The Yuletide Yamaha Takedown (1982)

D. Ted Kileke
Colour

Let’s check if this has all the requisites of an early Eighties raucous comedy. 

• Does it give every impression of being written by an over-excitable 14 year old boy? Check.
• Is it shot in an overly well-lit and broad style? Check.
• Does it concern supposed wild men who are essentially loveable and meek? Check.
• Do they look a little bit too clean cut to be riding the motorbikes they use? Check.
• Does a pair of breasts jiggle at the forefront of the screen at one point? Check.
• Is Steve Guttenberg in it? Check.
• Is Adrian Zmed in it? Check.
• Is Tom Hanks in it? Check.

Yes, that’s right, the two time Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks used to make his crust from bawdy comedies. We may now remember ‘Splash’ and ‘Big’, but there was also this and ‘The Bachelor Party’. He may have turned himself into the new James Stewart, but there aren’t many Jimmy Stewart films where he sees a busty woman stood in front of some mountains and comments that he’d “like to do more than just climb those foothills!” As for Steve Guttenberg, well of course he made films like this. There he is debuting next to Lord Olivier in ‘The Boys From Brazil’, but before long he’s kneedeep in Police Academy movies. He has a certain amount of charm and will try to make a joke fly no matter how poor it is, and so I suppose the real question for him is: why isn’t he still in these movies? Surely he should have a part as an uncle/father figure in a Judd Apatow film, or else one of those Friedberg/Seltzer films? (He might actually be a bit over-qualified for the latter). What’s happening, Steve? You should really talk to your agent; or get The Stonecutters to do their thing. As for Adrian Zmed, who knows? There was a brief period at the start of the 1980s – with a few films and T.J. Hooker – where he must have thought life was really fucking wonderful. Since then, I guess that feeling has dissipated somewhat. These days he’s probably so short of paying work that if I wanted him to come over and perform at my birthday party, I’m sure he’d take my call.


The film itself clearly had a great deal of assistance from the Yamaha corporation, featuring as it does heroes on Yamaha motorcycles liberating Yamaha Synthesisers from a warehouse to give to the local orphanage for Christmas. (The evil owner has brought them to be museum pieces in the future, rather than use them.) So it’s sentimental and it’s cloying, but around that is wrapped a great deal of lewdness and bawdiness and jokes that 14 year old boys would find incredibly funny. Curiously, given that star power is already apparent here, it’s Guttenberg who is the lead rather than Hanks. Guttenberg gets to romance teacher, Kirstie Alley, while Hanks hangs around at the side making wisecracks. (Zmed is the more loose-cannon character, and the best that can be said about his performance is that his hair looks nice). Maybe Hanks was bothered at playing second fiddle at the time, but I’m sure he’s got over it now.


Any film that purports to be a comedy should be funnier than this, every film should be smarter than this, and really there is a certain quality threshold that all films should aspire to. But if you want a Christmas film that screams the early 80s direct into your face - then sling your synth around your shoulders, get on your motorcycle, and go out and find a copy, dude!