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Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)
Starring Paul Reubens, Elizabeth Daily, and Mark Holton. Cinematography by Victor J. Kemper. Edited by Billy Weber. Produced by Richard Gilbert Abramson and Robert Shapiro. Written by Phil Hartman, Paul Reubens, and Michael Varhol. Directed by Tim Burton.
In this loose remake of Vittorio de Sica’s Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thief), Pee-wee Herman adventures across America in search of his stolen bicycle. On the way he meets a handful of interesting, and sometimes insane, people that aid him along his quest. The poor fool ends up deep in the heart of Texas wanting to search the basement of the Alamo for his beloved lost bike.
Pee-wee is fun to watch because he is obviously a kid trapped in a grown man’s body. His childish behavior can either been seen as entertainment or nostalgia. The apparent demographic for the picture is children, but parents have been equally entertained with the splash of subtle adult humor. The Big Adventure has even been sited to be laced with homosexual undertones, but you watch and decide for yourself.
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure was co-written by the late legend of comedy, Phil Hartman. In the mid-seventies, Hartman and Reubens worked together at The Groundlings, a Los Angeles comedy club. There they developed the character of Pee-wee Herman. “Pee-wee” became so popular that he eventually spawned his own television series, “The Pee-wee Herman Show”. After the feature film’s amazing success, Reubens continued his character’s zany exploits on the series “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” and the significantly less successful sequel Big Top Pee-wee. The financial achievements of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure brought a lot of attention to Burton and earned him offers on a number of “standard” Hollywood scripts. But as he has shown throughout his career, “standard” scripts aren’t his interest.
Budget: $6,000,000
Total US Gross: $40,940,000
Genre: Adventure
Runtime: 90 Minutes
US Release Date: 8/9/85
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (intended ratio)
Awards: none
Tagline: “The Story of a Rebel and His Bike”
Quote: “Whoever has the bike is obviously the person who stole it. So they don't deserve any rewards.”
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