Summer School (1987)

Posted on April 25, 2026 by 4 Star Films

I never went to summer school, and I genuinely enjoyed taking standardized tests. But I still feel an instant kinship for these kids and their world.

I was a high school student decades later, and I’ve only taught in a classroom on a very limited basis. And yet, these experiences made me recognize one of the continual ironies of public education.

Sometimes it feels like the place where learning goes to die, and if not learning, then at least curiosity and passion. Oftentimes, organized education takes all the fun out of learning, assigning letters and tests to each of us and thereby effectively replacing our genuine desire to know more with extrinsic, even mercenary motivation.

If you’re like me, someone genuinely impatient with wasted time, public school is one of the worst time sucks known to man. If you factor in the substitute teachers, passing periods, and busy work, there are very few equals. It’s no wonder kids get bored, and that’s not even factoring in other distractions or genuine learning disabilities. It’s a wonder anyone learns anything at all, and this is a testament to inspiring teachers (and a certain amount of self-dedication).

I initially had to do a double-take because I thought Rob Reiner was the director until I realized it was his father, Carl Reiner (who also has a delightful opening cameo). The movie’s screenplay was written by Jeff Franklin, who created Full House very soon after.

Although there are pretty exchange students, bikini gags, and a few throwaway moments that are regrettably 80s, for the most part, the fact that Summer School feels quintessentially of its time is the highest compliment, given the world and rank-and-file of Ocean Front High School.

The school itself feels instantly placeable from its sun-soaked vibes to the student body’s total devotion to summer and the sweet freedom it represents to every teenager since the dawn of time.

It might be a testament to what my cinematic diet has been of late, mostly dour and serious “cinema,” but sometimes you want something diverting like this; it delivers on its promise and doesn’t try to overshoot its ambitions as a teen comedy. And yet in delivering the goods, it does what many of its peers can’t always manage. It bends toward heart over crassness, making for a satisfying confection.

Mark Harmon is also such a charismatic lead. As a former UCLA football star, he falls easily into the role of a So-Cal P.E. teacher who has more use for waves to surf than a classroom. The premise works because there’s a sense that he used to be like some of his students. He’s more of a friend than a figure of authority. The latter role is taken on by the cartoonish ’80s villain par excellence, Vice Principal Gills.

Kirstie Alley is slotted in as the teacher overseeing the honors course next door. She watches Shoop with mild interest and then bemusement as she goes for the more intellectual romantic option in the vice principal, but we know who she’s meant to be with. Our hero does too. It’s only a matter of time.

In this way, perhaps it is a fantasy, fulfilling genre conventions, and yet as he’s stuck teaching an English course in Summer School to a room full of failures and misfits, there is a joyous, genuinely hilarious camaraderie that forms. It allows the movie to become something worthwhile above the level of typical drivel.

I’m completely sympathetic to their desire to break out of the monotony and drudgery of the classroom. At first, they take “field trips” to Knott’s Berry Farm bumper cars and petting zoos, although these plans are eventually curtailed, and they have to either get it together or throw in the towel for good.

Sure, there are complications. Mr. Shoop looks about ready to give up multiple times, even as his cordial advances toward Ms. Bishop are politely rebuffed. The movie develops a nice cadence not through the usual antagonism of a Breakfast Club, but a pact between teens and adults to get to the finish line together.

Their contract of sorts involves “wishes” from all of them, and Mr. Shoop agrees to help them along if it means they will at least try to study and not goof off. However, it becomes more than bargaining because they see a teacher who goes above and beyond, and they begin to form a community where they look out for one another and cheer for each other’s victories.

“Chainsaw” and Dave are two of the worst goof-offs and loafers, but in their deep, abiding love for Chainsaw Massacre and gore in general, we see a passion and expertise in costuming and makeup that’s extraordinary even as it does not fit into the neatly created parameters of vocab tests and SAT scores.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized more and more of the flaws in education. And I loved school, but for some people, they have gifts and talents that will not be showcased in the classroom unless they are given the space to explore what truly interests them. These are the spaces where they can flourish.

This might seem too high-minded for a goofy comedy like this, but I think that’s part of why I was so taken with Summer School. These characters feel inherently decent, and we want to cheer for them as they bond.

There’s a teen pregnancy played for a laugh, and yet the girl has the baby — it’s never a question — even as she decides to give the child up for adoption since she doesn’t feel prepared. Another teen is smitten with her teacher, and it feels like a queasy scenario, yet she’s mature and realizes it is only a phase. Others have their own growth, whether it’s getting a driver’s license or improving their study habits.

What’s more, the message is not perfection or even the pipe dream that now everyone gets straight As and will go off to Harvard thanks to their teacher. The dream is of a different nature. All these kids and their parents gather in the principal’s office as the vice principal accuses Mr. Shoop, like Satan in a suit and tie.

Because the story it’s telling is not about doing all of this so you’ll get into a school of your dreams or get your heart’s content (though there is some wish fulfillment). Instead, it’s saying something more about what it means to truly invest in a community and pour into other people. Sometimes we think it will take everything out of us; we must simply look after our own interests. Except Mr. Shoop gives of himself, and everything else is added to him.

And sure, in his case, he gets a From Here to Eternity embrace with Kirstie Alley in the surf and doggy kisses to boot. But it just goes to show Summer School never forgets its identity while also never totally dumbing itself down to the least common denominator.

I feel like many people might be pleasantly surprised by what this movie has to offer, especially if they’re craving a trip back to the ’80s in all their glory. I never lived through the decade, but with a teacher like Mr. Shoop, I wish I had at least momentarily. Although that probably goes for any era, because teachers are such formative people in our adolescent lives.

3.5/5 Stars

The Gazebo (1959): The Other Hitchcock Movie Hitchcock Didn’t Make

Posted on December 26, 2020 by 4 Star Films

If there’s any revelation from The Gazebo, it has to be the comic talents of Glenn Ford. Between his constant hypertension and exacerbated nerves, there’s a high-strung comic eccentricity present all but flying in the face of the persona Ford built his career on. The mind will quickly flash to a plethora of embittered noir and hardened westerns. Here he’s the epitome of a spineless worry-wort. He’s Average Joe incarnated, and it’s incessantly funny.

But to show how subjective performance (and comedy) is to this day, let me go ahead and cite the NY Times’ eminent Bosley Crowther who said of Ford, “Perhaps if Mr. Ford were a better or, at least, less wooden comedian than he is, some of this blundering and blathering would seem a little brighter than it does.” Do with it what you will.

Although she isn’t allotted too much to do, Debbie Reynolds scintilates in all her absolutely plucky, lovely delightfulness, with a devotion for her high-strung husband that remains irrepressible. It plays as a bit of a sad irony as she had recently been left by her husband Eddie Fisher for Liz Taylor. Ford had also divorced his longtime wife Eleanor Powell. The relational context cannot be totally lost on the audience.

The story itself throws us right into the action, stealing a trick from syndicated television with an opening murder! In fact, it is a television episode because our protagonist, Elliot Nash, is an overworked writer-director who’s at his wits end nearly every night as he tries to steady the ship behind the monitor. It seems like a curious occupation — a terribly high anxiety job — for someone of his temperament. From a narrative perspective, it all fits together impeccably.

Because he gets himself involved in murder; he even commits murder. But that’s a long story. In order for any of that to take, there must be the comic flourishes to disrupt the normal beats. One starting place is their home life. Elliot wants mightily to leave the home behind, going so far as to renovate his house to make it less appealing to his wife. It provides this Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House or Green Acres kind of sensibility that’s just innately silly.

We must also mention Elliot’s pet pigeon, Herman, highlighting even more of his master’s kooky eccentricities. The other asset in the picture is the supporting cast including the wisecracking best friend Harlow (Carl Reiner), who always seems to find himself over after another day at the law firm so he can try and steal a kiss from Nell. He also proves useful as Elliot tries to formulate how one exactly goes about getting away with murder. It’s important to have a talking partner to bounce ideas off of.

Their housekeeper Matilda (Doro Merande) holds up her part of the bargain by yelling every line of dialogue with the sensitivity of a foghorn, partially because she takes care of her deaf mother by night. Then, there’s the always stately, if slightly oddball, John McGiver, who has the most delightful diction. How he says “Gaze-bo” just kills me. More on that subject momentarily.

Many folks consider Charade the greatest Hitchock picture that Hitchock didn’t make and rightfully so. You have the supernal acting talents and the main conceit about innocents on the run. There’s a suave comic elegance to go with genuine spy thrills. This plot is one side of the Hitchcockian coin if you will.

The other side is obsessed with the perfect murder and how to go about it. You need look no further than Rope or Strangers on a Train or even the more comic proclivities of The Trouble with Harry to see these prevailing themes at work. Another element he becomes increasingly obsessed with is murder in the home. The famed director once quipped that this was its rightful place (Hence the success of his TV program). To this lineage, we might easily include Shadow of a Doubt or Dial M for Murder.

Here is where The Gazebo actually does do quite well to highlight an aspect of the genre that infatuated the director though we could probably stop short of calling this picture Hitchcockian in wit. It is anything but, and there is individual charm in that. It never quite sheds its out-and-out goofiness.

At this time, it seems important to note the film was based on a play. Apart from using this as an excuse to dismiss some of the more stagy moments, which feel relatively few, the play was actually written by Alec Coppel. He, coincidentally, penned a little doozy called Vertigo. You probably have heard about it. And subsequently, his hero winds up getting on the phone with Hitch on more than one occasion. Here is the hint of the autobiographical.

Otherwise, the movie leaves all of the Master’s sensibilities behind, and while I would never quite compare Ford to Cary Grant, he gives that kind of virtuoso performance, which feels simultaneously all over the place and perfectly suited for what the movie requires. Everything falls back on Ford’s continuously scattered protagonist as he flounders around every which way. It’s a black comedy but not in the usual way.

It works because of its hero’s complete bumbling collapse. He’s the perfect magic bullet for the film because in a send-up of a genre that requires premeditation, cunning, and nerves of steel, he lacks all of these things. He’s a generally sympathetic guy. But working in television, he obviously has an active imagination and he gets ideas.

Also, he’s being heftily blackmailed. Not from any dark secret from his past. On the contrary, his wife, an up-and-coming broadway talent, once modeled nude and now the cheesecake shots have gotten into some opportunistic hands. Martin Landau makes a late cameo as a heavy who looks to kidnap Mrs. Nash for leverage. No, he’s not the blackmailer, but he’s tied in with a different man, a man Elliot may have accidentally killed…

Soon the police are involved, a missing bullet, Herman the pigeon, and of course, the Gazebo. Particulars like these mean everything and at the same time nothing at all as we sit back and enjoy the ride. If the movie loses a bit of steam leading up to its pat ending, then it’s more than forgiven.

Otherwise, it’s thoroughly delightful — crazy and cockeyed in the most agreeable of ways. Nothing more, nothing less. Contrary to Mr. Crowther, Glenn Ford does the audience a service by lightening up. One wonders how Hitchcock might have used him.

3.5/5 Stars