Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills

Trailer—Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills

Often laugh out loud funny play on sex, family, and the classes in Beverly Hills milks more laughs out of the zip code than it's seen since the days of Granny and Jed Clampett. Plot centers on two chauffers who've bet on which one of them can bed his employer (both single or soon to be single ladies, quite sexy -- Bisset and Woronov) first. If Manuel wins, his friend will pay off his debt to a violent asian street gang -- if he loses, he must play bottom man to his friend! Lots of raunchy dialogue, fairly sick physical humour, etc. But a lot of the comedy is just beneath the surface. Bartel is memorable as a very sensual oder member of the family who ends up taking his sexy, teenaged niece on a year long "missionary trip" to Africa. Hilarious fun.

What a fabulous ensemble. Everyone is having a blast camping it up in this delicious black comedy written and directed by fellow co-star Paul Bartel who knows how to parody daytime and nighttime soap operas just as he did with the other subject matter in his career of pushing subtle bad taste to the limit. The recently widowed Jacqueline Bissett it's surrounded by her large family and staff members and hangers on which includes daughter Marisa Tomei, brother Ed Begley Jr. And his new wife Arnetia Walker (a sassy but big-hearted black woman), neighbor and best friend Mary Woronov, her ex-husband (Wallace Shawn), and horny man servants Ray Sharkey and Robert Beltran. Bartel plays the eccentric family doctor who has a pet dog who has a fabulous reaction when it sees Walker. Played out to be over the top, this is delightfully funny, especially when the sets dead husband, Paul Mazursky, begins appearing to her envision. Everybody in this large household of wackos has their own secrets and little story, yes there is enough of a classy atmosphere to where it's not like a Charles Busch play. Subtle insinuations of the sexualities of the male servants (with Beltran funny in trying to prove his masculinity and making a fool out of himself) are hinted at with hysterical glee. This is a lavish production that has opening credits that are straight out of a Ross Hunter 50's soap opera, every archetype possible and some great twists. Bissett is a great matriarchal figure with a big heart and certainly no stereotypical rich witch. Woronov is great in a part that a decade later Christine Baranski would be eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But Walker walks off with the film, an absolute dreamgirl.

In the ritzy Beverly Hills neighborhood, Clare Lipkin (Jacqueline Bisset) is a widower haunted by the ghost of her husband. She and her daughter Zandra don't get along. Her friend Lisabeth Hepburn-Saravian (Mary Woronov) moves in as her home is getting fumigated. Lisabeth's brother Peter (Ed Begley Jr.) arrives for a visit with his new bride To-Bel. Juan (Robert Beltran) works for Clare and he's in debt to unsavory characters. Lisabeth's driver Frank suggests a different way to make money and then makes a bet with Juan on being the first to bed their employer. Paul Bartel is a specific kind of filmmaker with his cast of actors, Woronov being his primary partner in crime. This is a social satire black comedy. Only I didn't laugh once. There are too many characters. It's an intertwining ball of sexual desires. The acting is deliberately broad and quite frankly deliberately bad. It gets tiring to watch so much deliberate fake acting that it becomes hard to distinguish from real bad acting. Rebecca Schaeffer's murder soon after the release also leaves a dark shadow hanging over this movie. This bundle of soapy interconnected mass of people holds no appeal. It's not surreal enough to be outrageous. It's not comedic enough to be funny. The social satire isn't sharp enough to bite. Bartel is not for everybody and in this case, it's not for me.

Scenes From A Class Struggle in Beverly Hills is probably the classiest film on Paul Bartel's resume, but don't let that deter you. The script is just as uproarious and irreverent as many of his other films, but it has a professional gloss that many of his other films don't have. It stars Jaqueline Bisset as Clare, a washed up former sitcom star whose husband has just died from autoerotic strangulation, leaving her feeling like she needs to make a big change in her life. Everything boils over during a fateful weekend at her mansion where her friends and family expose their own failings, kinks, and desires. With a colorful cast including Ed Begley, Jr, Wallace Shawn, Mary Woronov, Robert Beltran, Ray Sharkey, and Bartel himself, it's hard not to enjoy this film. Each character has their moment to shine and a few funny bits to land. If there's any flaw, it's that the film feels a little overlong in places.

Pre-Voyager Robert Beltran and the the often-maligned Mary Woronov are the real stars of this show about the meaning of love and honor among those who know little of either. While that sounds really dull and serious, keep in mind that this is one of the "sideways" comedies of Paul Bartel, the man who brought us "Eating Raoul," and starring the usual Bartel suspects. The script is funny, all parts are fully fleshed, these are real people...not anyone I'd want to know personally, for the most part.

This type of movies played a big role on creating generations of deranged teenagers in the 90's. The absurdity of the plot is intriguing but it leads to the series of bizarre events which are mix of virtues and moral degradation. This subtile attempt of normalising degeneracy is far more effective than some explicit sexual content.

Paul Bartel's final film as both writer/director feels consistent with his earlier black comic outings ("Death Race 2000," "Eating Raoul," etc.). Set in Beverly Hills among the rich and beautiful, the film follows a houseboy and a chauffeur betting who their recently widowed employer, Jacqueline Bisset, will bed next. The cast is a good one, which includes Ray Sharkey, Mary Woronov, Ed Begley Jr., Wallace Shawn, Bartel, Paul Mazursky, Barret Oliver, and an uncredited Little Richard, but it's really Bartel's unique voice as co-writer/director that makes this farcical sex comedy uniquely enjoyable. Bartel's plot set-up could easily have been a standard 80s sex comedy along the lines of "Class" or "My Tutor," but Bartel's exaggerated soap opera tone to the boundary pushing humor make it a hilariously mannered comedy that doesn't feel far off from John Waters. Bartel's films are never ones that were intended to appeal to a wide audience, but for those who do enjoy his offbeat satirical style, this is quite enjoyable.

Cult figure Paul Bartel probably hoped for mainstream acceptance with this film, but it actually had the opposite effect; it practically stopped his movie-directing career in its tracks. And it's not hard to see why: the film lacks a dramatic center of gravity - it has nothing to compel you to keep watching apart from the familiar names in the cast. It's basically a bedroom farce that builds to some "outrageous" events which could hardly be considered shocking in 1989. It's not terrible - just terribly pointless. *1/2 out of 4.

The movie stayed true to the movies of the 80's. Rarely I can watch the same movie at least more than 2 times a year. How many movies can place a dozen actors in one movie and still keep you laughing? I enjoyed the one-liners and the various subplots. Sometimes you just want to laugh and watch someone's else weekend for a change. My favorites was (unsavory)Ray Sharkey and (sarcastic)Wallace Shawn. I loved their relationship with each other while using each other to satisfy their needs. Who needs a long drawn out plot when you just want to laugh? The characters were entertaining for the weekend. I also caught the last half of the movie on the A & E channel one night and enjoyed it. I finally found it on VHS. This movie is in my top five favorite movies of the 80's along with The Blues Brothers and Caddy Shack.