For this film-by-film look at the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, I’ve been watching his movies in a random order and jotting down a few thoughts.
Watched: 22 September 2020
Format: An American DVD released in 2017.
Seen before? No.
Review: The massive cast and madcap tone of this free-for-all comedy remind you of old-fashioned, starry epics like Around the World in 80 Days (1956), It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965). There’s also undoubtedly the same gonzo feel that would be used in The Cannonball Run in 1981. Nothing is taken too seriously – in fact, nothing is taken seriously at all – and we’re invited to just cling on and enjoy the ride.
The famous names begin appearing straight away. In scene one, horror icon Vincent Price cameos as Milton Parker, an eccentric millionaire who dies while playing an electronic board game with his sexy private nurse. Then, in a shameless crib from the various film versions of Brewster’s Millions, we learn that Milton’s last will and testament stipulates a challenge for anyone wanting his fortune. A one-day scavenger hunt will take place in San Diego, so Milton’s potential heirs – warring relatives, a few employees – split into teams. The winners will claim $200 million.
The competitors set off, following cryptic clues to acquire some mundane items that are worth specific numbers of points. The episodic sketches see a toilet being stolen, a fat man conned, a beehive molested, a store held up, a safe manoeuvred down some stairs, several ostriches kidnapped, some bikers offended, and so on. After a couple of early instances, though, we’re rarely told the clues or know what the teams are searching for until they find it.
Scavenger Hunt does not have what you’d call an original, insightful or especially witty script, so most of the fun is injected by the large cast, which is stocked with talent and recognisable names. Richard Mulligan, then one of the stars of sitcom Soap, is good value as a demented simpleton of a taxi driver who begins the challenge alone then teams up with a security guard played by The Shining’s Scatman Crothers. Broadway actor Richard Benjamin – whose 1979 also included a funny turn in Dracula comedy Love at First Bite – plays a lawyer who forms an endlessly bickering trio with Milton Parker’s manic sister (Mel Brooks regular Cloris Leachman) and man-child nephew (a pre-The Thing Richard Masur). Another team is led by Dirk Benedict, then in Battlestar Galactica and later one of The A-Team.
There are also small but key roles for names as varied as Hollywood veteran Ruth Gordon, rock singer Meat Loaf and Animal House’s Stephen Furst. Robert Morley, an old-school English actor who’d been in both Around the World in 80 Days and Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, plays the executor who runs the scavenger hunt. And then there’s a cameo from Arnold Schwarzenegger…
Arnie appears fleetingly as a gym instructor who insists on putting Tony Randall’s character – a harassed father attempting the scavenger hunt with his four children – through his paces. Arnie’s is actually one of the least eye-catching performances in the whole film: he plays it fairly straight. Director Michael Schultz asked him to do the scenes topless, but Arnie wanted to keep his physique under wraps until his upcoming starring role in Conan the Barbarian. (Ironically enough, gymnasium means ‘school for naked exercise’.)
The film’s most successful grouping, however, is made up of Milton’s domestic servants – a butler, a driver, a maid and a chef who quickly decide to pool their talents. Cleavon Little (Blazing Saddles), Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes), Stephanie Faracy and James Coco have such an easy rapport and mutual sense of comic timing that you always miss them when the focus is elsewhere. They deserve their own film, frankly.
As it is, Scavenger Hunt is too long, has too many scenes that never really work and is rarely hilarious. But there’s also an unpretentious, knockabout sensibility that’s difficult to dislike.
Six medicine balls out of 10
Next: Stay Hungry
Ian Farrington 