Have You Ever Noticed . . . Movie Edition

Andy Rooney, the bushy-browed curmudgeon on 60 Minutes, closed the show for over thirty years with his witty observations and wry comments about nothing in particular. While this was a popular segment of the show, it should be noted that he never said, “Have you ever noticed . . .” In 1981, however, Saturday Night Live’s Joe Piscopo  began impersonating him using that phrase and the newsman has been associated with those words ever since. Today, I’m going to steal the phrase to discuss something I recently noticed while watching far too many movies from the 1980s and ‘90s on cable.

Have you ever noticed how, fairly often, two or more movies with an almost identical plot or subject appear in about the same year? I’ve been aware of this for a while, but I didn’t know until recently that there’s actually a term for this phenomenon. It’s called “Twin Films” and it has been happening since 1934 when The Rise of Catherine the Great and The Scarlet Empress were both released at the same time, and both featured the long-dead Empress of Russia. In 1940, Young Mr. Lincoln and Abe Lincoln in Illinois appeared with the same subject matter. You’re probably remembering similar pairings of films now that I’ve mentioned it. Just three years ago, for instance, Dunkirk, Churchill, and Darkest Hour all dealt with Winston Churchill and the miracle escape by British forces from Dunkirk, Belgium in 1940. In fact, historical figures and events often figure in these remarkable coincidences. In the past quarter century or so, we’ve had Tombstone and Wyatt Earp (1993), Braveheart and Rob Roy (1995), Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Prefontaine and Without Limits (1998), and Infamous and Capote (2005).

Other such similarities can be seen in The Prestige and Illusionist (2006), which both dealt with Victorian Era magicians, and Ed TV and The Truman Show (1999), both featuring a main character whose entire life is the subject of a reality TV show. Then, in 2011, both Friends With Benefits and No Strings Attached featured friends who agree to have a sexual relationship, but not get emotionally attached. Certainly, Hollywood is often accused of lacking originality and stealing ideas from any place they can find them, but is this simply a case of plagiarism? I’m not sure, but perhaps there is, on occasion, a script floating around Hollywood long enough that two studios decide to make the film, but only one wants to compensate the original creator for his or her work. I don’t understand how this happens, but I do know that the trend probably reached its peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In 1987 and 1988, there were an astounding five films produced with virtually the same plot in a genre we’ll call “age-shifting.” In Like Father Like Son (1987), 18 Again! (1988), Big (1988), Vice Versa (1988), and 14 Going on 30 (1988), characters of different ages magically switch places, or a young kid suddenly becomes an adult. Freaky Friday (1976 & 2003) and 13 Going on 30 (2004) show the enduring popularity of this theme. Big, in which 12-year-old Tom Hanks changes into an adult overnight, was by far the best of this batch of films, and it leads me to another collection of Twin-type films.

I call these the “any idiot can do this job” films, and they were prevalent in the late ‘80s. I don’t know what the trend tells us about the time period. Perhaps it has something to do with having a mediocre Hollywood actor pretending to be president for most of the decade, but I think the trend began in 1987 with The Secret of My Success. In this film, just-out-of-college Michael J. Fox gets an entry-level job in the mail room of a big corporation, but he pretends to be an executive in order to move up more quickly. His innate financial wizardry helps him organize a hostile takeover of the company, proving that, although completely inexperienced, he deserves to run the corporation. That is the theme that runs through these movies: someone without qualifications finagles their way into an upper-level job, and ends up doing it better than their predecessor. The next year, Melanie Griffith, in Working Girl, follows this plotline as a secretary who lies her way into a position of power, but quickly puts together a blockbuster corporate merger. Also in 1988, Tom Hanks gave his career a huge boost with the aforementioned Big. Not only does the pre-teen magically become an adult, but he rises to the top of the toy industry because of his instinctive wisdom and child-like observations.

This theme continued into the early ‘90s, with SNL’s Dana Carvey starring as a con man in the underappreciated Opportunity Knocks (1990). While robbing a house, Carvey hears a phone message intended for the owner. Seeing the potential for a scam, he assumes the identity of the best friend of the wealthy son of a corporation CEO (played by Robert Loggia, who also played Hanks’s boss in Big). He uses this fake persona to impress the CEO with keen business insights based on a confidence man’s understanding of human nature. He ultimately confesses, but gets a top job with the company anyway. In 1991’s dark comedy, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, Christina Applegate is a teen who must get a job to take care of her younger siblings while her mother is out of the country for an extended period and the babysitter suddenly dies. She fabricates an impressive resume, pretends to be an accomplished adult, and quickly rises to the top of the fashion world as a designer and executive, proving that any high-school kid is capable of running a Fortune 500 company. Finally, in 1995’s Dave, Kevin Kline is a small-town man who resembles the President of the US. When the President is debilitated by a stroke, he is called in to impersonate the leader of the free world, and soon demonstrates that he is better suited for the Oval Office than the man who was elected to the position.

Most of these preposterous plots, then, are generally about people in lower-level jobs, who pretend to be executives, come up with brilliant ideas regarding their particular business, get huge promotions, and (with the exception of Big) get the girl or guy who was previously “out of their league.” In any case, all are designed to show that, under the right circumstances, “any idiot can do this job.” I don’t know if that’s true, but if you see something often enough, you start to believe it.

Finally, have you ever noticed how, when he has nothing particular to say, Jack still manages to waste ten minutes of your valuable time with a pointless blog?

I have.