Director
William Huyck
Cast
Lea Thompson - Beverly Switzler
Tim Robbins - Phil Blumburtt
Jeffrey Jones - Dr. Walter Jenning
Ed Gale - Howard T. Duck
Chip Zien - Voice of Howard
When I came up with the idea to check out a bunch of underrated, or lesser known comic book-based films starting with 1945's Dick Tracy, Detective, I had absolutely no desire nor intention to review the infamous Marvel movie Howard the Duck.
Despite its place on the list of worst movies ever made, it's far from being an obscure picture, especially since it was produced by George Lucas.
It's worth mentioning that before Howard the Duck, Marvel Comic's last theatrical release was the Captain America serial from 1944.
Anyways, like so many other bad movies, Howard the Duck certainly has a cult following.
I recently introduced my wife to this mess as she had never seen it before.
"Why would he do that to her?" some might be thinking.
She, like many other Marvel movie fans who hadn't seen Howard was willing enough to watch it just to say they watched it. Her reaction had more "what the's" than laughs. I did make the disclaimer that once you see it, you can't take it back, and you can't wash it off. It'll be a part of you for ever.
I haven't seen this movie in nearly 30 years. And now that I've watched it again with adult eyes, I decided to go ahead and share my thoughts. Why not? I did so with Supergirl (1984).
In the Comics...
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| "Howard the Duck" number one, publish by Marvel Comics, January 1976. |
He made his debut in Marvel Comic's horror series Adventure into Fear number 19, published in 1974.
In this issue, Korrek the Barbarian (a knight warrior and prince of the extradimensional world, Katharta) finds himself in a swamp on earth after being transported there through a jar of peanut butter. (Who says Marvel lacks creativity?)
While confused by his surroundings, and wallowing in his plight, Korrek meets a talking duck who was also somehow transported to earth from another dimension.
The duck later appears in Marvel's Man-Thing volume one, issue one, published in 1974. Here, readers finally learn his name. Howard!
In January 1976, Marvel published Howard's own comic, Howard the Duck number one. It's the first appearance of Beverly Switzler - Howard's companion from Earth.
Howard the Duck number one also features Spider-Man as J. Jonah Jameson sends Peter Parker on a news assignment to Cleveland, where Howard finds himself after being taken from his home world, to cover reports of a talking duck and snap some pictures of it. If only the movie included Spider-Man as well. What could have been!
In the Marvel Universe, Howard, whose real name is Howard Duckson, is from "Duckworld." It's a planet similar to Earth except that intelligent life evolved from water fowl.
He's the son of Ronald and Henrietta, a working class Catholic couple from the city of "New Stork." (Catholic ducks? What will Marvel think up next?)
This makes me wonder what religion other famous ducks subscribe to. Maybe Donald Duck is Catholic as well. He swears like one. The same goes for his wealthy Uncle Scrooge McDuck.
Daffy is surely a Protestant of some kind. Episcopalian is my guess. They're like Junior Varsity Catholics. Like Donald, Daffy can fly into a fit of anger at times, but he's careful not to curse and swear.
Darkwing Duck is probably agnostic at best. And Launchpad McQuack from DuckTales is probably a Scientologist. He's friendly and enthusiastic on the outside. But inside, who knows what's going on in there?
Oh, and Count Duckula - remember him? Yeah! His presence screams snake handler! The Aflac duck probably watches T.V. evangelists on his days off.
Anyways, Howard also has two siblings - Theresa and Orville.
There's so much more in the comics about Howard's arrival on Earth, his taking Beverly back to Duckworld, his battle with Garko, the Man-Frog, and the creation of Alexis the Duck.
Howard's tales are pretty much social satire.
Gerber describes Howard's stories as "existentialist" with the main joke behind it all being that there is no joke.
Mediascene Magazine number 25 features an article about Howard the Duck in which Gerber says, "Life's most serious moments and most incredibly dumb moments are often distinguishable only by a momentary point of view."
The movie's screenwriter, Gloria Katz, says in F.O.O.M (Flashbacks of Ol' Marvel) number 13, "It's a film about a duck from outer space...It's not supposed to be an existential experience...We're supposed to have fun with this concept, but for some reason reviewers weren't able to get over that problem." And that's my mindset as I sit to watch Howard the Duck again for the first time in nearly 30 years.
In the Movie...
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| Lea Thompson as Beverly Switzler in Howard the Duck. |
He checks his answering machine, grabs a beer out of the fridge, turns on the television only to find nothing good on, and then checks out the centerfold in the new issue of PlayDuck magazine.
The room then starts to shake. Howard panics as he can't get up out of his easy-chair.
Suddenly, he and his chair are pulled backwards by an invisible force so strong it pulls him through apartment walls and down the hallway until he's flying (not on his own accord because though he's a duck, he can't fly) out of his apartment, over "Marshington D.C." and into outer space.
Howard crash lands on Earth in a dark alleyway somewhere in Cleveland, Ohio.
Just as soon as he lands, and tries to get a grasp on what he just went through, several punk rockers and a female biker gang all encounter Howard and beat him up to some extent or another. He finally hides in an empty metal barrel where he says to himself, "Talk about a rotten day." Then he hears two guys try to jump a girl.
Howard attacks these low-lifes with "Quack Fu." This movie is full of duck puns.
The guys run off, and the girl, Beverly Switzler (Lea Thompson), thanks Howard despite being not-too-dumbfounded at the reality that a talking duck came to her rescue.
It begins to rain, and Howard is clearly lost.
She invites Howard over to her apartment as he has nowhere to go. After getting to know each other, Howard crashes at her place.
As Beverly covers him with a blanket, Howard's wallet falls on the floor.
She rummages through its contents and finds a "Bloomingducks" and "MallardCard" credit cards.
According to Howard's driver's license, he lives at 3636 Lakeside Drive, Marshington D.C. in the United States of Anatidae.
He's three feet, one inch tall. And his "date of hatch" is Sept. 6, 1958. And he wears corrective lenses.
The next day, Beverly takes him to visit her scientist friend, Phil Blumburtt (Tim Robbins), who works at a Natural History Museum. She hopes he can come up with a way to return Howard to his own planet.
It turns out Blumburtt is just a janitor at the museum. How Beverly didn't know this beforehand is... oh, who cares? Needless to say, this infuriates Howard and Beverly.
They storm off, and then get into an argument outside. Howard says he doesn't need her anymore. So, the distressed Beverly leaves him at the museum.
Now alone, Howard tries to adapt to living on Earth and visits an employment agency. He lands a job as a janitor at a sex spa. (This movie is rated PG, by the way.) He quits after absolute mistreatment from his boss.
He goes back to see Beverly, who sings in the rock band "Cherry Bomb" at a dive night club near where Howard first landed, and apologizes for rejecting her help.
They go back to her apartment after she's done for the night, and then they start flirting.
Just as they're about to break a huge law of nature while in bed together, they're interrupted when Blumburtt walks in with two colleagues, one being Dr. Walter Jenning (Jeffrey Jones).
Jenning tells them the laboratory he works at created a spectroscope that was inadvertently pointed at Howard's planet. It sent out some beams that ultimately dragged him through space to Earth.
Jenning thinks they can send him back to his planet by reversing the process.
When they all arrive at the laboratory, the spectroscope has had a serious malfunction. Little do the researchers know that something else was brought to Earth this time.
It doesn't take too long before Howard, Beverly, and Phil figure that out as Dr, Jenning is slowly taken over by a "Dark Overlord of the Universe."
Soon, Jenning is completely under the Dark Overlord's control, and kidnaps Beverly to use as a vessel for other Overlords he plans to send down to take over the Earth.
Soon, Howard is stuck with the decision to return to Duckworld, or save the Earth by destroying the spectroscope, and his chances to go back home.
Thoughts...
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| Howard takes on a Dark Overlord in Howard the Duck. |
So, the version I was familiar with was censored for language and content. I didn't know the movie had a scene where a female duck, sitting in a bubble bath, is exposing her *ahem* duck breasts. On television, she was covered with soapsuds.
But the near sex scene with Beverly and Howard was included, sadly. Thank God they're interrupted by Blumburtt.
I liked the movie back then the same way I liked any other fantasy puppet show.
My eight-year old self was amused by the live-action movie with a cynical duck as the main character.
Novel ideas, unordinary characters, and silliness that pops out at you (a la Pee Wee's Big Adventure) over storyline is what did it for me back then as far as entertainment goes. Howard fit into my childish narrow scope of what passed for a good movie. Everything else was secondary. A lot of the movie's jokes, lame as they are, went over my small head.
Now, my thoughts have certainly changed.
I'm sure there's little to nothing I can say about Howard the Duck that hasn't been said before. But here we go.
The problems with the movie don't necessarily have to do with premise. Science fiction is science fiction. I'll buy the premise that an alien duck is sucked to Earth against his will, and now has to adapt.
There's potential for an entertaining story with this scenario. If Marvel were to remake Howard the Duck, given the success of their recent films Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, along with the success of the sequels to both of those films, it too could also be a hit. After all, Guardians of the Galaxy features an anthropomorphic racoon named Rocket, and a wise yet laconic walking tree named Groot.
Both of these characters caught on rather well with audiences unfamiliar with the comics they stem from. And I think everyone knows by now about Howard's cameos in both Guardians of the Galaxy films.
And Ant-Man is a story of a superhero who shrinks to the size of an ant. He sounds more like a punchline than a superhero. But those movies were certainly successful.
Howard the Duck is a victim of bad writing all around. The constant duck puns and in-jokes are cheaper than dirty humor. Maybe one or two puns would work well enough, but I counted 18 of them, a bulk of which are in the opening scene of the film.
Even the film's theme song that Beverly performs at the end of the movie, which overall is a catchy song, is full of them such as this line, "Hickory dickory duck. He ain't about to get plucked. Too groovy for gravy, too precious for pâté; he's a funky little feather bearing waterfowl, quack right in their face. Little ducks in the human race, come into my tub of love."
I can't believe someone wrote this, rehearsed it, and were happy with the end result. Gross! If "hickory dickory duck" doesn't make your eyes roll, I don't know what will.
In the movie, nothing is given any time to develop. Things happen, and characters either react in a manner way over the top, or they don't react much at all. Beverly, for instance, doesn't seem as surprised as she should when Howard saves her, and then asks what planet he's on.
"Earth, I think." is her reply.
The moment Howard lands in Cleveland, and starts encountering people, none of them act in a way people would actually act. They're all violent. I guess since they're either punks or members of a female biker gang, that's what was expected of them in 1986. Nothing but violence.
He endures physical attack after physical attack, until finally seeing Beverly who's also being physically attacked.
The sexual "chemistry" (for lack of a better word) between Howard and Beverly is anything but touching and heart-warming. It's downright weird and uncomfortable. It even fails under the premise that love doesn't focus on physical appearances. This isn't a Beauty and the Beast scenario. It's one thing for Beverly to feel sympathy. But they jump right into a kittenish attraction to the point where in one scene Beverly declares Howard is her boyfriend.
Howard is a duck. She's a human. They've only known each other for two or three days. There's nothing for the audience to relate to as far as romance goes. Their strange borderline romantic relationship is completely forced, unsubstantial, totally unnecessary, and weird as hell.
This is even addressed during a scene when Howard, Beverly, and a possessed Dr. Jenning walk into a "Cajun Sushi" diner after nearly crashing their car through the place.
The scene leads to restaurant staff and patrons trying to kill Howard. He and Beverly beg Jenning to save him.
Beverly says "He's my favorite duck!"
Jenning, again under the control of the Dark Overlord, replies "You hardly know him."
All humans are unrealistically monstrous throughout the film. Aside from those wanting to kill Howard, a police investigator desperately wants him in custody. Other police officers clumsily chase him, shooting at him haphazardly, and crashing into property along the way.
Why? We're supposed to believe an alien duck is drop kicked (figuratively speaking) into our reality. But that reality is portrayed poorly and stupidly. Instead the established reality is anything but realistic. It's lazy and far-fetched to the point of complete ridiculousness.
It seems to me the comedy could easily establish itself by having Howard interact with our world without having to portray our world as being full of humans who all act like brutish, bloodthirsty maniacs. Even the employment agent Howard goes to see is rude, demeaning, and insulting.
It's a scenario that could play out naturally with good writing of course. Instead, the comedy comes across as bland, or dry at times, with a ton of duck puns thrown on.
Strange, too, that Howard the "duck" can't fly nor swim. But he addresses his inability to fly when he says "We've got a saying on my planet. If God intended us to fly, he wouldn't have taken away our wings." That managed to make me laugh.
Howard the Duck could certainly use a reboot. I think the plot has potential for good writers to come up with something hilarious, entertaining, and definitely a lot more polished. Marvel Studios has proved it can do as much with characters bordering on outlandish. His cameos in Guardians of the Galaxy seemed to garner excitement and anticipation. He also had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in Avengers:Endgame.
In the meantime, thanks to nostalgia, Howard the Duck sits among other Hollywood oddities like a museum piece, appreciated by some for what it is and where it came from.
And what did my wife think of it? "Hokey" she says.
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| Howard the Duck's scene in Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 (2017). |
