Night Shift (1982)

A morgue attendant is talked into running a brothel at his workplace after a deceased pimp is sent there. However, the pimp's killers don't look too kindly on this new 'business', nor does the morgue's owner.

Director:

Ron Howard

Writers:

Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel

Stars:

Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton, Shelley Long

Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Henry Winkler	...	Chuck Lumley
Michael Keaton	...	Bill Blazejowski
Shelley Long	...	Belinda Keaton
Gina Hecht	...	Charlotte Koogle
Pat Corley	...	Edward Koogle
Bobby Di Cicco	...	Leonard (as Bobby DiCicco)
Nita Talbot	...	Vivian
Basil Hoffman	...	Drollhauser
Tim Rossovich	...	Luke
Clint Howard	...	Jefferey
Joe Spinell	...	Manetti
Cheryl Carter	...	Tanya
Becky Gonzalez	...	Lupe
Corki Grazer	...	Sylvia (as Corki Corman)
Jaid Barrymore	...	Joyce (as Ildiko Jaid)

Storyline

A nebbish of a morgue attendant gets shunted back to the night shift where he is shackled with an obnoxious neophyte partner who dreams of the "one great idea" for success. His life takes a bizarre turn when a prostitute neighbour complains about the loss of her pimp. His partner, upon hearing the situation, suggests that they fill that opening themselves using the morgue at night as their brothel. Against his better judgement, he gets talked into the idea, only to find that it's more than his boss that has objections to this bit of entrepreneurship.

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Plot Keywords:

night shift | pimp | prostitute | voyeur | panties | 

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Taglines:

It makes the day seem dead

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 July 1982 (USA)

Also Known As:

Servicio de noche

Filming Locations:

H&H Midtown Bagels - 2239 Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Gross USA:

$23,600,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Major Studio Partners,The Ladd Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This film contains the first recorded version of the song "That's What Friends Are For" written by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager. It was first recorded in 1982 by Rod Stewart for this soundtrack, and then made globally famous three years later by Dionne Warwick and Friends; a collective of known vocalists, including Gladys Knight, Sir Elton John, and Stevie Wonder. Their version of the song went to number one for three weeks on Billboard's charts in 1986, and was recorded as a benefit for American Foundation for A.I.D.S. Research. Sales of the record raised over three million U.S. dollars for that cause.

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Goofs

52 minutes into the film, when Chuck is reading a computer screen showing his and Bill's investments for their prostitution "company," there are multiple spelling errors which aren't due to the screen's limitations. Chuck, being the fussy business type, would never let this happen. There's at least one typo on nine of the eleven lines displayed. Here they are: "CHUCK & BILLS INVESTMET SERVICE," "Inteest compouded monthl," "Paymnts at endof period," "Annual intrest rate," "Present vaue," "Future vale," "Monthly pament," "The interet rate is 1.46% per monh" and "And the tie period i 12 months."

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Quotes

Chuck Lumley: [reads the forms that Lenoard, the day shift guy left] Name of the deceased... something Polish?

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Connections

References Animal House (1978)

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Soundtracks

Penthouse and Pavement
Written by Martyn Ware (uncredited), Ian Craig Marsh (uncredited) and Glenn Gregory (uncredited)
Performed by Heaven 17
Courtesy of Virgin Records

User Reviews

Keaton steals this

Ron Howard has always been a consistantly talented director, never making a bad or even mediocre film. Even a film such as Ransom that opened to lukewarm reviews from both audience and critics is still better than your average thriller. He has a way of making lines and scenes memorable even when the script itself is only so-so. After following his career, I went back to one of his first, Night Shift which still has the magic I remember it did when I saw it way back when.

The story isn't the greatest and Shelly Long has never been an actress I've enjoyed watching but if you only want one reason to see Night Shift, Micheal Keaton is it. Here he creates what is probably one of the funniest characters I have ever seen in a movie. He is an idea man, constantly speaking them into his taperecorder and thus to his morgue co-worker Henry Winkler. Winkler "the fonz" is the total opposite of what he was in Happy Days, and therefor a perfect anchor for Keaton. If it was just Keaton, it wouldn't work, but Winkler is annoyed at Keaton, we laugh because of it.

If you do decide to watch this movie, be on the lookout for the single most hilarious scene: Keaton's analysation of the word "prostitute."