represented to me how out-of-touch our band director was with the kids he was teaching. But looking back on it now, I just think of what a good man he was, stepping right up to address a perceived injustice.
May 31, 2023·edited May 31, 2023Liked by Scott Tobias
I was 14 when Stripes came out, and so remain somewhat helpless to its admittedly retrograde charms. It has a Full Metal Jacket problem (or, more accurately, vice versa), in that the post-basic training tonal shift brings the energy down. But there are a half dozen charismatic comic performances in the movie that I still enjoy, even if everyone else is rather conspicuously just along for the urban assault vehicle ride....
I do love how apparently no one told Warren Oates what kind of movie this was supposed to be, or he simply didn't care. For a few moments he forcibly inserts gravitas into a feature purpose-built to be a dumb trifle. The 1980s were a prime time for Drill Sergeants in movies (really all Sergeants), and his performance is one of the best next to Louis Gosset Jr and R Lee Ermey.
That's pretty damn good work by Mr. Oates. A very nice cast up and down, really. (P.J. Soles!) I trust Keith is probably right about this movie, which I haven't seen in forever, but the raw materials for something good are there.
I don't think the review was wrong, Stripes is just one of those cases where another month of rewrites, or a more distinctive writer could have made this into a great film. All the pieces were there except maybe time.
I don't know if I've actually seen Stripes since maybe the very early 90s. maybe I would find it shaggier and more pointless today. but I sure found it funny in the 80s.
and to this day I still quote "Have that removed!"
I was 15 when "Stripes" came out, so I think I was what should have been it's target audience. And honestly, much of the first half of the movie still cracks me up, particularly the "getting to know you" barracks scene, which owes as much of its effectiveness to Warren Oates as it does Murray. My problem is the 50 somethings that still treat it as some sort of guide to life. It's like objectivists, who I feel like got to "Atlas Shrugged" when they were like 21 and stopped reading. Grow the fuck up.
The Harold Ramis "script", in my opinion, is like anything Harvard Lampoon related - an opportunity for a bunch of smart alecky white guys to wisecrack and grab ass. Which is why I felt we should not have been surprised by Al Franken, or Murray for that matter. You can take the boy out of the Lampoon, you can't take the Lampoon out of the boy.
Having first seen Stripes when I was pretty young, I never really considered the military propaganda aspect of it, even on repeat viewing. In my early 20s (before Iraq II), I sort of had a sense that the military was a place for a certain type of self-improvement -- which is wild bc I hated the military.
I was about 14 when I saw this on VHS. It had a great reputation among my age group and so I was astonished at how unfunny it was, and couldn't watch the whole thing. As a Brit I wasn't familiar with any of the cast, but John Candy really stood out. I think the next time I saw him was in Vacation, and I remember thinking, "Ah, so he wants to be known as 'The Only Good Thing In It' guy."
A recent re-watch of Stripes reminded me just how eager the 80s were to cram extended nudity into any movie, whether it needed it or not. I mean, yes, it makes sense for a bunch of servicemen on leave to go to to the mud-wrestling bar, but the rest of the film has a slightly more wholesome feel - still pretty juvenile, but maybe a different flavour of juvenile? Or maybe I'd seen it on TV enough that when I finally saw the unedited version again, that scene was a worse fit for me than anyone else. Or maybe it's just too damn long.
It is very much too long. Even without the material of the extended cut it has a first, second, and third act and then just adds a fourth one on anyway.
I saw this a bunch in the 90s when it was part of Comedy Central's package deal, post Zapped! Again's constant rotation, but pre PCU's domination. I think it was this movie that made me realize that, because America hadn't at that time been in any wars since Vietnam (at least not ones we'd want to make movies out of...), the 80s was the perfect time for war movies.
You can laugh about/at the military when the military is just being goofballs killing time between wars, and when new high tech gets taken for a joy ride in some Eastern European country, it's funny, because there's no bad guy (except the clean cut peer who is higher rank).
Did we get any military comedies post 9/11? Delta Farce (tragically) comes to mind, but other than that?
Stripes is precisely the kind of film that I’ve watched exactly once based on who was in it (I even remember being jazzed about the presence of SCTV vets Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty in the cast list) and never thought I’d ever need to watch again.
Years ago, me saw Bill Murray do Q&A with Elvis Mitchell, who asked about him ad-libbing on set. He said he not really have to since Rushmore, because he gets good scrips, but on early movies, he would get script pages in morning and think, "well, we obviously not filming this bullshit." And me remember two movies he singled out in that story were Meatballs and Stripes.
Boy, you really can tell when Murray is having to carry a big improvisational load. When you see what he's been able to do with Wes Anderson, it makes you wonder if the effort put into salvaging dodgy scripts might have stunted his potential as an actor.
Me think it no accident that his best early roles are Caddyshack — where they had him improv because he was coming up with hilarious stuff and they wanted more, not becuase they needed him to save movie — and Ghostbusters, which already had solid script that he and Moranis were able to cram even more jokes into. It like putting frosting on top of delicious cookie, instead of putting frosting on cardboard to cover up lack of flavor.
I saw this in the theater with my dad (I was a huge Bill Murray fan, from Meatballs and SNL) and thought this was about the best thing ever. My dad enjoyed it even more than I did and as we didn’t go to a lot of movies together, that was memorable. I haven’t watched it in several years and I’m sure there’s a lot to not like about it but it remains a personal touchstone.
Stripes got my high school marching band briefly in trouble. This was around 1983 or 84, when the movie was in heavy rotation on cable. At one point, during a night practice, we were at attention and were being addressed by the drum major. She gave us some sort of command, and, as pre-planned by some group of smart-alecks (I'm guessing it was the trumpet section), we all shouted back, "That's the fact, Jack!"
From my perspective, and I think the rest of the band's, it was an innocent bit of goofballism. And would have likely have been seen as such except for one thing: We were a majority white school, and the drum major was Black. And our band director had no idea or context about the Stripes reference: All he saw was a bunch of white kids (and a handful of Black kids) giving some sass (with an admittedly jive-y tone) to a Black girl. So the band director, bless him, started pacing across the field giving us a dressing-down about racism. IIRC, it was the drum major who talked him down and explained what had happened, and what the reference was, and that our intentions were to surprise her and make her laugh, not to bully her.
It's funny: At the time, that incident represented to me how out-of-touch our band director was with the kids he was teaching. But looking back on it now, I just think of what a good man he was, stepping right up to address a perceived injustice.
I was 14 when Stripes came out, and so remain somewhat helpless to its admittedly retrograde charms. It has a Full Metal Jacket problem (or, more accurately, vice versa), in that the post-basic training tonal shift brings the energy down. But there are a half dozen charismatic comic performances in the movie that I still enjoy, even if everyone else is rather conspicuously just along for the urban assault vehicle ride....
I do love how apparently no one told Warren Oates what kind of movie this was supposed to be, or he simply didn't care. For a few moments he forcibly inserts gravitas into a feature purpose-built to be a dumb trifle. The 1980s were a prime time for Drill Sergeants in movies (really all Sergeants), and his performance is one of the best next to Louis Gosset Jr and R Lee Ermey.
In particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIeHgv7qfHQ
That's pretty damn good work by Mr. Oates. A very nice cast up and down, really. (P.J. Soles!) I trust Keith is probably right about this movie, which I haven't seen in forever, but the raw materials for something good are there.
I don't think the review was wrong, Stripes is just one of those cases where another month of rewrites, or a more distinctive writer could have made this into a great film. All the pieces were there except maybe time.
Don’t forget Gunny Highway in Heartbreak Ridge! Another movie I loved when I was a kid that may not hold up that well today.
Stripes is almost a hangout movie. There aren’t that many laugh lines or moments, but passing time with the cast is reasonably enjoyable.
I don't know if I've actually seen Stripes since maybe the very early 90s. maybe I would find it shaggier and more pointless today. but I sure found it funny in the 80s.
and to this day I still quote "Have that removed!"
My biggest problem with Stripes is structural - the first half zips along and then the second half drags and drags and drags
I was 15 when "Stripes" came out, so I think I was what should have been it's target audience. And honestly, much of the first half of the movie still cracks me up, particularly the "getting to know you" barracks scene, which owes as much of its effectiveness to Warren Oates as it does Murray. My problem is the 50 somethings that still treat it as some sort of guide to life. It's like objectivists, who I feel like got to "Atlas Shrugged" when they were like 21 and stopped reading. Grow the fuck up.
The Harold Ramis "script", in my opinion, is like anything Harvard Lampoon related - an opportunity for a bunch of smart alecky white guys to wisecrack and grab ass. Which is why I felt we should not have been surprised by Al Franken, or Murray for that matter. You can take the boy out of the Lampoon, you can't take the Lampoon out of the boy.
Having first seen Stripes when I was pretty young, I never really considered the military propaganda aspect of it, even on repeat viewing. In my early 20s (before Iraq II), I sort of had a sense that the military was a place for a certain type of self-improvement -- which is wild bc I hated the military.
I was about 14 when I saw this on VHS. It had a great reputation among my age group and so I was astonished at how unfunny it was, and couldn't watch the whole thing. As a Brit I wasn't familiar with any of the cast, but John Candy really stood out. I think the next time I saw him was in Vacation, and I remember thinking, "Ah, so he wants to be known as 'The Only Good Thing In It' guy."
John Candy definitely gave better than he got. Many appealing turns, many very bad movies.
A recent re-watch of Stripes reminded me just how eager the 80s were to cram extended nudity into any movie, whether it needed it or not. I mean, yes, it makes sense for a bunch of servicemen on leave to go to to the mud-wrestling bar, but the rest of the film has a slightly more wholesome feel - still pretty juvenile, but maybe a different flavour of juvenile? Or maybe I'd seen it on TV enough that when I finally saw the unedited version again, that scene was a worse fit for me than anyone else. Or maybe it's just too damn long.
It is very much too long. Even without the material of the extended cut it has a first, second, and third act and then just adds a fourth one on anyway.
I saw this a bunch in the 90s when it was part of Comedy Central's package deal, post Zapped! Again's constant rotation, but pre PCU's domination. I think it was this movie that made me realize that, because America hadn't at that time been in any wars since Vietnam (at least not ones we'd want to make movies out of...), the 80s was the perfect time for war movies.
You can laugh about/at the military when the military is just being goofballs killing time between wars, and when new high tech gets taken for a joy ride in some Eastern European country, it's funny, because there's no bad guy (except the clean cut peer who is higher rank).
Did we get any military comedies post 9/11? Delta Farce (tragically) comes to mind, but other than that?