Pre-tlejuice: Before Michael Keaton loosed the juice
by Susan Keiser, Staff Writer
There is no way to accurately tell those who weren’t there how much of a superstar Michael Keaton was in the years before Tom Hanks permanently took over the role of America’s Most Lovable Leading Actor. Between the years of 1988 and 1992–when Keaton starred in three iconic films directed by Tim Burton at his creative peak–Keaton could do no wrong, even with his near-misses. There were some film choices where he zagged when he probably should have zigged (such as Multiplicity), but his apparent lack of success as a romantic lead was what probably ended his peak earlier than expected, as well as a five-year hiatus from feature films. It is only now, after years of him focusing on voice acting and supporting roles–and after an early 2010s comeback that resulted in his starring in two consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners (Birdman and Spotlight)–that permanently secured Keaton’s place as Hollywood icon.
Now, as Keaton returns to his signature role as “The Ghost with the Most” in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, it’s as good a time as ever to revisit the films that turned a TV actor from Pittsburgh who got his start on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” into one of the most popular stars in the world. It is understandable but rather sad that all of Keaton’s “Known For” films on IMDb are from 1989 onwards. While not all of Keaton’s films from his first decade are classics, they are (for the most part) watchable, if only to see how Keaton honed and adapted his personality for his S-tier run. The following are all the films Keaton starred or co-starred in from his role in an Academy Award-nominated short in 1978, up to Beetlejuice.
A Different Approach (dir. Fern Field, 1978)
This Oscar-nominated short film is very much a product of its time, a film about individuals with disabilities framed by people without disabilities. The tone is very patronizing: the film nominally about how a young director (Keaton) makes a film using the titular “different approach” to showcasing people who were at the time labeled as “handicapped,” showing them in various comedic skits and musical numbers. Notable TV personalities (including Sorrell Burke and Charlotte Rae) portray non-profit employees who review Keaton’s documentary, while contemporary TV stars such as Martin Mull, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Ed Asner also chime in on how they want to see people with disabilities portrayed, with little or no visible input by those who in a pre-ADA world deserved much more say in what they needed from the few companies that did hire them. The actors with disabilities do great with the material they’re given, however.
Night Shift (dir. Ron Howard, 1982)
Keaton shines in his first major role as Bill “Blaze” Blazejowski, a mortuary attendant with Big Ideas, who convinces his co-worker (Henry Winkler) into becoming “love brokers” (pimps) in early ‘80s New York City. Night Shift is ostensibly a vehicle for Winkler–as well as Shelley Long, who is marvelous as a sex worker with a heart of gold. Needless to say, the film is a relic of a time in which the Sexual Revolution was just about to end, and the mere unplaced shame of dating a sex worker would be replaced by an AIDS-informed retreat into a much less prurient level of sexual mores. Ultimately, Night Shift is nowhere near as wacky as it could’ve been, though its choice of a closing theme song (which I won’t spoil but would later become a 1980’s staple) is definitely A Choice.
Mr. Mom (dir. Stan Dragoti, 1983)
Out of work auto factory foreman Jack Butler takes up the slack and irons the slacks when his wife becomes the breadwinner in this John Hughes-penned classic. This is clearly Keaton’s best movie in this pre-Beetlejuice era, bolstered by great on-screen chemistry with Terri Garr as his wife and a supporting cast including Ann Jillian, Martin Mull, Christopher Lloyd, and Edie McClurg. Jeffrey Tambor gets his ass beaten twice, which also adds to the hijinx, and the scene when Jack gets his younger son to let go of his security blanket after a killer vacuum cleaner destroys it is genuinely touching.
Johnny Dangerously (dir. Amy Heckerling, 1984)
A rambunctious parody of 1930’s gangster films finds Keaton as Johnny Kelly, who claws his way to the top of the New York underworld while dealing with a hypochondriac mother (Maureen Stapleton), his upright brother (Griffin Dunne), his dame (Marilu Henner), and, in perhaps his most iconic performance, the legendary Joe Piscopo as Danny Vermin. This high-concept pastiche runs out of gas but is worth it for the jokes that do land, as well as the opening theme song by Weird Al Yankovic, “This Is The Life.” Johnny Dangerously, to paraphrase one of the best running gags of the film, is worth watching at least once (ONCE!).
Gung Ho (dir. Ron Howard, 1986)
There is “this movie was a product of its time,” and there is “holy crap this film is racist.” Gung Ho is the latter much more than it is the former. Keaton is Hunt Stevenson, an auto plant foreman (once again), who coaxes a Japanese manufacturer to build cars in his Western Pennsylvanian small town. Hilarity tries to ensue as his and his xenophobic pals clash with Showa-era Japanese executives, including Gedde Wantanabe and Sab Shimono, as they half-ass their way into building as many Assan (you get it) cars as possible to save the factory. Gung Ho was basically a comedic precursor to Hillbilly Elegy, in that it is a Howard film that excuses the Rust Belt bigots who fall victim to capitalism’s ax, only to blame all their problems on The Other. This is, incidentally, a comedy.
Touch and Go (dir. Robert Mandel, 1986)
Iconic actors and actresses ranging from John Wayne to Meryl Streep to Rita Hayworth all have obscure early-career hockey movies in their resumes, and Keaton is no exception. Keaton’s misguided first attempt at dramedy features him as hockey star Bobby “The Hornet” Barbato, who befriends a young street tough (Ajay Naidu, who would later play Samir in Office Space) and his mother (Maria Conchita Alonso). Touch and Go’s release was delayed by two years, but aside from a cute birthday party scene in which Max Wright (the dad from ALF) explains to Keaton how to “really” play hockey, Touch and Go misses the net completely.
The Squeeze (dir. Roger Young, 1987)
The poster for The Squeeze–in which we find a Keaton literally squeezed between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center–is perhaps the most memorable thing to come out of this big-budget, high-concept flop. The Squeeze stars Keaton as a hard-on-his-luck video artist who finds himself in the middle of a convoluted plot to make millions off the lottery. Rae Dawn Chong tries her best to inject a naivete to her character, but it’s written in a way that she just can’t overcome. Keaton, however, adds a solid half-a-star to this one-star movie by sheer will, giving his all to survive falling into the East River several times over and putting his full throat in singing and “na na na”-ing the theme song to Bonanza throughout the film.
Beetlejuice (dir. Tim Burton, 1988)
It all leads up to this: the physical comedy, the charm of a comedic lead with the intensity of a character actor, and most of all the ability to pull off a likable scumbag who in any other context would also be considered a perverted creep. After years of solid work as a comic lead in movies of various quality, the one-two punch of Beetlejuice and Batman the following year made Keaton not only a household name but for a few glorious years in the early 1990’s, a genuine superstar. It’s amazing that Keaton has what is effectively a supporting role in Beetlejuice, as he carries a film that is already chock full of excellent performances, from Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin as the ill-fated Maitlands to Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder as Delia and Lydia Deets.
After Beetlejuice, Keaton would further burnish his reputation as a leading man, and even the two near-misses that came between Beetlejuice and Batman–1988’s Clean and Sober, and 1989’s The Dream Team–are both worth watching. Clean and Sober is Keaton’s first pure drama, and his performance as a Philadelphia yuppie struggling in the early stages of recovery from substance use became his first to achieve Oscar buzz (Keaton would win the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor that year for both this film and Beetlejuice). The Dream Team–a Howard Zieff-directed comedy involving Keaton as one of a group of mental health facility patients on a day pass in New York City–plays into Keaton’s type-casting at the time as a comedic version of Jack Nicholson, which would be used to his advantage in Batman.
The first decade of Keaton’s career as a comedic lead is important to study in order to understand his entire career, with all its strengths and weaknesses. Every movie featured here is worth watching if you can find them, but Mr. Mom and Beetlejuice (and shortly thereafter, Clean and Sober) are a cut above the rest. Here’s hoping that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is as promising as it looks, and that its inevitable sequel in 2060–Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice starring a 109-year old Keaton–continue to exhibit the impeccable comedic chops that Keaton has shown us for the past five decades.
