The Naked Gun: What 4? -- The Rhythm of Evil.

Did you like The Naked Gun? You know, starring Leslie Neilson back when he was funny. I enjoyed the first one (loved Airplane! and Police Squad) but thought the sequels headed quickly downhill. Mind you they all had some funny bits and some highly quotable lines.

Now a Paramount employee gave Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere a copy of the script for The Naked Gun: What 4? - The Rhythm of Evil.

This is some of what he had to say about it

What makes funny funny? There's no explaining the how and why (and if you do you kill the joke), but I know it when I read it. And this script, penned by veteran sardonic-comedy guy Alan Spencer (Sledge Hammer, Hexed), made me laugh. It's funny in a dry, smart, surreal-toxic sexual way. But then I'm from Mars so what do I know?

On top of which the films that I direct in my head when I'm reading stuff like this are always underplayed in an Ingmar Bergman-esque way, and the tendency of many (if not most) professional comedy directors is to broaden and underline so the least sophisticated dolts in Mumbai will get the joke. But the best stupid comedies are never aimed low -- they're written and directed by smart guys, and played as straight as Hamlet and aimed at jazz musicians and corporate CEOs and people who donate foundation money. Because once you start winking at the audience, you're dead.

The three lead cop characters in Naked Gun: What 4? are Det. Vince Conklin ("Look, I represent the new America, the average person on the street desperate for change... like pennies, nickles, dimes"), Police Commissioner Roy McGlade (flip, blunt, crusty but benign) and Lt. Erica Litvak (30s, no-nonsense, a looker). Nielsen's Lt. Frank Drebin has been put out to pasture, of course -- living in Florida, golfing -- so it's wide open for whatever.

All I know is that "it's ugly out there....like a boil on the buttock of a Sumo wrestler suffering from excema." That's a throwaway line from page four, delivered by a minor character.

How do you like them apples?

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