Dan Aykroyd was on the rise. He had left SNL four years earlier. John Belushi and he started the Blues Brothers band that also fronted one of the most expensive comedy films ever made. In his future, Ghostbusters was about to be a huge, international hit that spawned a franchise and dominated pop culture in the mid Eighties.
This was before the big turn that Nothing but Trouble would represent in his career. When he would lose the faith of his fans and slowly drift off into the distance.
Doctor Detroit was one of those movies that developed independently of some similarly themed films of the time. I call them the unofficial trilogy of “the wrong pimp” films. Risky Business and Night Shift were the other two. Risky Business launched Tom Cruise to superstardom. Night Shift launched Michael Keaton as a comic actor that would headline some of the 80’s biggest hits (Gung Ho, Mr. Mom) prior to his dramatic turn playing a particular superhero.
Doctor Detroit launched Fran Drescher?
Of the trilogy, Doctor Detroit is definitely the least of the films despite the lead of Dan Aykroyd. All three feature the “prostitute with the heart of gold” stock character. All three feature a bigger, badder crime boss threatening the “wrong pimp.”
But of the three, Doctor Detroit is the one that had an actual comedy superstar in the lead. It had tried and true screenwriters, one of which was Carl Gottlieb, the fabled comedy writer that helped script doctor Jaws into one of the greatest blockbusters of all time.
The film’s titular character just wasn’t funny enough. The character Aykroyd created here was more of a cartoony Saturday morning villain variety in the middle of a tits and ass raunchy comedy featuring prostitutes. They just didn’t add up.
Outside of the character itself, all the other performances were good or even great with T. K. Carter, Howard Hessman, and Donna Dixon (who met Aykroyd on this film and later married) turning in some of their best work. Fran Drescher hadn’t found “that voice” yet, but she came off well in here to. Even a cameo by James Brown, that should have felt shoehorned in or as calling in a favor, came off natural in the development of the story.
So, this isn’t a terrible film and there is come comedy to be found here…it just isn’t where I think they had hoped it was.
The movie is free with commercials on Peacock right now.