Directed By: Lawrence Bassoff
Starring: Patrick Houser, Chip McAllister, D.W. Brown
Tag line: "72 Hours of liberty to forget everything the navy taught them"
Trivia: When shown on TV in Germany, this film's title was changed to Come to the Navy, Baby
Weekend Pass, an ‘80s sex comedy about four Navy recruits enjoying a weekend of freedom in Los Angeles, fizzles out way before the final credits roll.
With their training at an end, four Navy seamen are granted a 72-hour pass, and head to Los Angeles for a wild weekend of sex and debauchery. Once they’ve settled in, Webster Adams (Patrick Houser) gets in touch with former college classmate Cindy Hazard (Hilary Shepard) in the hopes she’ll show him a good time. Bunker Hill (Chip McAllister), who grew up in L.A., falls for aerobics instructor Tina (Pamela G. Kay), then spends most of the weekend trying to hook up with her; while Paul Fricker (D.W. Brown), who considers himself a funny guy, arranges to perform a stand-up routine at a popular comedy club. As for Lester Gidley (Peter Ellenstein), he’s working up the nerve to call the niece of his commanding officer, to ask her out on a blind date.
Not everything will go according to plan for these four recruits, but by the time the weekend is over, they’ll have forged a bond of friendship that will likely last forever.
Weekend Pass gets off to a decent start, with the main characters visiting a strip club (Webster makes a bet with the others that he can get the phone number of sexy stripper Tuesday Del Munco, played by Sara Costa, only to fall flat on his face while talking to her). From there, it’s off to Venice Beach to check out some bikini babes (and, apparently, as we see in one of the film’s many montages, play with a few wind-up toys on the boardwalk).
From this point on, though, Weekend Pass is more of a hit and miss affair. I liked the sequence where Bunker Hill, while showing his fellow recruits around the old neighborhood, squares off against Bertram (Grand L. Bush), the new leader of the street gang that Bunker himself once ran with, but an extended scene in which Lester gets a massage from a topless Asian beauty (Cheryl Song) fails to generate a single laugh.
Things go from bad to worse as Weekend Pass progresses; the best part of the comedy club sequence (which drags on way too long) is that if features late comedian Phil Hartman in an early film role (he plays Joe Chicago, the emcee of the club’s amateur night). As for the movie’s finale, which tries to throw some sentimentality into the mix, it is almost painful to watch.
I was shocked to discover that Weekend Pass was a box office hit for Crown International, pulling in just over $21 million during its theatrical run. I wonder if all those people who paid to see this movie felt as cheated by it as I do. A sex comedy with no sex and hardly any laughs, Weekend Pass is a waste of time.