A woefully misbegotten comedy dud, BIG MAN ON CAMPUS was originally to be called "The Hunchback of UCLA" but utilized USC for its location photography instead.
The action takes place at an understandably anonymous LA County college, where rumors persist of a misshapen monster at large. It's really a feral hunchback, portrayed by screenwriter Allan Katz with a rag mop on his head and pillows under his shirt. This goon was a mistreated child who ran away
from home, and now lives like a hermit in the bell tower. Scanning students with a scavenged telescope, the hunchback loses his heart to golden-tressed coed Cathy (Melora Hardin). When he mistakenly believes her to be in danger, the neo-caveman swings down from his lair and is captured by campus
cops.
School authorities decide to try and civilize the controversial misfit. Mouthy psychology major Alex Kaminsky (Corey Parker), who happens to be Cathy's boyfriend, gets to be the hunchback's live-in guardian while behaviorist Diane Girard (Cindy Williams) sets about teaching "Bob," as the wildman
decides to call himself. Bob turns out to be a savant, and studies so feverishly that he's soon lecturing a philosophy class. But he's still infatuated with Cathy and proposes marriage to her. She gently rejects him for Alex, and anti-Bob psychologist Dr. Fisk (Jessica Harper) tricks the troubled
hunchback into a disoriented panic. He's chased from campus by security guards and hunted as a dangerous fugitive. When a foaming right-wing TV commentator, Stanley Hoyle (Gerrit Graham, imitating Morton Downey, Jr.), ridicules Bob on the air, the hunchback breaks into the studio and proves his
innocence before cheering crowds, a wrap-up so ineptly staged that it's physically painful to watch.
Allan Katz, longtime writer for TV comedy shows like "Rhoda" and "M*A*S*H," first penned his Quasimodo takeoff in 1980 and pushed hard to bring it to the screen. At one point, after numerous rewrites, it was set to go at 20th Century-Fox, with Danny DeVito directing. That deal fell through, and
the newly formed Vestron Pictures picked up the property, now with Jeremy Paul Kagan (THE CHOSEN) in charge. Alas, BIG MAN ON CAMPUS proved to be one of the nails in the coffin of Vestron, the production-company outgrowth of the pioneering tape distributor Vestron Video. Vestron's movie division
scored an international hit with DIRTY DANCING, but subsequent films were disappointments or disasters, and the company sank beneath waves of red ink. BIG MAN ON CAMPUS died in theaters after a brief 1989 exposure, and it was to have come out on video soon after. But Vestron Video dissolved,
shelving the tape until 1991, when rival LIVE Home Video acquired the Vestron inventory and released the straggler for benefit of the morbidly curious.
"The potential for miscasting is enormous," said Katz, defending his decision to be on the safe side and portray the hunchback himself. Those proved to be famous last words, for from the instant Katz lopes into full view the picture is in big trouble. With his gangling limbs, Grateful Dead hair
and puppy-dog smile, "Bob" looks more like the Hunchback of Woodstock than Notre Dame. Having a more fearsome-looking actor in the role would at least have gotten the show off on the right (club)foot. But no amount of acting skills could have salvaged the film as a whole. It's part slob comedy and
part sentimental slop, and not too funny or effective either way. There's a demi-laugh when Bob finds Olivier's RICHARD III on TV, and some wit in Alex's continual wiseguy patter before it grows tiresome. Cindy Williams does what she can as the researcher who becomes Bob's true love; apart from
risque malaprops between the pair the movie makes acceptable fare for undemanding children. leave a comment
