Pee-wee’s Big Adventure *** (1985, Paul Reubens) – Classic Movie Review 12,599

Paul Reubens (born Rubenfeld; August 27, 1952 – July 30, 2023).

The American actor Paul Reubens, who came to fame in the 1980s as children’s TV star Pee-wee Herman, had a 1985 movie hit with Tim Burton’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

Painted, baby-faced child-like man Pee-wee Herman (American comedian Paul Reubens) looks for his treasured stolen accessorised bicycle, in director Tim Burton’s weird, sometimes funny and undeniably smart 1985 comedy film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

Some terrific moments include the appearance of ghostly truck driver Large Marge (Alice Nunn), the frenetic bike chase, and the trip around the Alamo.

If you like petulant Pee-wee and goofy comedy you will almost certainly think that this movie is wonderful. It is directed in high style by brilliant one-time Disney animator Tim Burton, in his feature-film directing debut, propelling him on his way to a wayward dazzling Hollywood career.

Danny Elfman’s stupendous score is a big plus.

It’s a family comedy with cartoon violence.

Following the success of the 1981 stage show The Pee-wee Herman Show, Paul Reubens co-writes the screenplay with Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol. The story of Pee-wee’s nationwide search for his stolen bicycle is a parody or farcical version of Vittorio De Sica’s revered 1948 Italian classic of neo-realist cinema Bicycle Thieves, an idea that some people might think is not a good thing.

After hiring Burton was hired, Reubens, Hartman and Varhol revised the script. They read Syd Field’s 1979 book Screenplay and wrote the script with its advice. Reubens explained: ‘It’s a 90-minute film, it’s a 90-page script. On page 30 I lose my bike, on page 60 I find it. It’s literally exactly what they said to do in the book. There should be like a MacGuffin kind of a thing, something you’re looking for, and I was like “Okay, my bike.”‘

The film cost $7 million, and was released on 9 August 1985, grossing more than $40 million in North America.

Paul Reubens followed it with a less successful sequel, Big Top Pee-wee (1988) and then, much later, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday (2016).

The cast are Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman, E G Daily as Dottie, Mark Holton as Francis Buxton, Diane Salinger as waitress Simone,  Judd Omen as escaped convict Mickey Morelli, Irving Hellman as Mr Crabtree, Monte Landis as Mario, Erica Yohn as psychic Madame Ruby, Alice Nunn as Large Marge, Phil Hartman as Reporter, John Harris as Simone’s boyfriend Andy, Daryl Keith Roach as Chuck, Carmen Filpi as hobo Jack, Starletta DuPois as Sgt Hunter, Professor Toru Tanaka as the Buxton family butler, Ed Herlihy as Mr. Buxton, Jan Hooks as Tina, Ralph Seymour as Francis’ Accomplice, Jason Hervey as child star Kevin Morton, Tony Bill as Warner Bros president Terry Hawthorne, Lynne Marie as actress Marion, John Paragon as Man in Red Armour, George Sasaki as Japanese Director, Richard Brose as Tarzan, Lou Cutell as Amazing Larry, Cleve Hall as Godzilla actor/ Satan’s Helper, and Darla as Pink Poodle.

Co-writer Michael Varhol cameos as a photographer; Tim Burton cameos as the street thug who confronts Pee-wee in a rainy back alley. Cassandra Peterson [Elvira] plays the Biker Mama of Satan’s Helpers. James Brolin plays P W Herman and Morgan Fairchild plays Dottie in the Pee-wee’s life film-within-a-film. Heavy metal band Twisted Sister and veteran comedy star Milton Berle cameo as themselves. Several Pee-wee Herman Show cast members also have cameo roles.

Reubens and Diane Salinger (Simone) are reunited in the opening sequence of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns as the parents of the Penguin. They appeared together again in Pee-wee’s Big Holiday (2016).

Paul Reubens starred in the American TV comedy series in Pee-wee’s Playhouse from 1986 to 1990 on Saturday mornings on CBS. It was developed from Reubens’s popular stage show The Pee-wee Herman Show, recorded by HBO as a TV special.

Warner Bros hired Paul Reubens to write a script for a full-length Pee-wee Herman film after the success of The Pee-wee Herman Show. He planned a remake of his favourite film Pollyanna (1960) with himself in Hayley Mills’s role. But he started a new script after he saw many Warner Bros staff riding bicycles around the backlot and asked for a bike.

Filming locations include Glendale, Pomona, Santa Clarita, Santa Monica, Burbank, Cabazon (at the Cabazon Dinosaurs) and Port Hueneme in California, as well as San Antonio, Texas.

Burton hired his CalArts classmate Rick Heinrichs for stop-motion animation scenes. Large Marge’s claymation transformation is created by the Chiodo Brothers.

The 70-year-old American actor Paul Reubens, who came to fame in the 1980s as children’s TV star Pee-wee Herman and had a movie hit with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, died on July 30, 2023 after a six-year battle with cancer.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,599

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