Main Cast: Daniel Jenkins, Neil Barry, Paul Dooley, Jane Curtin, Jon Cryer, Ray Walston
Release Year: 1985
Country: US
Run Time: 109 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
In what can only be described as a dramatic change of pace, Robert Altman directed this raunchy teen comedy based on the antics of two characters featured in a series of stories published in the National Lampoon. Oliver Cromwell Ogilvie (Daniel Jenkins), aka O.C., and his buddy Mark Stiggs (Neil Barry), are a pair of misfit teenagers whose greatest joy in life is making those around them miserable. O.C.'s ancient grandfather (Ray Walston) has just had his insurance cancelled, and when he discovers that suburbanite salesman Randall Schwabb (Paul Dooley) is responsible, O.C. and Stiggs swing into a summer-long campaign to get revenge on Schwabb and his family. While it received some of the most brutally negative reviews of Altman's career, O.C. and Stiggs is worth a quick look for its cast, which includes fellow outcast auteurs Dennis Hopper and Melvin Van Peebles, comics Louis Nye and Jane Curtain, the one-time glamour girl of the Clifford Irving scandal Nina Van Pallandt, and Thomas Hal Phillips, reprising his role as Hal Phillip Walker from Nashville. World music superstars King Sunny Ade and his African Beats appear and provide the musical score. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Dennis Hopper - Sponson; Louis Nye - Garth Sloan; Tina Louise - Florence/Beaugereaux; Martin Mull - Pat Coletti; Melvin Van Peebles - Wino Bob; Donald May - Jack Stiggs; Carla Borelli - Stella Stiggs; Cynthia Nixon - Michelle; Caroline Aaron - Janine; Dana Anderson - Robin; Alan Autry - Goon; Margery Bond - Mrs. Buny; Robert Fortier - Wino Jim; Tiffany Helm - Charlotte; Lobo; Bob Uecker - Bob Uecker; Nina Van Pallandt - Claire Dejavve; Greg Wrangler - Jefferson Washington; Dan Ziskie - Rusty Calloway; King Sunny Ade and His African Beats; Danny Darst - Schwab Commercial Singer; Jeannine Ann Cole - Nancy Pearson; Stephanie Elfrink - Missie Stiggs; Tom Flagg - Policeman; James Gilsenan - Barney Beaugereaux; Victor Ho - Frankie Tang; Fred Newman - Bongo Voice; Maurice Orozco - Bandito; Thomas Hal Phillips - Hal Phillip Walker; Frank Sprague - Actor in Play; Laura Urstein - Lenore Schwab; Louis Enriques - Promoter; Roy Gunsberg; Richard Thompson; Gary Guthrie - Deejay
Credit
David Gropman - Art Director, Scott Bushnell - Associate Producer, Paula Mazur - First Assistant Director, Stephen P. Dunn - First Assistant Director, Robert Altman - Director, Elizabeth Kling - Editor, Lewis M. Allen - Executive Producer, King Sunny Ade and His African Beats - Composer (Music Score), David Forrest - Makeup, Scott Bushnell - Production Designer, David Gropman - Production Designer, Pierre Mignot - Cinematographer, Robert Altman - Producer, Peter Newman - Producer, Lewis M. Allen - Producer, Allen Hall - Special Effects, John Pritchett - Sound/Sound Designer, Randy Fife - Stunts, Ted Mann - Screen Story, Donald Cantrell - Screenwriter, Tod Carroll - Screenwriter, Charlie Coffey - Screenwriter, Ted Mann - Screenwriter
The film, a raunchy teen comedy described by the British Film Institute as "probably Altman's least successful film," was not released after post-production was completed. MGM shelved it for a couple of years, finally giving it a limited theatrical release in 1987 and 1988. In an interview years later, included on the DVD release of Tanner '88, Altman acknowledges that the film didn't work but is quick to defend the cast, which included Tanner star Cynthia Nixon, saying it was "not their fault."
O.C. & Stiggs is the adventure of two Arizona teenagers. In their car, the Gila Monster, they pick up slags (loose women), torture their nemesis, Randall Schwab, while procuring liquor from "Wino Bob" (a bum who lives in the oleander bushes behind the 7-Eleven).
The movie's plot was very loosely based on an O.C. and Stiggs adventure in National Lampoon magazine. O.C. and Stiggs were recurring characters in the magazine, eventually leading up to the entire October 1982 issue being devoted to a fictional first-person account of the story of their summer, "The Utterly Monstrous Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs." The plotline and main characters of this movie were significantly different than the National Lampoon story they were based on. Most notably, the original magazine characters were destructive, malevolent teenagers, whereas the main characters of the movie were not inherently destructive, and significant portions of the magazine story were left out of the movie. Alan Moore's comic characters D.R. and Quinch are a science fiction take on the magazine's O.C. and Stiggs characters.
