Bedtime for Bonzo | |
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Directed by | Fred de Cordova |
Screenplay by | Val Burton Lou Breslow |
Story by | Ted Berkman Raphael David Blau |
Produced by | Michael Kraike |
Starring | Ronald Reagan Diana Lynn |
Cinematography | Carl E. Guthrie |
Edited by | Ted Kent |
Music by | Frank Skinner |
Color process | Black and white |
Production company | Universal International Pictures |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 83 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $1,225,000 (rentals) [3] |
Bedtime for Bonzo is a 1951 American comedy film directed by Fred de Cordova and starring Ronald Reagan, Diana Lynn, and a chimpanzee named Peggy as Bonzo. [4] Its central character, a psychology professor (Reagan), tries to teach human morals to a chimpanzee, hoping to solve the "nature versus nurture" question. [5]
A sequel, Bonzo Goes to College , was released in 1952, but featured none of the three lead performers from the original film.
Valerie Tillinghast, daughter of a prominent college dean, is engaged to psychology professor Peter Boyd. When Tillinghast’s father discovers that Peter is the son of a former criminal, he forbids the marriage, declaring Peter's blood to be tainted, in line with his strong belief in heredity as an influence on character. As Peter believes equally strongly in the opposite, he aims to prove that he can raise a chimpanzee as one would a human child in a law-abiding household.
After acquiring a chimpanzee named Bonzo from colleague Hans Neumann, Peter seeks a nanny, ultimately settling on a young woman named Jane. Together, they act as Bonzo's parents, teaching him good habits and providing the simulation of a loving family environment. One afternoon, Bonzo inadvertently turns on the vacuum cleaner and leaps out of the window in alarm, climbing a tree. Jane takes chase, and Bonzo jumps back into the house and dials the emergency services as he has been instructed to do. He then returns to the tree and removes the ladder, leaving Jane stranded until Peter can help her. Valerie arrives just as the firemen are helping them down and misreads the situation, angrily returning Peter's ring.
Tillinghast warns that Bonzo is to be sold to Yale University for medical research, and Jane overhears Peter and Neumann discussing the imminent end of the experiment. As she's developed romantic feelings for Peter, Jane is so shocked that she allows Bonzo to escape on his tricycle. Peter follows him to a jewelry store, where Bonzo grabs a necklace. When Bonzo refuses to return it, Peter tries to do so himself, only to be arrested. Jane instructs Bonzo to surrender the necklace as he has been taught; he obediently returns to the store and replaces it where he had found it in the window. With the experiment judged a success, Tillinghast decides not to sell Bonzo and bestows his blessing on Peter and Jane's impending marriage.
During production Reagan was nearly suffocated by the chimpanzee when it pulled on Reagan's necktie. After he broke free the tie had to be cut off Reagan's neck by a crewmember. [6]
A. H. Weiler of The New York Times called the film "a minor bit of fun yielding a respectable amount of laughs but nothing, actually, over which to wax ecstatic." [7] Variety described it as "a lot of beguiling nonsense with enough broad situations to gloss over plot holes ... Cameras wisely linger on the chimp's sequences and his natural antics are good for plenty of laughter." [8] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post wrote, "If you can stomach all this, you'll find some giggles in this farce, which is okay when paying attention to the recently deceased chimp, but is perfectly terrible when trying to tell its story. Ronald Reagan, as the naive professor of things mental, must have felt like the world's sappiest straight man playing this silly role, and the others aren't much better off." [9]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67%, based on 12 reviews, with an average rating of 5.83/10. [10]
As president, Reagan screened the film for staff and guests at Camp David. [11]
In 1952, a sequel, Bonzo Goes to College , was released. However, none of the original three leads appeared. Peggy, who had also appeared in My Friend Irma Goes West (1950), died in a fire on March 4, 1951, [12] so another chimpanzee was hired. Reagan declined as he believed the premise implausible. [13]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(January 2018) |
In 1980, Reagan, the film's human lead, was elected President of the United States. Throughout his presidency, the perceived absurdity of the nation's chief executive having co-starred in a film with a chimpanzee was frequently mined for humor by Reagan's critics and other commentators, though Reagan himself remained proud of the film.
Dame Jane Morris Goodall, formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English zoologist, primatologist and anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, after 60 years' studying the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees. Goodall first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania to observe its chimpanzees in 1960.
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Bedtime for Democracy is the fourth and final studio album by American punk rock band Dead Kennedys. Released in 1986, songs on this album cover common punk subjects often found in punk rock lyrics of the era such as conformity, Reaganomics, the U.S. military, and critique of the hardcore punk movement. The album's title refers to the 1951 comedy film, Bedtime for Bonzo starring Ronald Reagan and also reflects the band's weary bitterness from the trial they were undergoing at the time over the controversial art included with their previous album. By the time recording of Bedtime for Democracy had begun, the Dead Kennedys had already played what would be their last concert with Jello Biafra and announced their breakup immediately after the release of the record, whose opening track is a cover of David Allan Coe's "Take This Job and Shove It."
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Bonzo may mean:
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Bonzo Goes to College is a 1952 American comedy film directed by Frederick De Cordova and starring Maureen O'Sullivan, Edmund Gwenn, Charles Drake, Gigi Perreau, Gene Lockhart, and Bonzo. It is a sequel to the 1951 film Bedtime for Bonzo.
Ronald Reagan was an American actor whose first screen credit was the starring role in the movie Love Is on the Air (1937). He later starred in Brother Rat (1938). By the end of 1939, he had already appeared in 19 films. Reagan later played the role of George Gipp in the film Knute Rockne, All American (1940) before appearing in Santa Fe Trail (1940). Reagan portrayed Drake McHugh in Kings Row (1942), which many film critics consider to be his best movie performance. During World War II, Reagan, worked in the Provisional Task Force Show Unit of This Is the Army (1943). By the end of the war, he had produced some 400 training films for the Army Air Force.
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