O.C. AND STIGGS, made by Robert Altman in 1984, deals with what may be one of the director's least favorite subjects: all-American boys. Mr. Altman's utter lack of sympathy for this film's two schoolboy protagonists (the screenplay is based on material from National Lampoon magazine) is unmistakable, and it's also liberating, so his satirical side is given unusually free rein.
The result: an enormous garage sale of a movie, cluttered with every imaginable form of junk to be found on the American scene. There is one family that favors cactus-shaped anything (including Jell-O), another that's insanely partial to lawn furniture, a third household that's a veritable monument to the South Seas. And around the film's edges there can be found an astonishing array of vanity plates, designer eyeglass frames, mermaid statuary and pastel-colored drinks. If we're indeed going to hell in a handbasket, as this film strongly suggests, then it may well be a beaded, gold-lame handbasket with gilt trim.
The people in O.C. AND STIGGS wend their way around the overabundant props, and try their best to sound various unusual notes of rebellion, while the two teen-age protagonists (played by Daniel H. Jenkins and Neill Barry) engage in a series of sophomoric pranks. Mr. Altman makes an asset of the boys' silliness, though, and shoots American high-school scenes in his own distinctive way (nothing looks quite normal, and the various props and displays glimpsed in the background are especially dopey).
The cast includes Dennis Hopper as a veteran who has confused Scottsdale, Ariz., with Southeast Asia, Paul Dooley as a wealthy businessman who is the butt of the boys' jokes, Jane Curtin as his wife, who imagines herself to be a secret tippler though her habits are an open secret, and Melvin Van Peebles as a local wino who seems to understand the boys better than anyone else does. Ray Walston plays the retired grandfather of one of the boys, happily entertaining anyone who'll listen with grisly memories of his days on the police force. He's especially proud of the time his partner said to him, after a shootout, "That guy's got more brains on the sidewalk than you've got in your whole head."
O.C. AND STIGGS rambles a lot and doesn't have a full supply of the Altman alchemy, but it's certainly a lively, colorful satire; its notion of American artificiality runs so deep that the film begins and ends at a man-made surfing beach in the middle of the desert. Though it was not released by MGM/UA in 1984, it certainly should have been.
By Janet Maslin Published: March 18, 1988