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. and was produced by Lorimar Productions for Paramount Pictures. 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). An Officer and a Gentleman was commercially released in the USA on July 28, 1982.
Plot summary
The film begins with Zachary "Zack" Mayo (Richard Gere) receiving a graduation present from his father Byron (Robert Loggia), a brash, womanizing 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 (AOCS), Mayo runs afoul of abrasive, no-nonsense drill instructor, Marine 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", whose father and late brother were Naval officers. 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, and endures her own barrage of pressure from Foley.
Zack and Sid meet two local girls at a Navy-hosted dance—factory workers Paula Pokrifki (Debra Winger) and Lynette Pomeroy (Lisa Blount), who bed the cocky officer candidates. Foley has warned the officer candidates about local girls (aka, "Puget Sound Debs") who look upon the "OCs" as potential husbands, in order to escape their lower middle class lifestyles. Lynette appears to be the quintessential "Deb", who is trying to nab an officer candidate so she can escape her drab, blue-collar life and become an "aviator's" wife. Sid takes up with Lynette eagerly and naively, but views his relationship with her as little more than sexual recreation. Paula is different; she makes no demands and is content to let the relationship with Zack be what it is. Yet Paula is undoubtedly attracted to Zack, but their affair is compromised by his unwillingness to give of himself.
When Mayo's side business of selling pre-shined belt buckles and shoes to his fellow OCs is discovered by Foley, the drill instructor makes life unendurable for the trainee in order to force his resignation from the program—"Drop On Request" (DOR). But Mayo refuses to give in. Finally, when Foley threatens to simply discharge Mayo, 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 Mayo has come to a crucial self-realization, 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. Paula later takes Zack home to, "meet the family", and Zack learns that Paula's biological father was in fact an officer candidate who refused to marry her mother when she was pregnant with Paula.
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, which becomes a defining moment in Mayo's resistance to being a "team player".
As graduation nears, Zack begins to distance himself from Paula. Following a dinner with Sid and his parents in town, Zack learns that Sid has a long-time girlfriend back home, who he plans to marry shortly after commissioning, yet intends to continue his sexual relationship with Lynette until graduation. Meanwhile, Lynette appears to be dropping hints to Sid that she might be pregnant, which adds to the pressure that he is already experiencing in the AOCS program. During a high-altitude simulation in a pressure chamber, Sid has a sudden anxiety attack and is attended by Zack, who tries to calm him down, under the watchful eye of Foley. Realizing that he joined the AOCS program because of expectations from his family and a sense of obligation to his brother, Sid DOR's without telling Zack. Believing that Foley pressured Sid to do so, Zack confronts Sid and Foley to try to get his friend reinstated; in doing so, he argues passionately that Sid is an ideal officer candidate, only to find out that Foley also tried to talk Sid out of it—the decision was completely Sid's.
When Sid proposes to Lynette, she turns him down, but not before confessing she wasn't pregnant as he originally thought. She wanted him to graduate in order to fulfill her dream of marrying a Naval aviator, and all but curses him for dropping out in the 11th week. Despondent, Sid later commits suicide. Mayo unreasonably blames Foley and the two clash in an unofficial, no-holds-barred martial arts bout between them with several of the candidates looking on; While Mayo physically dominates most of the match due to his youth, anger, and prior training, Foley finally wins after he kicks Mayo in the groin, maintaining his authority against Mayo and all his other candidates. With both of them hurt, Foley offers him the chance to DOR one last time, knowing that Mayo has either burned out his rebelliousness and misplaced anger or never will.
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. Foley, clearly moved and suppressing his own tears, straightens and gives Mayo a picture-perfect salute. Shortly thereafter, Mayo rides away from base on his motorcycle to hear Foley verbally dressing-down the newest batch of AOCS recruits, only to smile in response, knowing that the process is beginning again.
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. Lynette watches bitterly at first, knowing her own manipulations have left her alone in the end, but then applauds her along with the rest of the factory workers.
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, which would translate to over $300 million in today's ticket prices. It also received rave reviews from critics, most notably from Roger Ebert who gave it four stars. Ebert described 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!"
The British film critic Mark Kermode, an admirer of Taylor Hackford observed; - 'It's a much tougher film than people remember it being; it's not a romantic movie , it's actually a movie about blue-collar, down-trodden people.'
The film has a very high 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
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, the Tides Inn, 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]
Gossett was advised by U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Buck Welcher.
Props
Richard Gere rides a 750cc T140E Triumph Bonneville introduced halfway in the 1978 selling season. Two T140E Bonnevilles were supplied by Dewey's Cycle Shop in Seattle, Washington. One had Receipt no.16787 dated April 8, 1981 as sold to Paramount Pictures.In the United Kingdom, Paramount successfully linked with Triumph Motorcycles (Meriden) Ltd to do a mutual promotion. Cinemas showing the film would be promoted at their local Triumph dealer and T140E Triumph Bonnevilles supplied by the dealer would be displayed in cinema foyers.
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 (Up Where We Belong) at the right tempo, he said it sent chills up the back of his neck. Gere is now convinced Hackford made the right decision.[2]
Notes
- 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 instructors 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), Coronation Street (UK Soap Opera) and the motion picture Diary of a Mad Black Woman are among the productions that have paid tribute to this scene.
- The Simpsons also satirized the training sequence in The Springfield Connection with Marge having trouble climbing over the wall just as Casey Seegar did.
- In the Family Guy episode Emission Impossible, Stewie and Bertram make Peter cry by playing "Up Where We Belong" and says "I love you, Louis Gossett Jr."
- In the Greek episode Freshman Daze, character Egyptian 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!"
Soundtrack
See also
References
- ^ http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/07/03/entertainment/television/030307124750.txt
- ^ "Gere begged director not to shoot romantic scene". PR Inside. 2007-04-29. http://www.pr-inside.com/gere-begged-director-not-to-shoot-r108124.htm.
External links
