1983's king of teenage sex comedies, "Risky Business," is more than just a teen sex comedy - it is a sophisticated, slightly sardonic though always humanistic teen sex comedy (I can't think of any other during this period that fits that bill). It was also part of the 1980's youth-movies trend where wealth is everything and all that matters. Writer-director Paul Brickman might have had a tougher ending than what we got but the message remains the same. Time of your life, huh kid? Sure, "isn't life grand" (the presumably darker ending has this voice over line) isn't a line that occupies the lively comedy I saw
Looking back at "Risky Business," it is amazing how mature these high-school teenagers are. Sure, they have their childish games yet they also play poker, drink, and wonder about their future ("Future Enterprisers" as it were). Joel Goodsen (Tom Cruise) is one of those white rich kids in a Chicago suburb, specifically the Chicago North Shore area of Glencoe. His strict parents are going out of town and are especially adamant about the house being in pristine condition, which includes dad's stereo ("Do you hear a preponderance of bass?") and mom's precious glass egg ("an artsy fartsy thing.") Joel sends them off at the airport, promises to use mom's station wagon instead of dad's Porsche and also to use "good judgment" when inviting friends over. Well, he followed all those rules dutifully, oh, please, we go to movies like "Risky Business" to see kids defy their parents, not respect their wishes. In the 1980's, teen comedies always had kids outsmarting their parents and, in some cases, the parents were always dolts. The parents here are not dolts although Joel's SAT scores were pretty damn great, close to perfect score of 1600, yet his mother asks if he can take them again. I got less 700 when I took them, so please don't tell anyone.
Everything that can go wrong goes very wrong - merrily wrong - in Joel's life. Joel's friend Miles (Curtis Armstrong) calls the escort service to come to Joel's house. Joel plays up all the bass levels on his dad's stereo when dancing to and mimicking Bob Seger's classic song, "That Old Time Rock N' Roll" (one of the definitive tracks for a classic, fantastically energetic sing-along that you will ever see). Getting back to the escort service, Joel decides to call for himself for a one-night rendezvous with mysterious Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) and, slowly but surely, things get heated and out-of-control. Miles' advice to Joel prior to all this is "sometimes you gotta say, what the heck...make your move." Oh, Joel sure does but he has his regrets. In order to pay Lana for her services, he has to cash some of his bonds. Then there is the matter of the sleazy, though smart and aggressive pimp (Joe Pantoliano) who might be a little too dangerous. And can this possibly future Princeton student who has aligned himself with Future Enterprisers have the savvy business sense to make it big, particularly when he has to make some dough to pay for his father's nearly damaged Porsche that fell into Lake Michigan?
Making it big means inviting a bunch of young males to his house for sex with prostitutes. Meanwhile, Joel has to simultaneously conduct an interview with a Princeton admissions interviewer (wonderfully played by Richard Masur) while Lana keeps interrupting by trying to make every room available for hanky-panky with a fold-out mattress. Joel has become an entrepreneur and, by the final scene, he is Lana's pimp. Whether that was planned or it just, pardon the pun, fell on his lap is not certain. Will Lana join him at Princeton and make big bucks in prostitution? Will the Princeton University students go for it? That remains ambiguous regardless of which ending you see, the original ending being available as a DVD extra. And yet, as the film's credits came up, I had one thought I recalled when I first saw it multiple times on cable in the 1980s - forget "Dirty Dancing," I had the time of my life with this raucous, almost poetic and romantic teen movie.
