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An Officer and a Gentleman
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An Officer and a Gentleman is a 1982 film which tells the story of a United States Navy aviation Officer Candidate who comes into conflict with the Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who trains him. It was written by Douglas Day Stewart and directed by Taylor Hackford. It starred Richard Gere, Debra Winger and Louis Gossett, Jr. The original music score was composed by Jack Nitzsche, who along with Buffy Sainte-Marie and lyricist Will Jennings, won an Oscar for the song "Up Where We Belong". To date Buffy Sainte-Marie has not been paid any royalties for this song.citation needed
The film's title uses an old expression from the British navy or from the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, as being charged with "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman" (from 1860).
Plot summary
The film begins with Zack Mayo (Richard Gere) receiving a graduation present from his father Byron (Robert Loggia), a brash, womanizing career U.S. Navy Boatswain's Mate formerly stationed at Subic Bay in the Philippines. Mayo moved in with his father there in early adolescence when his mother committed suicide. Aloof and taciturn with repressed anger at his mother's suicide and his father's inability to properly parent him, Mayo surprises his father when he announces his aspiration to be a Navy pilot.
Once he arrives at the 13-week long Aviation Officer Candidate School, Mayo runs afoul of abrasive, no-nonsense drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley (Louis Gossett, Jr.). Mayo — or "Mayonnaise" as he is dubbed by the irascible Foley — is an excellent officer candidate, but not a team player. Foley rides Mayo mercilessly, sensing the young man would be prime officer material if he were not so self-involved. Zack becomes friends with fellow trainee Sid Worley (David Keith), from the "good side of the tracks". Another focus is female recruit Casey Seeger (Lisa Eilbacher), whose name is pronounced like Bob Seger but whom Foley calls "See-GAR", who is unable to get over a wall with a rope in the obstacle course.
Zack and Sid meet two factory workers, Paula Pokrifki (Debra Winger) and Lynette Pomeroy (Lisa Blount), who bed the cocky officer candidates, and secretly want to escape their drab, blue-collar lives and become "aviator" wives. Zack's affair with Paula is likewise compromised by his unwillingness to give of himself.
When Mayo is caught cheating by Foley, the instructor makes life unendurable for the trainee in order to get him to resign from the program. But Mayo refuses to give in; he finally breaks down and admits that "I got nowhere else to go! I got nowhere else to go... I got nothin' else." Satisfied that he has finally learned what Mayo is made of, Foley lets up on him. Mayo begins to mature and mend his ways.
During their night of passion, Mayo reveals to Paula the truth behind his mother's suicide and that he truly seeks a different path from that of his father.
Later, Mayo is running with Seeger through the obstacle course one last time. Mayo has a chance to break the record time for negotiating the course, but after Seeger fails once again to get over the wall, he chooses to sacrifice the record to encourage her over the wall so she could graduate
Sid quits the program and proposes to Lynette, but she turns him down, not before confessing she wasn't pregnant like he originally thought. She wanted him to graduate and all but curses him for dropping out in the 11th week. He then commits suicide. Mayo unreasonably blames Foley and there is an unofficial no-holds-barred martial arts bout between them; Foley wins, proving his superiority against Mayo and all his other candidates.
Mayo graduates with the rest of his class. Following the tradition of the newly-commissioned U.S. Naval officers, he seeks out and receives his first salute from Foley in exchange for a US silver dollar coin. Mayo then thanks Foley, saying he'll never forget him, whereupon Foley (suppressing his own tears) shrugs him off. In the iconic final scene of the film, the new Ensign Mayo goes to the factory where Paula works, picks her up and walks out holding her in his arms, much to the disappointment of Lynette, having learned a lesson from loss.
Cast
Awards
Academy Awards
Academy Award nominations
Reception
The movie grossed close to $130 million at the box-office in the United States in 1982. It also received rave reviews from critics, most notably from Roger Ebert who gave it four stars. Ebert described the An Officer and A Gentleman as "a wonderful movie precisely because it's so willing to deal with matters of the heart."
Rex Reed gave a glowing review where he commented: "This movie will make you feel ten feet tall!"
Production
Locations
It was shot mostly on location at Port Townsend, Washington and Fort Worden since the U.S. Navy would not permit the motion picture to be filmed at its base in Pensacola, Florida (the traditional site of the Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School).citation needed A real motel located in Port Townsend was used for the film. Today, there is a plaque outside the room commemorating this.
Actors
Director Taylor Hackford kept Lou Gossett Jr. in separate living quarters from the other actors during "An Officer and a Gentleman" so he could intimidate them more during his scenes as a drill instructor. [1]
Movie ending
Richard Gere balked at shooting the ending of the movie where his character arrives at his lover's factory wearing his naval dress whites and carries her off the factory floor. Gere thought the ending wouldn't work because it was too sentimental and Director Taylor Hackford was inclined to agree with Gere until, during a rehearsal, the extras playing the workers began to cheer and cry. When Gere saw the scene later with the music underneath it at the right tempo, he said it sent chills up the back of his neck. Gere is now convinced Hackford made the right decision.[1]
Trivia
- Editor Peter Zinner previously won an Academy Award for Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter.
- Director Taylor Hackford has heard this movie described as "a loose variation on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in which Richard Gere has the Jack Nicholson role, Louis Gossett Jr. has Louise Fletcher's, and David Keith is in Brad Dourif's." Hackford disagrees with this analysis: He admits that both films explore the results when a slightly-rebellious misfit is thrust into rigidly-conformist surroundings, represented by an iron-willed authority-figure, with a naive best friend who is ultimately driven to suicide; yet Hackford insists that Zack Mayo is too sullen and moody to compare with Randle Patrick McMurphy, while Emil Foley is neither hateful nor cruel enough (motive-wise) to compare with Nurse Ratched.citation needed
- The role of GySgt Foley was difficult to cast. Jack Nicholson turned down the part, and no one else the producers were interested in was available. Screenwriter Stewart then visited the Pensacola area to do research and found out all of the top drill sergeants there were African-American, which inspired them to cast Gossett Jr. in the role for which he won an Oscar.
- Two versions of the movie exist. The original, uncensored R-rated cut and a television version cut (which first aired on NBC in 1986) are nearly identical. The main difference is that a majority of the foul language is edited out when the movie airs on regular television. However, the group marching song near the beginning of the movie and Mayo's solo marching song are not voiceover edits; they are reshoots of those scenes for television. Also, the sex scene between Mayo and Paula is cut in half, and the scene where Mayo finds Sid's body is also edited.
Cultural references
- A decade after the film's release, country superstar/actress Reba McEntire and Vince Gill's hit "The Heart Won't Lie" (the second hit single from McEntire's album It's Your Call) had a music video where Vince Gill portrayed Louis Gossett's role as Foley while McEntire played Gere's part.
- The movie's final scene has been widely imitated and parodied. The television series Friends, Killinaskully, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (TV series), Reba, The Simpsons, Spin City, Scrubs, Spaced, South Park, The Office (US version) and the motion picture Diary of a Mad Black Woman are among the productions that have paid tribute to this scene.
- In the Family Guy episode Emission Impossible, Stewie and Bertrum make Peter cry by playing "Up Where We Belong" and says "I love you, Louis Gosset Jr."
- In the Greek episode Freshman Daze, character Yo Joe says the film's notable line "I got nowhere else to go!"
- in Wayne's World 2 Mike Myers and Chris Farley imitate the famous scene with Mike Myers playing Foley and Chris Farley playing Mayo as Chris yells "I got no where else to go!"
See also
References
- ^ NEWS GERE BEGGED DIRECTOR NOT TO SHOOT ROMANTIC SCENE Music, movie & Entertainment News
External links
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