This big hit from the yuppie decade launched a career that won’t die: with digital de-ageing, Tom Cruise can now throw out that portrait in his attic. What other 62 year-old enters via parachute at the Olympics? Paul Brickman brought the pubescent sex fantasy to the mainstream, with the spectacle of Cruise dancing in his underwear; Rebecca De Mornay’s slick hooker is admittedly irresistible. The screenplay is frequently witty, too.

Risky Business
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1227
1983 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 98 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 23, 2024 / 39.95
Starring: Tom Cruise, Rebecca De Mornay, Joe Pantoliano, Richard Masur, Bronson Pinchot, Curtis Armstrong, Nicholas Pryor, Janet Carroll, Shera Danese, Raphael Sbarge, Sean Penn.
Cinematography: Bruce Surtees, Reynaldo Villalobos
Production Designer: William J. Cassidy
Film Editor: Richard Chew
Costume Design: Robert De Mora
Original Music: Tangerine Dream
Produced by John Avnet, Steve Tisch
Written and Directed by Paul Brickman

Who knew that America in 1983 was ready for the spectacle of a teenage boy dancing in his underwear in his fancy suburban home?  He’s showing off for an invisible audience, to wit, himself. Tom Cruise hit it big almost at the same time as the other cute Dream Date of the time, Tom Hanks … who had to brave a TV show where he dressesd up as (gasp) a girl. Both actors have had phenomenal careers, but Hanks’ roles mostly favored comedy, not direct sex appeal.

Risky Business was a big gamble for The Geffen Company, which would roll the dice on names like Martin Scorsese, Robert Towne and Albert Brooks. Paul Brickman had written for Jonathan Demme and a Bad News Bears sequel that had not been monster hits, so his producers must have really believed in his script.

 

It is indeed a script for the 1980s — the main goal for an already affluent teenager is to guarantee himself the best of everything. Living in a wealthy neighborhood ‘off the lake’ in Chicago, high school senior Joel Goodsen (Tom Cruise) is nobody’s idea of a wild child, but he does have the regulation hormones and an active imagination. Joel is determined to indulge in the sexual adventures boasted by his friends, but he’s also afraid to jeopardize his chances of getting accepted to Princeton, the Ivy League school that guarantees success. When his parents go out of town, Joel sneaks out in his dad’s priceless Porsche but otherwise obeys the house rules.

Everything changes when his wiseass friend Miles (Curtis Armstrong) phones a number in the sex ads, and the irresistible Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) appears on Joel’s doorstep. The light of day finds Joel struggling to scrape up Lana’s $300 fee, an effort complicated by Lana’s gun-toting ‘manager’ Guido (Joe Pantoliano). A freak accident dunks dad’s Porsche in Lake Michigan, leading indirectly to Joel’s suspension from school. But the understanding Lana has a plan. If Joel will turn their house into a one-night bordello for Lana’s call girl friends, all of their problems can be solved at once. This is America — only the bold and daring can win.

 

Every Hollywood producer wants a surprise hit like Risky Business, a feel-good movie featuring an actor who blossoms into a full-out star. A smart production team gambled on two relative unknowns and made both of them into instant stars. And it works … Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay practically shoot sparks off the screen, elevating a tale of horny high school seniors into something more memorable.

Viewers may barely recognize the then- 20 year-old Cruise. He is definitely heartthrob material, even if stills make him look as though he hasn’t quite grown into his nose yet.

 

An up-market, preppy-flavored sex comedy for the Reagan years.
Low-end producers like Crown International were already busy hawking the daydreams of young males with shows like  The Van and  My Tutor. Paul Brickman’s Risky Business re-invents the sleazy subgenre for the mainstream. Joel indulges masturbatory fantasies of girls in showers and babysitters on the dinette table. Before Lana’s entrance, Joel could almost be a gay fantasy figure, responding to his friends’ lewd stories with a boyish grin and dancing in his underwear to Bob Seger. It does get one truth across, loud and clear … teenaged boys have the basic drive and the  equipment, and it is a fight to keep one’s mind on school, or anything else.  ^*

The slick direction has a touch of The Graduate but also the 80’s feel of Michael Mann, with its sleek urban night exteriors and Tangerine Dream music score. The Geffen Company got behind the show in a big way, paying the licensing fees for a high-powered soundtrack with talents like Bruce Springsteen, Sting and Phil Collins.

 

It’s interesting that Joel’s first helpful contact is a transvestite hooker. He seems to read Joel’s mind as he writes out Lana’s phone number: “It’s what you want. It’s what every white boy off the lake wants.”  With the arrival of Lana, the movie is confirmed as a hetero fantasy. Cooler than cool, Lana personifies the dream of sex without responsibility or consequences — a pillar of the materialism that Risky Business acknowledges as Joel’s birthright. Lana promotes the idea of a harmless amorous transaction, which of course gets Joel deeper into jeopardy than he ever thought possible. From a simple question of Not Getting Caught, Joel’s predicament goes ballistic. Will the Goodson mansion become a national news headline, making Joel famous as the Teen Bordello Boy?

So far, so good — Joel’s randy romp can be seen as a liberated take on old-school Hollywood sex comedies. The famed Axlerod / Wilder / Monroe  The Seven Year Itch is a prize dirty fairy tale not permitted to venture past a faint tease. Risky Business goes all the way.  To the film’s credit, its excesses never become absurd — it’s not a broad farce, and it’s nothing like the lame old sex comedies that can’t even work up a reasonable tease:  Boys’ Night Out,  Under the Yum Yum Tree.

“Who’s the U-Boat Commander?”
Joel’s idea of ‘cool’ is to pose in shades with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He is both cute and innocent, and his hilarious teen disaster is a nightmare of irresponsibility any kid can understand. His family image has so far been that of the well behaved, responsible Good Son, the one that Mom and Dad can leave home alone, and trust completely. Every kid contemplating petty wrongdoing can relate: how can Joel hide his mishap with daddy’s car?  How can he get Mom’s priceless crystal egg back — when Lana’s pimp is holding it for ransom? The giddy suspense in Risky Business centers on how Joel can possibly re-order the Goodson house back together in time for his parents’ return.

The comedy is based on the unthinkable idea that one of the Privileged might lose his privileges.
When talking about their show, the filmmakers also remark on subtext and  ‘what it all means.’  Tom Cruise convinces as a basically good / basically corrupt upscale kid. He is product of affluence and has ‘options’ most of us don’t. It’s there in the dialogue. Joel makes a casual joke out of the idea of lofty values, of serving mankind instead of making money. His ‘Future Enterpriser’ school club is a resume box-checker for the Princeton application, but Joel’s parentally mandated mission is to get that Princeton diploma and position himself in a profit center.

We still like Joel; we’re not bothered that he’ll use his Ivy League connections to become a corporate master, rake a princely lifestyle off the economy and never look back. The talented Rebecca De Mornay is presented as a fantasy but also a pragmatic operator. Sex work and making money seem to be interconnected illicit activities. Sexual daring is equated with the kind of brash audacity that makes some men successful. The lesson Joel learns is that big gains require big risks, and that anything goes. The ’80s are  all about that.

Risky Business doesn’t push any of these ideas. It charms with its provocative sex fantasy, not its philosophy. What we really remember is the gratuitous sex scene in the train, put there to showcase a great Phil Collins song and to get Joel’s hormones revved up for the final act.

It is interesting that Criterion is releasing this show in the same month as Martha Coolidge’s Not a Pretty Picture, a documentary with a recreation of a date rape. The basic mindset of irresponsible young males is the same in both pictures, but the treatment couldn’t be more different.

 

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The Criterion Collection’s 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray of Risky Business is billboarded as a new 4K digital restoration, with both the director’s cut and the original theatrical release version. The package consists of one 4K disc with the features and one Blu-ray with the features and special extras. The additional ‘director’s cut’ is apparently only a slightly different finish, described as ‘darker.’

Through interviews and featurettes, the filmmakers say that they were not always convinced during production that their show was working. It certainly has a slick feel, what with the Tangerine Dream tracks that in 1983 made almost any footage feel artistic. Co-cinematographer Bruce Surtees lends his sleekest look to the picture. Editor Richard Chew also has a lot to say about the post-production.

 

A lot of production stories are told, most of which praise Tom Cruise’s natural ability and charm. In the scene where he’s interviewed by the school recruiter played by Richard Masur, Cruise had to say some nervous dialogue about flunking the interview and not getting into Princeton:  “Looks like University of Illinois!”  On one take, Cruise thought he blew the line and made a goofy face. It was just the look that Brickman wanted, and he kept it in.

Risky Business is funny, exciting and sexy, which pushes considerations of relevance to one side.  The youthful energy of Rebecca De Mornay and Tom Cruise give the comedy its edge. Brickman smartest move is to not interpret their characters from an older perspective … although the funniest joke sounds like something from Woody Allen. Joel asks Lana not to let her hooker friends dress in his Mom’s clothing, saying, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my days in analysis!”

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

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Risky Business
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Very Good +
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Audio commentary with Paul Brickman, Jon Avnet, and actor Tom Cruise
Interviews with Avnet and casting director Nancy Klopper
New conversation between editor Richard Chew and film historian Bobbie O’Steen
Making of featurette The Dream Is Always the Same with interviews with Brickman, Avnet, cast members and others
Screen tests with Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay
Trailer
Folding insert with an essay by Dave Kehr.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One 4K Ultra HD disc and one Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: August 18, 2024
(7183risk)

^*  In Paul Thomas Anderson’s  Magnolia, doesn’t Cruise’s arrogant male superiority advocate receive a reporter in his underwear, or something like that?  We couldn’t help but make that connection with Cruise’s initial attention-getting scene … it certainly worked.

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