From the year 1985 O.C. and Stiggs is Robert Altman’s controversial and frequently forgotten film. It can be seen as either an entry in the teen comedy cycle of the 80s or a satire of the genre. Here it gets a handsomely restored version on Blu-ray by Radiance- with a nice selection of extras

The movie concerns the efforts of two anarchic Phoenix, Arizona teenagers, O.C. Ogilvie and Mark Stiggs who take revenge on a reactionary insurance salesman, Randall Schwab and his family.  A policy overseen by Schwab will result in O.C.’s grandfather being committed to a retirement home leaving O.C. with whom he shares his house homeless and having to move in with a relative in another state.  The revenge takes the form of pranks and outright criminality.

Altman’s film is based on the thoroughly overhauled original screenplay by Ted Mann and Todd Carroll based on their series of articles, particularly the full issue The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs which appeared in the famous American satirical magazine The National Lampoon in the early part of the decade.  The movie was hoped by its studio MGM to enjoy at least part of the financial and critical success of a previous ‘National Lampoon’ spin-off, Animal House but the film, completed in 1983 but only released in 1987, was initially met with indifference or hostility.  The Radiance reissue is partly due to the film’s discovery and championing by Gen Z film fans.

The film of O.C. and Stiggs owes its character to Altman’s attitude to ‘80s teen comedies (he hated them) and his individual decisions to realise his vision. Mann and Carroll’s print version of the characters is informed by a sense of American culture as banal, materialistic and self-satisfied.  This vision is inevitably informed by despair.  The pranking and destructive anti-heroes are both angry and nihilistic. However, any palpable sense of anger is missing in Altman’s version.  Beyond O.C.’s personal grudge against Schwab, the boys’ motivations are hard to grasp. 

This is partly due to Altman’s casting and conceptualization of his leads.  As O.C. and Stiggs respectively, Daniel H Jenkins and Neill Barry are appealing and charismatic.  Barry plays Stiggs as a super cool, forensic and somewhat enigmatic character.  As O.C., Jenkins is likeable and apparently wholesome and seems to have more in common with the protagonists of mainstream teen films like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Risky Business and The Sure Thing than Mann and Carroll’s print miscreants who are not even above rape (in the ‘Annual Gash Report’ issue).  It may be the result of the creatives not wanting to alienate audiences with substantially unsympathetic characters but the problem is that the leads are not mean enough.
As a comedy O.C. and Stiggs is not unfunny but it’s more amiable than hilarious. 

Altman has assembled an excellent cast;  Paul Dooley as Schwab (‘Schwaaab!’), Jane Curten as his cunning alcoholic spouse Elinore, Jon Cryer as their severely autistic son, Randall Jnr and Ray Walston as O.C.’s dotty ex-cop Gramps among others.  There are nice guest spots.  As a Vietnam vet who aids the boys, Dennis Hopper does a complete reprise of his Apocalypse Now character.  This figure is first introduced with a snippet of The Doors "The End" on the soundtrack.  As Wino Bob, the leader of a group of homeless people co-opted by the boys into one of their anti-Schwab schemes, Melvin van Peebles creates a dignified and affecting performance.

To make O.C. and Stiggs ‘ antics more sympathetic  Altman reduces their foils to ciphers.  You’re not meant to feel anything for Schwab, every inch the coarse Reaganite vulgarian.  But with his highly dysfunctional family the guy seems to have enough problems.  To balance the boys’ vicious tormenting of Randall Jnr they have been given a simple-minded friend, Barney, who accompanies them on their Mexico jaunt.  This feels like special pleading as does their teasing of a closeted gay couple. 
It’s not really clear if the issue is homosexuality or hypocrisy but really, how is it their business?

O.C. and Stiggs is a transitional entry in Altman’s filmography.  Like M*A*S*H and Nashville it has the rambling, distancing POV provided by the mobile camera and the incidental voiceovers provided by radios and other media which work as a kind of satirical commentary on the action.  At the same time with long dialogue sections, it looks forward to the drier, more focused approach Altman took with The Player and Gosford Park.   In spite of my caveats, O.C. and Stiggs is a generally watchable, entertaining movie. 

It has many of the hallmarks of Altman’s films, especially his inimitable style.  In fact, it works as an Altman film but oddly not as the ‘punk rock’ anti-teen movie excoriating satire many involved, Altman included, intended it to be.

The feature is accompanied on the disk by The Water Finally Turns Blue (this is a reference to a prank which plays out as insufficiently humiliating), a new 129-minute documentary on the film by Hunter Stephenson.  Cast, crew and production staff all give their reminiscences.  The general impression one gets is of constant hard partying with a permanent open bar and recourse to certain substances. Altman emerges as both a generous and inclusive director.  There are also accounts of Altman’s friction with MGM executives and the original writers all of whom were kept off set.  

The other extras on the disk comprise an 11-minute featurette with the director’s son Robert Reed Altman who recalls his father’s approach to filmmaking (most interesting is his account of the filming of a number by King Sunny Ade and His African Beats) and an interesting black and white behind the scenes photo gallery. In addition to the disk, there is a reversible sleeve and a 32-page booklet.

There has been an increase in interest in the National Lampoon characters and attempts to produce the Mann and Carroll script as written are underway.  As for the movie we have, it has its merits and it’s always nice to see a neglected work by a major film-maker get reassessed.