skin-deep

Skin Deep
Directed by	Blake Edwards
Produced by	Tony Adams
Written by	Blake Edwards
Starring	John Ritter Alyson Reed
Music by	Don Grady Henry Mancini Ivan Neville
Cinematography	Isidore Mankofsky
Editing by	Robert Pergament
Studio	Morgan Creek Productions
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	1989
Running time	97 min.

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Skin Deep is a 1989 film starring John Ritter, written and directed by Blake Edwards.

Plot

Zachary "Zach" Hutton is a successful author who has a weakness for alcohol and beautiful women. Zach's mistress walks in on him in the process of cheating on her, followed by his estranged wife Alex discovering him in bed with both women.

Following the breakup of those relationships, Zach engages in a long period of binge-drinking and solace-seeking with a string of women. He avoids work, continues to strain relations with his ex-wife and drunkenly attends a formal party dressed in a genie's costume.

Zach's affairs include one with a volatile woman named Molly who deliberately leaves him hooked up too long to a skin-treatment electro-therapy machine that gives his body quivering spasms from head to toe. He also has a one-night stand with a remarkably muscular female bodybuilder named Lonnie, telling her before sex that he feels "like Mrs. Arnold Schwarzenegger."

Perhaps the most memorable scene is shot in total darkness, with Zach wearing a luminous condom as he prepares to have sex with yet another woman he has just met, Amy. When her boyfriend returns similarly equipped, the two men engage in a frantic fight, their glow-in-the-dark attire bouncing crazily across the room.

After disrupting his ex-wife's wedding day, it finally dawns on Zach just how out of control his drinking habit has become. He sobers up and begins to write again.

Cast

• John Ritter as Zachary "Zach" Hutton
• Vincent Gardenia as Barney the Barkeeper
• Alyson Reed as Alexandra "Alex" Hutton
• Joel Brooks as Jake Fedderman
• Julianne Phillips as Molly
• Chelsea Field as Amy McKenna
• Peter Donat as Leon "Sparky" Sparks
• Don Gordon as Curt Ames
• Nina Foch as Marge, Alex's Mother
• Denise Crosby as Angela "Angie" Smith
• Michael Kidd as Dr. Westford
• Dee Dee Rescher as Bernice Fedderman
• Bryan Genesse as Rick Curry
• Bo Foxworth as Greg
• Raye Hollitt as Lonnie Jones

Quotes

• "I love everything about them, Barney. I love the way they feel, the way they smell, most of the time. I have to admit, I don't like women with long, round toenails. But that is the only abrogation so far. And so far has been quite a while and quite a few." - Zach on women.
• "You're scared like the rest of us. So you drink too much, you chase girls much too much, and you don't use your God-given talent anymore." - Barney to Zach
• "A scorpion who couldn't swim asked the frog to carry him across the river on his back. The frog said, "Do you think I'm crazy? Halfway across the river, you'll sting me and I'll drown." "That's not reasonable," said the scorpion. "If I sting you and you drown, I'll drown too." Frog thought about it, he said, "Climb on." Halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and as the frog was drowning, he said to the scorpion, "But now you'll drown too." The scorpion said, "Yes. I know." "That's not reasonable," said the frog, and the scorpion replied, "Reason has nothing to do with it. I'm a scorpion. It's my character." - Dr Westford to Zach.
• "What the fuck does that mean?" - Zach to Dr. Westford after the Scorpion story
• "I am the genie of the lamp, and my wish is to fuck you." -- Zach to a pretty girl at a party while rubbing a genie lamp.

External links

• Skin Deep (1989) at the Internet Movie Database