Mannequin is a 1987 American romantic comedy film directed by Michael Gottlieb and written by Edward Rugoff and Gottlieb. It stars Andrew McCarthy, Kim Cattrall, Estelle Getty, Meshach Taylor and G. W. Bailey. The original music score was composed by Sylvester Levay. A modern retelling of the Pygmalion myth, the film revolves around a chronically underemployed passionate artist named Jonathan Switcher (McCarthy) who lands a job as a department-store window dresser. The mannequin (Cattrall) he created becomes inhabited by the spirit of a woman from Ancient Egypt, but only Jonathan can see that she is a real person.
Mannequin received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for its main title song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship, which reached number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart. In 1991, a sequel to the film called Mannequin Two: On the Move was released. Though the sequel takes place in the same department store in Philadelphia, only actors Meshach Taylor and Andrew Hill Newman returned from the original film.
Plot:
In Ancient Egypt, Ema "Emmy" Hesire takes refuge in a pyramid, pleading to the gods that she find true love rather than enter an arranged marriage. Emmy suddenly vanishes before her mother's eyes. In 1987 Philadelphia, Jonathan Switcher is a sculptor working at a mannequin warehouse and finishes a single female mannequin he considers a masterpiece. His boss fires him for spending time trying to make his mannequins works of art rather than assembling several each day.
Jonathan takes a number of odd jobs and is fired each time for working too slowly because he tries to make each project artistic. His girlfriend Roxie Shield, an employee of the Illustra department store, dumps him, criticizing him as a flake. After his motorcycle breaks down in the rain, Jonathan passes the Prince & Company department store. Seeing his mannequin in the display window, he remarks she is the first work that made him feel like a true artist. The next morning, he saves store owner Claire Timkin from being injured by her own shop sign. Grateful, Claire orders store manager Mr. Richards (who is secretly paid by Illustra to sabotage Prince & Company so it can be bought) to give Jonathan a job. Viewed with suspicion by security guard Captain Felix Maxwell, Jonathan works with and befriends window dresser Hollywood Montrose. When Jonathan is putting together a window display, the mannequin he made comes to life with Emmy's spirit. She says she has existed for centuries as a muse, sometimes inhabiting the works of an artist she admires and inspires. She has encountered amazing people but has never found true love. Emmy explains the gods allow her life when she and Jonathan are unobserved, otherwise she is a mannequin.
With Emmy's help, Jonathan's window display is a massive success. Now placed in charge of visual merchandising, Jonathan asks Emmy to continue helping with the displays. Over several weeks, they create several popular displays, attracting new business while also deepening their relationship. Montrose realizes Jonathan loves a mannequin he created but doesn't judge him. Illustra's chief executive B.J. Wert sends Roxie to poach Jonathan but he refuses, saying he now works for people who value him. Annoyed by Felix's ineptitude and Richards' attitude towards Jonathan, Claire fires them. Deeply impressed with his work, Claire makes Jonathan vice president of the department store. One night, Jonathan takes Emmy through the city on his motorcycle, despite how unusual this seems to bystanders. He is witnessed by Richards and Felix, who conclude he is deeply fixated on a female mannequin.
Richards and Felix (who now works for Illustra) steal the female mannequins from Prince & Company. The next morning, Jonathan confronts Wert about the theft, who makes another job offer. Furious over Jonathan caring so much about the mannequin he calls Emmy, Roxie storms off. Jonathan follows Roxie while being pursued by security guards including Felix. Wert and Richards demand the police be called. Roxie loads the stolen mannequins into the store's large trash compactor, then is knocked out by the debris. As Hollywood holds the pursuers at bay with a fire hose, a janitor watches Jonathan jump onto the compactor's conveyor belt to save the mannequin that is Emmy. As Jonathan risks his life for her, Emmy comes to life. Once safe, she realizes she is truly and permanently alive again. Emmy thanks the gods for uniting her with her true love and Jonathan promises to love her forever.
While the janitor wonders if other mannequins will come to life, Hollywood arrives and realizes Emmy was alive the entire time. Felix and his fellow guards rush in, followed by Wert and Richards who demand the police arrest Jonathan. Claire arrives, revealing she has security video of Richards and Felix breaking and entering, and committing theft. She accuses Wert of conspiracy, and Jonathan adds the man also kidnapped Emmy. Wert fires Roxie as he is arrested and hauled away alongside Richards and Felix. Jonathan realizes the security footage may have shown him being romantic with a mannequin, but Claire coyly suggests he shouldn't worry about that. Some time later, Jonathan and Emmy are married in the store window of Prince & Company, with Claire as maid of honour and Hollywood as best man. Numerous pedestrians outside the store window applaud the wedding.
Production
Development:
The idea for the film came when director Michael Gottlieb was walking down Fifth Avenue and thought he saw a mannequin move in the window of Bergdorf Goodman. Others observe the similarities to the plot of the film One Touch of Venus (1948) and to the myth of Pygmalion, who sculpted a statue that came to life when he fell in love.
The film was made based on the marketing principles of noted Hollywood market researcher Joseph Farrell, who served as an executive producer. The film was specifically designed to appeal to target demographics. Though not a star, McCarthy was cast after tests of his films showed that he strongly appealed to girls, the target audience.
Filming:
The producers contacted various state film commissions across America looking for an elegant centre city department store in which to shoot the movie. They visited stores across the country before settling on John Wanamaker's in Philadelphia (now Macy's Centre City). The store was given the name Prince and Company for the film. Interior filming at Wanamaker's took about three weeks, with shooting usually beginning around 9 pm and going until 6 am the next day.
Additional scenes were filmed in the formal gardens behind The Hotel Hershey. Scenes taking place at the fictitious department store Illustra were filmed at the Boscov's department store in the former Camp Hill Mall (now Camp Hill Shopping Center) near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia mayor Wilson Goode estimated the film injected $3 million into the city.
Prior to the start of filming, Cattrall spent six weeks posing for a Santa Monica sculptor, who captured her likeness. Six mannequins, each with a different expression, were made. Cattrall recalled (1987), "There's no way to play a mannequin except if you want to sit there as a dummy I did a lot of body-building because I wanted to be as streamlined as possible. I wanted to match the mannequins as closely as I could." The actress also said that doing the film made her feel "grown up".
Music:
Featured in the film, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" was a song co-written by Albert Hammond and Diane Warren and recorded by the American rock band Starship in 1986. It is a duet featuring Starship vocalists Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 4, 1987, and topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks the following month, becoming the UK's second-biggest-selling single of 1987.
The song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Release/Reception/Box Office:
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 20% based on 40 reviews and an average rating of 3.9/10. The site's consensus states: "Mannequin is a real dummy, outfitted with a ludicrous concept and a painfully earnest script that never springs to life, despite the best efforts of an impossibly charming Kim Cattrall." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 21 out of 100 based on reviews from 13 critics, indicating "generally unfavourable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B+ on scale of A to F.
It was savaged by Leonard Maltin, who called it "absolute rock-bottom fare, dispiriting for anyone who remembers what movie comedy should be." In his print review, Roger Ebert awarded it a half star and wrote, "A lot of bad movies are fairly throbbing with life. Mannequin is dead. The wake lasts 1 1/2 hours, and then we can leave the theatre."
Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called the film "made by, for, and about dummies." Janet Maslin of The New York Times puts the blame on the writer-director: "as co-written and directed by Michael Gottlieb, Mannequin is a state-of-the-art showcase of perfunctory technique."
Dan McQuade, writing in Philadelphia Magazine, referencing the film's use of Philadelphia as a setting, after panning the film itself wrote, "The message of Mannequin, clumsy as it is, is that the greatest place and time in recorded history is 1980s Philadelphia... Truly, this is the most uplifting film ever made about the city."
David Cornelius of DVD Talk wrote: "Mannequin is one of the stupidest movies ever conceived, and one of the worst. Which makes it, in its own lousy way, mesmerizing. To watch it is to get sucked in by its hypnotic ways; its very off-the-wall shoddiness is astounding. Spader alone is worth the price of admission – surely aware of the movie's badness, the actor hams it up with a deliriously over-the-top performance." He called it "a Bad Movie Essential" but warned viewers with a lower pain threshold for bad films to "obviously skip it" as it is a dreadful film.
The film debuted at number three at the US box office behind Platoon and Outrageous Fortune, grossing $6 million over the four-day President's Day weekend, surpassing the other opener, Over the Top starring Sylvester Stallone. The film grossed a total of $42.7 million in the United States and Canada.
My Review:
Frivolous, fun romantic comedy from the '80s. The basic plot is that a girl (Kim Cattrall) in Ancient Egypt is being forced into a marriage she doesn't want. So she prays to the gods and is magically transported/reincarnated/whatever to the future, where she becomes a mannequin that only comes to life for Andrew McCarthy.
I know this movie is almost universally derided but I can't help but love it. It's a sweet, funny, innocently goofy movie that always puts a smile on my face. McCarthy and Cattrall are adorably likable leads. They're helped by a great supporting cast, including Estelle Getty and Meshach Taylor. Not to mention a soundtrack of great '80s songs.
{The BEST song in this film is 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now' - Starship}
In a lot of ways, this movie reminds me of old comedies from the 1930s or 40s. It doesn't care if every little detail of the fantasy plot makes sense. It's just trying to show the audience a good time and, in my case at least, it accomplishes that.
This movie doesn't take itself seriously so why should we? Although Michael Gottlieb says it was based on an original idea, there are great similarities between this film and 1948's "One Touch of Venus". In both films a man with an artistic bent but a lack of self confidence is helped and loved by a mannequin/statue that only comes to life in his presence.
Probably released with a teen audience in mind - I was 29 when it came out - it really fits the bill if you are in the mood for good old low brow humour with lots of broad physical comedy and one liners. Kim Cattrell could never be Ava Gardner (the statue in the 1948 film) but she's got that "I'll love you no matter what" look down pat that would make any man feel like a king. James Spader has never looked like a more unlikeable little toad, and that is quite a feat when you know how handsome he is/was.
Note that this thing is like a roll call of 80's sitcoms. There's Estelle Getty as the owner of the department store who played the eighty year old mom with a quick wit and smart mouth on "The Golden Girls". Here she plays basically the same character, only younger. Meshack Taylor was the comic foil for the ladies of "Designing Women", and G.W. Bailey played a serious role as a psychiatrist during the first season of "Saint Elsewhere" before taking on film roles where he largely played the buffoon. That is the case here where he plays the store security guard who for some reason is allowed to roam the store with a dog that is known to bite - I can only imagine what the store's insurance premiums are.
Watch this movie for "one touch of the 80's" and, like I said at the beginning, just have fun with it; 7/10.
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