Reader, you have been lied to! Film history is littered with unfairly maligned classics, whether critics were too eager to review the making of rather than the finished product, or they suffered from underwhelming ad campaigns or general disinterest. Let’s revise our takes on some of these films from wrongheaded to the correct opinion.
When “Madhouse,” a comedy about a happily married couple besieged by out of control house guests, was released in early 1990, it met with immediate hostility from critics. How hostile were they? So hostile that “Madhouse” is currently in the select group of movies sitting uncomfortably at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, not a single positive review to its name.
The irony is that not only is “Madhouse” not bad, it’s great. And not only great, but all-time great, a comedy so flawless in its construction and so precise in its timing that it ranks alongside the best work of Howard Hawks, Blake Edwards, or any other master of screwball farce you can name. Its pleasures are as immediately apparent and accessible as they are bountiful (this isn’t one of those great movies that makes you work for it in any way), which makes one wonder what put the critics in such a bad mood in February 1990.
The film’s premise is simple: stockbroker Mark (John Larroquette) and news anchor Jessie (Kirstie Alley) have just bought their first home when Mark’s long-lost cousin Fred (John Diehl) and his pregnant wife Bernice (Jessica Lundy) arrive for an unexpected visit. They’re the house guests from hell, which would be bad enough by itself — but then over the course of the movie’s 90 minutes they’re joined by a parade of even worse tenants, as circumstances force Mark and Jessie to take a motley assortment of relatives, neighbors, and an indestructible cat into their home.
“Madhouse” has a lot in common with another comedy that had been released a couple of months earlier, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” Like that movie, “Madhouse” mines laughs from the relentlessly escalating horror of proliferating house guests, and it has a number of surprisingly specific parallels — both films feature comic set pieces related to doomed felines, both have scenes centered around home movies, both open with animated title sequences, and so on. (The title cartoon in “Madhouse,” incidentally, was created by one of the masters of the form, Sally Cruikshank — her work can also be seen in 80s favorites “Ruthless People,” “Mannequin,” and “Loverboy.”)
While “Christmas Vacation,” like “Madhouse,” received plenty of negative reviews at the time of its release, it was a big hit and has become enshrined as a classic thanks to its holiday setting, which insures its heavy rotation every December. “Madhouse” is largely forgotten, but the fact is that it’s even better than “Christmas Vacation” — smarter, less labored (“Christmas Vacation” has a few too many gags — like Clark Griswold forgetting to bring his chainsaw along on a tree-hunting expedition — that aren’t worth the time it takes to build to them), and simultaneously more controlled and more raucous.
Writer-director Tom Ropelewski doesn’t waste any time in the film’s compact 90 minutes, clearly and concisely establishing Mark and Jessie’s perfect life with a few expertly written scenes before spending the rest of the movie dismantling that life in one increasingly hilarious and horrific sequence after another. “Madhouse” has the rock solid structure of a classic comedy by Leo McCarey or Preston Sturges, with hundreds of small visual details that all pay off, even if many of them are so subtle it takes three or four viewings to catch them all.
Just to give one small example: early on in the movie Bernice, who spends most of the story bedridden watching shopping channels, spots a hideous piece of clothing being advertised on television. The image is funny in and of itself, but Ropelewski doesn’t linger on it; it’s just one of the film’s many amusing bits of business in the background. An hour later, Bernice is wearing the dress, clearly having ordered it in the interim. Ropelewski doesn’t do anything to underline the joke, or remind us of when we saw the dress earlier — it’s just a laugh that’s there for the taking for anyone paying close attention.
“Madhouse” is filled with gags like this, and their frequency and subtlety speaks to Ropelewski’s confidence as a director — he doesn’t need to force or draw attention to any of the jokes because he has an endless supply of them. He also has an abundant collection of terrific comic actors to execute his material, starting with Larroquette and Alley, who are not only pitch-perfect in nailing the timing of every single line, gesture, and reaction, but give the movie a sneaky emotional resonance.
Among other things, “Madhouse” is one of those rarities in American movies: a convincing and engaging portrayal of a happily married couple. Larroquette and Alley immediately convey an easygoing romantic charm that anchors the whole film; although Ropelewski orchestrates the escalation of comic situations with meticulous care, there’s nothing mechanical about the effect thanks to Larroquette and Alley’s breezy naturalism. Again, they evoke the great couples of classic Hollywood — think Cary Grant and Jean Arthur, or Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.
It’s a bold claim, but Larroquette and Alley earn the comparison. When “Madhouse” came out they were both riding high on television in “Night Court” and “Cheers,” shows that allowed them to hone their comic chops to perfection. Ironically, their preeminence in TV might have had something to do with the negative reception for “Madhouse”; in those days there were much clearer boundaries between film and television, and the perception was that a movie starring two TV stars was somehow cheaper or lesser — one reason another brilliant television comedian, John Ritter, never really had the career he should have on the big screen.
Larroquette and Alley both had other chances to shine in feature comedies — Larroquette most notably in “Stripes” and Blake Edwards’ “Blind Date,” Alley in “Summer School,” “Sibling Rivalry” and “Drop Dead Gorgeous” — but no other director or script ever gave them the opportunities they had here to achieve greatness. They go both broad and deep, exhibiting a flair for lowbrow physical comedy accompanied by relatable, nuanced behavior-driven humor that yields more laughs per minute than just about any other movie.
How is this movie at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes? Is the answer simply that critics are humor-impaired? Whatever the explanation, it’s a crime against cinema that Ropelewski didn’t go on to direct more comedies. Although he’s credited as a writer on “Loverboy” and “Look Who’s Talking Now” and reportedly did some uncredited polishing on “Blind Date,” when it comes to feature directing Ropelewski was one-and-done with “Madhouse”; his only directing credits afterward are on documentaries.
It’s a shame, but then again, how many great movies does someone need to make to be considered a great director? With “Madhouse” Ropelewski achieved comic perfection once, and that’s one more time than most filmmakers can hope for.
