The New York Times summed up the essence of this film:
Aging lifeguards are suspect, to themselves as well as to other people, in the California youth culture. Should they be put to sleep? Should they be sent to rehabilitation camps in Nebraska to learn a new trade? Should they be allowed to stay on the job as long as they can perform their duties? Should they be treated with the same respect given 22-year-olds?
Important questions all, if not quite the same ones Ingmar Bergman might have asked. My suggestion: the ritual of Carousel when they turn 301.
Oh sure, this is a shallow subject, but it’s one that fascinated the entire world. Not so long after this film ran its course, the world’s fascination with the California beach culture made Baywatch perhaps the most popular TV show in history, seen each week at its acme by 1.1 billion people in 48 languages spanning 142 countries.
As you know if you follow this blog, I lived and worked in something like 50 countries, and people outside the States would inevitably ask me about two subjects: Frank Sinatra and Baywatch.
America’s true gifts to the world.
Footnote #1 – It’s a reference to Logan’s Run, a cheesy (but fun) sci-fi film from the 70s.
A video
Sam Elliot still around…
One of the great character actors. He’s obviously limited in that you won’t see Sam Elliot’s Hamlet any time soon, but he’s one of those guys that makes any movie better.
Is this the only film Anne Archer nudity?
Body Evidence (1993)
The Man in the Attic (1995)
She did do a very brief side-butt shot for Robert Altman in Short Cuts, but all of her other nudity in the 1990s, when she was pushing 50, was done by a body double.
Archer’s body doubles in Nails and The Man in the Attic were not named, but Shelley Michelle claims that she has doubled for Archer, so it had to be in one or both of those two films, because we know it wasn’t in Body of Evidence. Producer Steven Deutsch has confirmed that Shawn Lusader did the nude scenes for Archer in Body of Evidence because the actress was too modest.
Lusader was the organizer of the Body of Doubles Committee, or B.O.D., an informal group of 50 women and men who were fighting for better compensation, improved working conditions and credit for screen doubling. Doubles in that era were paid a measly $75 per day for their work.
Here is Archer’s ever-so-brief flash of butt in Short Cuts:
In Wild Orchid, Archer used more than a body double for the see-through scene – she used an acting double. (She was originally cast as Claudia, the role ultimately played by Jacqueline Bisset, but dropped out, allegedly because of the erotic content.)