For starters, producer Michael Phillips was an Academy Award winner (for The Sting<\/em>) whose most recent credits included Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/em> and Taxi Driver<\/em>. Arkush also secured the services of composer John Williams, editor Tina Hirsch (a fellow New World vet), and visual effects specialist Albert Whitlock, whose career stretched back five decades. The ace up his sleeve, however, was Stan Winston, whose special makeup effects earned Heartbeeps<\/em> its only Oscar nomination. (That it lost the first Best Makeup award is nothing to be ashamed about, since the winner was Rick Baker for An American Werewolf in London<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Winston\u2019s brief was to transform stars Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters into \u201cCom-series\u201d units from General Motors Robotics Inc. (The year isn\u2019t specified, but the setting is clearly the not-too-distant future, when product placement is possible because the brands are still the same.) Described by Vincent Canby in his New York Times<\/em> review<\/a> as looking \u201cformidably uncomfortable,\u201d Winston\u2019s makeup has the effect of limiting the actors\u2019 movements as well their expressiveness, but since the story is about two robots slowly revealing the depths of their feelings for each other, this actually works to a degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When he\u2019s introduced, Kaufman\u2019s ValCom 17485 is being placed in storage in a GM warehouse while awaiting minor repairs. Before the opening titles are over, he\u2019s joined by Peters\u2019s AquaCom 89045 and they watch the sunset together. She\u2019s programmed for poolside chitchat, so her first attempt at small talk sails over Val\u2019s head (he\u2019s more versed in lumber and the stock market), but over time they figure out how to relate in a meaningful way. \u201cWe would be mechanically compatible for many similar functions,\u201d Val observes, to which Aqua replies, \u201cThe same thought just crossed my grid.\u201d Their dialogue continues in this mode for the balance of the film; they spend little time in the company of humans, so there\u2019s no opportunity to learn how to speak in a less-stilted manner, as when John Connor gives the T-800 language lessons in Terminator 2<\/em>. Their traveling companions provide some variety, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first to join their unsanctioned field trip to the edge of woods (for the purpose of collecting data) is cigar-chomping comedian Catskil 55602, who rattles off a stream of corny jokes provided by Henny Youngman. Later, Val and Aqua create a robot to carry their spare parts and name it Phil, then argue about who should be responsible for looking after it. And in hot pursuit of the renegade robots is the trigger-happy, tank-like Crimebuster Deluxe 00719, the antics of which play less like satire and more like an accurate reflection of modern policing methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As characters, the humans in Heartbeeps<\/em> seem like afterthoughts, revealing the limits of screenwriter John Hill\u2019s world-building. Randy Quaid and Kenneth McMillan play GM employees tasked with finding the runways (with Dick Miller as the watchman who notices they\u2019re missing and may, in fact, be another incarnation of Walter Paisley<\/a>). Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel appear briefly as the host and one of the guests of a party Crimebuster crashes in its overzealous pursuit. And Christopher Guest and Melanie Mayron are a couple who run the junkyard where the robots wind up. That\u2019s also where they have their big showdown with Crimebuster, which goes down in defeat, but Heartbeeps<\/em> ends how it began, with the militaristic menace monologuing as it commits acts of wanton destruction \u2013 a sure sign of studio tinkering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hopes may still have been high for Heartbeeps<\/em> in the halls of Universal since it was given a Christmas release, as referenced in the Catskil-narrated trailer. The film bombed at the box office, though, and was nominated in six categories by the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, which was in existence from 1978 to 2006, yet somehow this is the first I\u2019ve heard of them. (Also up for six Stinker Awards that year: Michael Mann\u2019s Thief<\/em>.) Chastened by its reception, Arkush was determined to do something more personal, developing a film around his memories of working at the Fillmore East. What was intended as a straight period piece came out the other end of the process as the raucous rock \u2019n\u2019 roll comedy Get Crazy<\/em> \u2013 a spiritual sequel to Rock \u2019n\u2019 Roll High School<\/em> \u2013 but at least he could be proud of the result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHeartbeeps\u201d is available to rent or stream from <\/em>the usual places<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/heartbeeps2-1024x533.jpg\")
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