MANNEQUIN (1987)

MANNEQUIN (1987)

Tagline: When she comes to life, anything can happen!

(Comedy, Romance, Room Full Of Nightmares*) [R]

Just when I think you're real, you vanished. What's with you? What's with me?

In this one, a young out of work artist named Jonathon gets a job at a department store and then works his way up to doing the front window display each night with the help of a mannequin he made named Emmy that comes to life at night. The pair must overcome an evil co-worker named Richards who is hell-bent on getting the store shut down and a nosey night watchman named Felix.

So I was 14 when this movie came out and basically, I wanted to marry Kim Cattrall. So needless to say POLICE ACADEMY, this movie, and BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA were some of my favorite movies at the time with only BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA remaining on my heavy rotation. I still watch that thing about 10 times a year? I don’t know, that’s probably an exaggeration. One thing you can spot pretty much right off the bat in this movie is that they must have had a total blast making it. It’s basically like the fun part of the mall scene in NIGHT OF THE COMET only it’s the majority of the movie. It’s a lot of just running around a giant department store doing all kinds of fun goofy stuff. One of the funniest things about this movie is the fact that Felix has a dog named “Rambo” and then says it’s because he draws “First Blood”. You could only get away with this kind of cheese in the 80s. There are some other comical parts, but this isn’t really a drop-down and roll-around-on-the-floor type of comedy. It’s more of a light-hearted romance with some “ha-ha” moments mostly provided by Felix.  

Acting wise Andrew McCarthy (PRETTY IN PINK) is fantastic in this as Jonathon. It’s probably one of my favorite rolls of his ever. James Spader is also great as Richards and was also ironically in PRETTY IN PINK with McCarthy. This is also one of Kim Cattrall’s best early roles, but I am not going to say it was a huge challenge emotionally for her to play Emmy. The movie overall is pretty easy going so there isn’t a lot of range needed. She did say that this movie made her feel grown up because the movie essentially revolves around her as opposed to her just being “a girl in the movie”. The mannequin in the movie was purposely modeled after Kim and took about 6 weeks of photo shoots to do. Oddly, I think the result didn’t really look like Kim, but I might be in the minority on that. We also got a few scenes with the legendary Estelle Getty who plays Claire Timkin. This movie was actually made during her stint on “The Golden Girls”. 

One of the more iconic things about this movie is the soundtrack with probably the biggest hit being Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”, but there are only 4 songs on it. A lot of the score is 80’s techno synth which serves as a nice upbeat compliment to the action sequences. If you were going to describe this movie in one word it’s probably “nonsense”. Nothing about this is serious or meant to be part of some awards show. It’s just a fun romp from a time when things were a LOT looser, less serious entertainment-wise, and far more fun. This movie is a bit of a time capsule to that time. What’s even crazier is that there were doubts this thing would even get put in theaters. It crushed it at the box office doing 40 million on a 6 million budget. 

For me, this is a 5 out of 7. It’s just a really fun blast from the past and it’s awesome that it’s out on BLU-RAY.

*This is a reference to a scene in GHOSTBUSTERS 2016 when Patty walks into a room and one of the mannequins comes to life. 

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