Fletch Lives (1989)

The original sequel to 1985’s hit comedy, Fletch, was originally meant to be based on the sixth of Gregory McDonald’s series of “Fletch” novels, “Fletch and the Man Who”, with a plot that would involve Fletch becoming the press liaison for a campaign of a state governor who is in the race for president of the United States.  In fact, they greenlit the script, to be entitled “Fletch II”. from Fletch‘s credited screenwriter, Andrew Bergman, before the first film was officially released in 1985 and had an eye for a release for the summer of 1986, wanting to strike while the iron was hot on the would-be franchise. Chevy Chase had signed a three-picture deal with Universal Pictures to appear as the titular character.

However, a number of delays pushed the film beyond its intended date, primarily because Chevy Chase wanted to get involved starting his new production company, Cornelius Productions (“Cornelius” is Chevy’s real first name), to have tighter control of the films he made. Chase turned down Bergman’s screenplay, resulting in a new script that was commissioned in 1986 to Walter Bernstein (who worked with director Michael Ritchie before with Semi-Tough and would again with The Couch Trip), but by 1988, it was decided it needed to be overhauled veteran screenwriter Leon Capetanos.  No longer was the story to be based on politics, or even any story found in a Gregory McDonald novel at all; this new Capetanos script would be about a shady televangelist, and the screenplay would have the title of, “Fletch Saved”.

Part of the inspiration for the film was due to the rampant news reports of the life and crimes of televangelist Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye, who hosted a popular faith-based TV ministry called “The PTL Club”, and who ran a Christian amusement park called Heritage USA, all the while living lavishly from the money they brought in from donations of their flock. The other part comes from Peter Popoff, a televangelist revealed to be a con man in 1986, when ht was revealed that he received messages to him in an earpiece by his wife using a radio transmitter detailing ailments among members of his audience that he would “miraculously” guess as he used his faith healing techniques. However, Universal Pictures was unhappy with the proposed title of “Fletch Saved”, feeling that it might further offend people of faith; at the time, the studio was already getting hammered by Christian groups for its release of Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ.

Michael Ritchie returns as director with the new title of Fletch Lives, set primarily in Louisiana, in addition to on the set at Universal Studios in Hollywood where the famous tour offers up some aspects of the “Bible Land” theme park experience. The “Flash Flood” portion of the tour is retooled to the Flood from Noah’s Ark.

The plot of the finished film involves Fletch quitting his job as an investigative reporter when he learns he has inherited his aunt’s expansive plantation estate in Louisiana called Belle Isle.  Unfortunately, he arrives to find that the property is completely run down through many years of lack of upkeep, though there are offers for the land from mysterious sources. When the executor of the will ends up dead in Fletch’s bed, he becomes the top suspect in the murder. He soon learns that the reason for foul play is likely because someone out there desperately wants Fletch off of the property, with the main suspect being a local television evangelist Jimmy Lee Farnsworth (R. Lee Ermey), who has plans for the land to expand his Bible-based theme park. Fletch decides to put his nose for sleuthing to good use to get to the bottom of who wants the land bad enough to be willing to kill for it, and why.

In addition to its satire on televangelists, Fletch Lives wants to double as a spoof on films about the Old South, especially in regard to the days of slavery. Indeed, its poster is a direct satire to a famous one for Gone with the Wind, with Fletch playing Rhett Butler lustily holding a woman over a painting of a plantation estate as fire burns in the background. Universal paid Disney for the rights to use the song, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” for the partially animated dream sequence meant to recall the film, Song of the South, which was purchased for a very small amount, anywhere from a couple hundred to a few thousand dollars, depending on the source. The savings from what they thought would be the asking price allowed them to raise the production value of the sequence significantly, hiring hundreds of choreographed extras, and using it for their promotional material extensively.

Fletch Lives isn’t without its merits, but it hasn’t aged as well as its predecessor in the mind of most fans of the character. The televangelist angle, while it may have been in the headlines much in the late 1980s, all seems less relevant to most viewers today, many of whom are unfamiliar or have long since forgotten the era of corruption with large-scale television ministries. The film is also rife with cartoonish stereotypes about the people and lifestyle of those who live in the American South, with its KKK rallies, biker gangs, Civil War enthusiasts, “coon hunters”, and corrupt police and elected officials. While Fletch made fun of country club elites who sought only to do for self, its persistent ridiculing of rural Southern Americans seems exceedingly stereotypical and meanspirited in its approach, and it’s dabbling into racial stereotypes renders many of its comic set pieces in bad taste.

Chevy Chase ended up despising his opening scenes in drag where he is dressed up as a maid, claiming he looks nothing like a woman, but that sequences tested well with preview audiences that the studio insisted they be kept in the film despite his actively seeking their removal. Beyond that, Chase was just not happy with the sequel at all, especially in having to don even more ridiculous costumes than the first time around in order to drum up laughs that required an inordinate amount of mugging on his part to produce. As there was a major writer strike that erupted shortly after filming began, the schedule grew tighter and they had far less time for re-doing scenes to allow improvisation. Chase also couldn’t rely on any revisions from seasoned writers to hold the scenes together as cohesively when he deviated as he did for the first film, relying on revisions handed down by Michael Ritchie himself.

If Chase was unhappy, it partially comes out in his performance. Fletch comes across as too detached and unlikeable in this sequel as compared to the first film. His playful jabs come off more like punches to the face. In one of the film’s biggest bad taste moments, Fletch switches the ailment of one of the sheep in the audience of the televangelist to a gambling addiction from being a lifelong hemorrhoid sufferer and gets told to expose his troubles for all the world to see (pants drop.) The original Fletch was playful and only served comeuppance to those who truly deserve it, while the Fletch in Fletch Lives is smug, crass, and mean, feeling like its the entire world that needs to be mocked mercilessly. Even the kind sweet-n-Southern woman with whom he’s bedded for the evening.

The supporting cast, like the first film, is full of good character actors, from Hal Holbrook to R. Lee Ermey, to Cleavon Little. Unfortunately for Little, most of the movie requires him to play a broad stereotype of an uneducated and dirt-poor black man in the South that hasn’t been seen on the screen for decades. By the end of the film, you realize that it’s mostly just an act, which, come to think of it, makes it more unpalatable to contemplate that a modern black man would assume the identity of someone named Calculus Entropy, a seemingly slave-era black man speaking broken English because he expects that’s the way to fit in in Louisiana of the 1980s. The makers of the film seem to assume that if they make fun of racists, they can play up all of the racist jokes and get away with it in fun, but it is dispiriting to have Fletch even engage in the racist jokes by telling plantation handyman Calculus to pick a bale of cotton after fixing things around the house.

Model-actress Julianne Phillips, who was in the middle of a messy divorce with Bruce Springsteen at the time, offers the requisite love interest in real-estate agent Becky Culpepper but seems to lack the same chemistry with Chase that was more evidenced in the first film (there’s no explanation offered as to why Gail Stanwyk is no longer in the picture).

Harold Faltermeyer is brought back to score, but nothing memorable results that is new. Instead, the soundtrack is filled with interpolations of the same songs he composed for the first film.

By removing the character of Fletch not only from his source material in Gregory McDonald’s novels but also much of who he was in the first film, the makers of Fletch Lives make the mistake of thinking all of our enjoyment of the character comes from seeing him put on a bunch of disguises (one a retread of the Gordon Liddy one done in Fletch, this time named Billie Jean King), funny famous names (Elmer Fudd, Robert E. Lee, Nostradamus, and “Henry” Himmler among them) and ridiculing everyone around him. While Chevy Chase does deliver a consistently good performance in many regards, it’s not enough to make up for the fact that there really isn’t as much fun to be had in seeing the character inherit a plantation house in Louisiana and kick up a lot of gross mischaracterizations of Southern living.

Although largely viewed today as a franchise killer, Fletch Lives had relatively decent numbers at the box office, debuting at #1 in its initial week of release and retaining that spot for an additional week, racking up nearly $40 million worldwide on a budget of about $8 million.  That was lower than the first film, but still good money for Universal, despite the lackluster critical writeups that mostly ripped the film for its adherence to cliches and a plot it barely cares about. Despite that, Chevy Chase does deliver funny characterizations and the wit, enough to suggest the film is better than its reputation, but it’s still a sizable step down from the delights of the first Fletch.

Qwipster’s grade: C

MPAA Rated: PG for sexual references, some violence, and language (I’d rate it PG-13)
Running time: 95 min.

Cast: Chevy Chase, Hal Holbrook, R. Lee Ermey, Julianne Phillips, Cleavon Little, Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb, Richard Libertini, George Wyner, Patricia Kalember
Small roles: Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Belzer, Phil Hartman
Director: Michael Ritchie
Screenplay: Leon Capetanos