"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 7/28/90

cutline: Bo "Is it time to take a bath again, John?" Derek in an electrifying moment from "Ghosts Can't Do It"

By Joe Bob Briggs

Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas

First there was "Tarzan, the Ape Man," the one where she said "I think I'll take a bath now" and wouldn't let Miles O'Keeffe talk.

Then there was "Bo Lero," the one where she spent two hours trying to get rid of her virginity and finally told a matador "I WILL make that thing work again." (The matador had been gored by a bull.)

And now, just when you thought it was safe to braid your hair again, comes the finest collaboration between a husband and wife team since Ferdinand and Imelda discovered Geneva bank accounts.

You know what I'm talking about. It's Bo. She's bodacious. After six years of silence, Bo "Is it time to get nekkid again, John?" Derek returns to the big screen with the most sensitive portrayal of her career: "Ghosts Can't Do It."

When you see that title, if you're like me, you think, "Does that mean . . . nawwwwww, it couldn't mean THAT. What do you think? Naw, that would be STUPID."

So I should tell you right up front: it means what you think it means.

But that's not what'll get to you about this movie. The more important thing is:

Bo's co-star is ANTHONY QUINN?

I had to get inside the drive-in before I found this out, though, because Anthony Quinn's name is not on the poster, not on the marquee, not on the press kit--it's almost like somebody said, "Take Anthony Quinn's name off this movie. People don't wanna see THAT GUY. They wanna see Bo."

Anyway, as I was about to tell you, the husband-wife team of Bo and John Derek constantly sets new standards for originality in screenwriting. You aren't gonna believe this, but I'm gonna tell you anyhow:

Bo Derek and Anthony Quinn are married, living on a ranch in Montana, but Tony keeps falling off his horse, and then Bo lets him bite her lip like a horse until he feels better. He wants to know what she'll do if he dies.

"I will not cry, I will not wear ugly black, and I will go forward with your strength," she says while wearing a designer ski cap and a fur parka.

Next thing, they find out Anthony can't get a new heart, because he's too old. So Bo dresses up in an Indian blanket and sits in the snow until Anthony wants to bite her lip again.

Then Bo puts on a silver fox hat with the fox-head still on it.

Then they go cross-country skiing and Anthony gets out of breath.

"You're scaring me, Great One," says Bo.

I'm not making up this dialogue.

Then one night, in bed, Anthony can't make the sign of the triple-gilled attack weasel. He can't even make the sign of the sea slug. So he kills himself with a shotgun and leaves her a suicide note: "You always said you would forgive me."

Bo starts crying and says, "It's necessary that you love me and hold me, Great One."

It gets worse.

In Purgatory, Anthony starts flirting with a bimbo angel with a butterfly strapped to her hand. They watch Anthony's funeral, where Bo shows up with a couple of dead poodles on her head. He can't stand it anymore, so he appears to Bo. She tells him all she does is take care of her teddy bears and cats and watch her "Great One" on videos all day long.

"You could have taken pills," she tells him.

"Real men don't eat quiche," he answers.

Next thing, Bo decides to do what most widows do--go to the Maldive Islands and scuba-dive in a coral reef. She jumps up and down on the beach, rips off her bathing suit, and starts screaming at Anthony. She wants sex, she says.

"Ghosts can't do it," he tells her. "It's that simple."

"You blew your head off! I didn't!" she screams back at him.

All the guys enjoy watching Bo jumping up and down nekkid screaming like a madwoman. They don't know that Anthony Quinn is talking back to her through one of those LSD camera lenses that looks like they smeared Vaseline and cranberry juice on it.

Then this hunkaroonie named Leo Damian sees her sunbonnet with colored beads on it and falls in love. Unfortunately, Leo Damian has the personality of a grapefruit.

"Are you romancing me?" she asks him.

"Yes, your beauty demands it."

Next, she stores her two-billion-dollar pearls in a safe hiding place and takes a bath.

Anthony begs her to "zap him and use his body"--meaning kill Leo Damian so Anthony can seep into his hunky bod from Purgatory.

So Bo goes out on a raft and DISCUSSES IT with Leo. "My dead husband wants to possess your body," she tells him, adjusting her sunhat and shades.

Now Don Murray shows up, still looking for his first decent role since "Bus Stop," and explains to Bo why Anthony had to blow his head off: "What else could he do? He loved Hemingway."

There's more.

Time to go to Hong Kong!

Time to go to Hong Kong for a business meeting with Donald Trump!

Yes, it's really him!

Are you following this?

They sit across this big board-room conference table, and Bo says, "This city will be reduced to dust before you best me."

"You're too pretty to be bad," says The Donald.

"You noticed?" says Bo.

Then Bo and Don Murray start dancing on a wharf, skinny-dip a little, and then she says "Will you kiss me?"

Next thing, a guy with a gun breaks into Bo's hotel room and forces her to take sleeping pills, so she'll miss her big meeting with Donald Trump, but Don Murray shows up in time to slap her back awake.

Time to go back to the Maldive Islands! Bo flies the plane herself, and tells Don Murray, "The Great One is here in the plane with us, and he thinks 'love' is our word."

Then Bo gets doused with water and dances for the natives, until the Catholic priest screams out "In God's name, I command you to stop!" and calls her a "she-devil."

Then Bo puts on a straw hat and rides around on an elephant.

Then some tourists come on a train to see Bo's two-billion-dollar pearls.

Then a White Witch shows up and says: "Is he looking for a body?"

Then Bo mixes up a rat-poison-and-papaya-juice cocktail and gives it to Leo Damian, but before Leo drinks it, he pulls a machine gun and steals her pearls. Bo has to kung fu him on a pool table, but at the last minute, she decides not to kill him. Anthony is very p.o.ed.

"I'm outta here. I'm history," Anthony tells her.

In order to console herself, Bo plunges her head in the hot tub.

"He has my heart," she says. "How can I live without a heart?"

Anthony's bimbo angel tells him, "There's no way out of eternity. You're stuck with it."

So then Bo tells Anthony that, okay, sure, she wants to kill Leo.

"It could mean hell forever!" Anthony tells her.

"We're going for it!" shouts Bo.

So she jumps on a sailboat and goes searching for Leo, but first she has to rough up the mayor to find out why they let him out of jail, and then she finds out Leo is already at the bottom of the ocean, fouled up in some fishing lines, about to die. She gets to him just in time to give him artificial respiration. Anthony Quinn slips into Leo Damian's body, and for the rest of the movie, she has sex with a guy who looks like Leo and talks like Anthony. Then she puts on a flowered bonnet and grins.

Whew!

They don't make em like this anymore, do they?

Twelve breasts. Two dead bodies. One heart attack. Lip-biting. Bimbo angel. Gratuitous elephants. Kung Fu. Bimbo Fu. Headgear Fu. Shotgun Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Donald Trump, for picking his movie roles so carefully; Bo Derek, for having the courage to take four baths instead of her usual three; and John Derek, for saying "Arch the back JUST a little more."

It's no "Bolero," but . . .

Two stars. Joe Bob says check it out.

JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS

Victory over Communism! The East Drive-In in Denver, scheduled for demolition last year, has been saved, reopened as the New East Drive-In, and features picnic areas, stereo radio sound, volleyball courts, outdoor art gallery, and weekly car rallies. The new owners, Steven Vannoy and Philip Simms, have resurrected the oldest drive-in west of the Mississippi. Ginny Klein, Frank Tapp and Joseph Neer, all of Denver, and Kevin Farwell of Boulder wrote in to remind us that, with eternal vigilance, it won't happen. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get free junk in the mail and his world-famous "We Are The Weird" newsletter, write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221. Joe Bob's Fax line is always open: 214-368-2310.

Yo, Joe Bob:

I never agreed with you about how spacy some Californians can be 'til I got this in the mail:

"MEET NEW DIVINITIES

and influence people!

Join the

"DEITY OF THE MONTH CLUB"

We will meet on one Friday each month to discuss a single deity or group of related deities. The discussion will focus around original texts which refer to the deity/-ies in question: myths, hymns, rituals and other original literature will be provided.

For the first several classes the DOMC will focus on the deities of the Mesopotamian pantheons. However, as people are interested and as means are made available, the DOMC can begin to explore the pantheons of other cultures from around the world."

It's not meant as a joke, I'm afraid.

Flash Gordon, M.D.

San Francisco

Dear Flash:

I can't wait till the month when they do the Aztec snake-woman goddess who cuts off your head and eats it if you're not SERIOUS enough about religion.

Joe Bob,

For the dude in Minneapolis, I also have the secret of time and space in the universe:

Life is a cigarette--

enjoyed quickly, fatal in the end,

And your stinky butt is left to deteriorate.

Chris Gilbreath

Irving, Tex.

Dear Chris:

That's the first haiku in history that I liked.

Dear Mr. Briggs,

I have just finished Joe Bob Goes Back to the Drive-In. It should win the Pulitzer Prize if "Ebert the Wimp" could. The reasons it will not are: 1) your proofreaders misspelled breasts as beasts on Page 157; 2) you missed why I Spit On Your Grave "has the best ad line in history" on Page 191. In the ad it's five men; in the movie it is only four. Other than these two serious flaws, which will keep it off the beast-seller lists, it was money well-spent just for the photo of Big Wayne and you. Now could you just point to your left?

Richard Hamar

Park Forest, Ill.

Dear Richard:

She only burned, tortured, and maimed FOUR men beyond recognition and no jury in the world will convict her?

I expectorate on my memory.

Dear Joe Bob,

Whatever happened to the guy who wrote, directed, starred in--and probably was gaffer and best boy for the "Billy Jack" films? Incidentally, what exactly does the gaffer and best boy do?

Russell W. Henshaw

Columbus, O.

Dear Russ:

Tom Laughlin got so rich off "Billy Jack" and "Return of Billy Jack" and "Billy Jack Goes to Washington" that he never has to make another movie as long as he lives. And let's hope he doesn't.

Here's a trivia question for you: What movie does the Billy Jack character first appear in? (Before "Billy Jack.")

Answer: "The Born Losers."

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