The Big Picture
- Touchstone Pictures released Disney's first R-rated film, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, a satire on the nouveau-riche in 1980s America.
- Down and Out in Beverly Hills is a spiritual sequel to director Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, examining societal complexities.
- The film empathizes with both upper and lower classes, challenging societal norms through its portrayal of wealth and poverty.
In 1984, desperate to expand its audience beyond children and families, The Walt Disney Company created Touchstone Pictures with the intention of making films geared almost exclusively towards adults. It didn't take long for Touchstone to release Disney's first R-rated movie, and it was as far away from anything the House of Mouse had ever produced up to that point: Paul Mazursky's Down and Out in Beverly Hills. What's notable about the studio's first not-suitable-for-kids feature isn't its use of naughty language, but its satirization of the nouveau-riche in Ronald Reagan's America. It's almost radical that Mazursky, who started making films in the 1960s, was able to Trojan horse a class-conscious message into a giant corporation's attempt to grow profits, but such was the magic of the 1980s.
Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
R
Comedy
After a homeless man named Jerry attempts suicide in their pool, the Whiteman family's lives are turned upside down. Despite their wealth, the family is deeply dysfunctional, and Jerry's presence forces them to confront their issues and change their perspectives on life.
- Release Date
- January 31, 1986
- Director
- Paul Mazursky
- Cast
- Nick Nolte , Bette Midler , Richard Dreyfuss , Little Richard , Tracy Nelson , Elizabeth Peña , Evan Richards , Mike the Dog
- Runtime
- 103 Minutes
- Main Genre
- Comedy
- Writers
- René Fauchois , Paul Mazursky , Leon Capetanos
What Is 'Down and Out in Beverly Hills' About?
Nick Nolte stars as Jerry Baskin, a homeless man who walks the streets of Los Angeles with his beloved dog, Kerouac. When Kerouac goes missing, a distraught Jerry tries to drown himself in the Beverly Hills swimming pool of wealthy clothes hanger tycoon Dave Whiteman (Richard Dreyfuss). Dave saves Jerry and offers up his massive home to him, much to the dismay of his New Age-obsessed wife, Barbara (Bette Midler), and their housekeeper, Carmen (Elizabeth Peña), with whom Dave has been having an affair. Yet Jerry wins everyone over with his easygoing charm, including the family dog, Matisse, who's been visiting a canine psychiatrist. Things change so radically for the Whiteman family that Dave grows to regret his generosity, especially when Jerry starts sleeping with Barbara, Carmen, and his daughter, Jenny (Tracy Nelson), who is home from college.
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"It's just a bunch of hocus pocus!"
Down and Out in Beverly Hills was a remake of Jean Renoir's 1932 classic Boudu Saved from Drowning, which was itself adapted from a 1919 play written by René Fauchois. Both Boudu and Down and Out take aim at the bourgeoisie, lampooning their condescension of the lower classes and the limits of their willingness to help them. Whereas Boudu examines this within 1930s Parisian society, Down and Out updates the story to 1980s America, when consumerism and greed ran rampant. Mazursky uses the bones of Boudu as a means to excoriate the baby boomers for abandoning the ideals of 1960s radicalism for Reagan-era conservatism. In this way, Down and Out is a continuation of the themes Mazursky had been exploring throughout his entire career, especially in his first film, .
'Down and Out in Beverly Hills' Is a Spiritual Sequel to Mazursky's 'Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice'
Mazursky made his directorial debut with 1969's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, which examined the burgeoning counterculture through the eyes of upper class Californians. Middle-aged couple Bob (Robert Culp) and Carol Sanders (Natalie Wood) decide to get more in touch with their feelings after a weekend retreat, much to the chagrin of their more conservative friends Ted (Elliott Gould) and Alice Henderson (Dyan Cannon). Although sold primarily to audiences as a polyamorous sex farce, the film explored the difficulties of an older generation trying to stay relevant during changing times. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice have grown stagnant in their comfortable lives, and want to shake things up by embracing the free love movement led by the baby boomers.
Down and Out in Beverly Hills explores similar territory as B&C&T&A, only this time, the baby boomers have grown into the same complacency as the Sanders and the Hendersons. Dave and Barbara have become so comfortable in Beverly Hills as to be almost catatonic, unable to relate to each other and getting their kicks through extramarital activities (shopping and yoga for Barbara, work and an affair for Dave). When Jerry jumps in their swimming pool, rehabilitating him becomes a means not only of spicing up their boring lives, but of proving they haven't abandoned the ideals that galvanized them in their youth. They may be rich, but that doesn't make them bad people... or so they hope.
For Dave, Jerry represents something much deeper (and more selfish) than the desire to do a good deed. Having stumbled into wealth through creating a successful company, Dave encourages his new friend to try his hand at capitalism, even offering him a job at his hanger factory. Yet Jerry remains a free spirit, and his refusal to conform to society's rules intrigues Dave, who finds himself increasingly drawn to what he perceives to be the authenticity of poverty. He even goes so far as to spend a night on the beach with Jerry, sleeping outdoors and eating food out of a garbage can, which is the closest he's gotten to a real experience in quite some time. Yet the limits of his magnanimity are tested when Jerry gives Carmen some books about socialism and starts curing Barbara's headaches through "physical" therapy.
'Down and Out in Beverly Hills' Finds Empathy for the Upper and Lower Classes
When Jerry arrives in the Whitemans' backyard, he regales them with stories of his colorful past: a failed career as an actor, a globetrotting life of fortune and adventure, the tragic loss of a sister to cancer. All of these things combine to create a portrait of a man who gave up a life of prosperity for a life of poverty, and feels no regrets about it. Yet in the end, his fantastical stories are revealed to be just that: stories. He told the Whitemans exactly what they wanted to hear, a series of tall tales that would explain how a person could fall through the cracks of society, when in reality no explanation could ever suffice.
Although the 1980s were a time of great wealth and prosperity for many, it wasn't that way for everyone. Reagan's theory of Trickle-Down Economics — the idea that tax breaks for the rich would somehow make their way to the poor — was a great benefit to those at the top that never fully bore out for those at the bottom. Jerry's refusal to cash in flies in the face of everything the '80s represented, and flips the Whitemans' world completely upside down.
Yet for all its criticisms of the upper class, Down and Out in Beverly Hills is surprisingly optimistic about their capacity for change. Although it's specifically about one of the wealthier suburbs of Los Angeles, this could be representative of any part of America, as those who were lucky enough to avoid poverty avert their eyes from those who weren't. The Whitemans have been able to keep that reality hidden until it literally comes splashing into their swimming pool. They try to mold Jerry into a member of their group, cutting his hair and buying him new clothes, but in the end he's back in his old rags, digging through a garbage can. It's at that moment that they finally see him for who he really is: a fellow human being.
Down and Out in Beverly Hills is available to watch on Prime Video in the U.S.
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