Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(1985)

Suppose you’re in Yugoslavia and you have several million in Yugoslav dinar (the Yougoslavian currency from 1966-1989) and the only place you can legally spend said money is in Yugoslavia. Do you either:

A: Live it up in Yugoslavia for a while until the funds have been reintroduced into their economy?

B: Donate the money to reputable Yugoslavian charities?

C: Blow it on making a crappy scriptless movie and then sell it to a major production company at a profit?

If you picked C, congratulations! You’re the Dow Chemical Company!

OK, so technically it was A and C. It certainly wasn’t B! The Dow Chemical company partnered with a production company that filmed on location in Yugoslavia. Aside from the American actors (who were probably paid with bottles of Maraska Slivovitz) Dow paid for everything from props, castle renting (of which there were unnecessarily three different castles in the film), and Yugoslavian crew members.

This was actually common practice during the Cold War as a loophole to unfreeze frozen funds. Incidentally, Yugoslavia offered huge subsidies for movies filmed in their country. Yugoslavian President Tito (of the Jackson 5) frequently offered large portions of military personnel, real tanks and horses, even explosives!

The Trial (1962), Genghis Kahn (1965), The Battle of Neretva (1969), Kelly’s Heroes (1970), High Road to China (1983). All filmed in Yugoslavia. Are these movies any good? No idea. But I’m interested in High Road to China. It’s supposed to be Tom Selleck’s break into an Indiana Jones type film after being slighted for the role in favor of Harrison Ford.

The practice continued into the y2ks with director Uwe Bol making films in Eastern Europe, not to make good movies but to take advantage of major tax loopholes offered to filmmakers.

If these are the reasons for making films, is there any effort or motivation to make these films actually coherent and enjoyable to audiences?

As evidenced by the majority of films I’ve seen produced for these reasons, I say “No” and audiences are the ones who suffer at both the loss of our money and time.

I don’t know what’s more sad, the fact that Transylvania 6-5000 was a commercial success making 7 million on a 3 million dollar budget, or the fact it’s still duping people out of their money! I paid five bucks for this tripe! I could have spent that on actual tripe and used it in a tasty stew!

But I saw Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, and Carol Kane! That got me excited! I also saw Ed Begley Jr., Jeffrey Jones, and Michael Richards but I watched it anyway. The involvement of the last three should have been a major red flag with my modern sensibilities. Nothing particularly wrong with Ed. I just never cared for anything he’s been in.

For one thing, there was virtually no script. Actors were flying by the seat of their pants and you can totally tell. Goldblum is basically the straight man in this “Comedy” duo which makes Ed Begley Jr. the banana. Unfortunately Ed is never funny. Like ever. Even in his normal off screen life.

Michael Richards is tacked on and allowed to do whatever he wants to be funny which never once produced a laugh from any audience. I checked. From 1985 to 2026, not a single audience member anywhere laughed at anything Michael Richards did in this film.

Carol Kane was teamed up with John Byner for a rare case of two positives equaling a negative. I felt bad for them. They’re both great comedians and they were given nothing to work with. A guest appearance by Billy Crystal could not have saved this film. And HE can rescue any production!

NOT ONLY… sorry. Not only is the film not funny, it’s obnoxious. Joseph Bologna’s improvisations consist of him just yelling at everyone. That’s pretty much the second and third act if it’s even possible to divide this film into “acts”. Really it’s more “meanderings” than “acts”.

The most disappointing thing is the premise had potential. Reporters are sent to Transylvania to research possible paranormal activity, one is a skeptic, the other is hopeful. Something like that worked for the X-files. Jeff and Ed do encounter classic universal-type monsters kind of. Then to see this all-star cast flounder… it’s unbearable.

Don’t waste your time or money. In fact, if anyone wants to send me any sympathy money to defray the cost, I’d appreciate it. Just make sure it’s U.S. Dollars and not Yugoslav dinar. I don’t want to have to make a crappy movie just to comp myself for watching this one.

Optional Tangent:

Even the title of the film was ripped off from a 1963 Looney Tunes episode. I can concede that maybe someone thought of this title independently of Looney Tunes though. I suppose it’s clever but it has little to do with the film itself.

It’s a play on Pennsylvania 6-5000, a jazz song recorded by the Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1940. The title is actually an old telephone number, said to be the longest used telephone number for the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. Even after the hotel was demolished in 2023 the front desk continued to answer the phone by singing the famous lyrics from the Glenn Miller song. Don’t ask me why they still had a front desk after being demolished.

The hotel telephone in this movie would play a weird rendition of the Glenn Miller song at which point Michael Richards would answer with “Transylvania 6-5000!” It’s an interesting bit of trivia but hardly worth wrapping a whole film around it.

Poster art!