Episode X: Bachelor Party

Bachelor Party (1984)

Director: Neal Israel
Writers: Neal and Bob Israel (no pun intended... well, maybe by their parents)
Starring:        Tom Hanks – Rick Gassko
                      Tawney Kitaen - Debbie Thompson
                      Adrian Zmed – Jay O’Neil
                      Robert Prescott – Cole Whittier

Tagline: Shocking, Shameless, Sinful, Wicked. And the party hasn't even started.

By: Gurn Blanston

The original appeal of this movie to me in 1984 would be obvious to anyone who knew me then, I wanted to be one of these guys. I wanted to go to this party. I wanted access to those Hollywood style hookers. The working girls in my hometown all looked like Ernest Borgnine in drag, so I’m told. I wouldn’t know that for a fact or anything cause I never went to a hooker and paid for her services, only to have her jump out of the car at the first light and make off with money it took weeks to earn……but I digress.

I saw this film with friends at the local dollar theater, which seems to be a pattern at this stage of my life, and we all left hoping to recreate this party at home the next time someone’s parents were out of town. It never happened, Dad, so don’t worry.

Tom Hanks plays the lovable doofus Rick, who is engaged to a rich girl named Debbie, played by Tawney Kitaen, who some of you may remember doing splits on the hood of a Camaro in the band Whitesnake's video, I miss the 80’s. This is the pre-cocaine-abusing, husband-assaulting train wreck Tawney that we know and love; in this film, she is still hot.

Rick’s friends, namely Jay played by T.J. Hooker star Adrian Zmed, decide to throw him The bachelor party to end all parties at the local 5-star hotel. Debbie’s well-to-do parents and her uptight jock ex-boyfriend Cole, played to the tee by Robert Prescott, are not pleased with the match and decide that the bachelor party is a good time to break the two up.

First Cole re-routes two call girls intended for the bachelor party to the house of Debbie’s parents, where the woman are throwing her a shower. When they arrive and see a room full of well dressed woman they nod knowingly and one say’s, “so it’s that kind of party” and they begin to put on a girl-on-girl sex show for the mortified upper-class matrons. Good fun.

I only knew Tom Hanks before this movie as the tall guy from the “Bosom Buddies” TV series, but this flick made me a fan. From what I remember, he was the funniest thing in it, and could still come off as sincere when the scene called for it. This is not a great piece of cinematic art by any means, but it sure was fun to party vicariously with this group of misfits for a couple of hours.

Is Gurn still ready to Party after all these years? You can dowload the podcast here to find out .