image/svg+xml What happens when a portly man in his 60s named Thornton Melon enrolls in college to be with his son? What happens when that man is a loutish, impulsive, and outspoken clothing magnate with no academic background but loads of practical life lessons? When that man is played by Rodney Dangerfield, the result is Back to School, the sixth-highest-grossing film of 1986. The premise of the old man returning to college wasn't new. Just the year before, Disney aired a made-for-TV movie, The Undergrads, starring Art Carney. Bing Crosby had done it in Blake Edwards's High Time (1960), including the subplot of falling in love with the teacher. The difference is while Bing sang ("The Second Time Around"), Rodney was a bit more direct. To a woman at the bookstore: "I'd like to tame your shrew. " Describing his awful second wife Vanessa, he says, "She gives good headache. " Back to School is not for the woke of heart. In fact, a trigger warning may be in order: When a female student tells Thornton her favorite subject is poetry, he replies, "Maybe you can straighten out my Longfellow. " His chain of department stores is called Tall & Fat. Needless to say, the jokes target the fat ("When you go to the zoo, do the elephants throw you peanuts? "). And when he looks for his son in a sorority house—mistaking it for a fraternity—he walks into a shower, pulls open a curtain, and asks, "Have you seen Jason? " A naked nubile coed screams. He shuts the curtain, then opens it briefly, eyes agog, adding, "You’re perfect. "
Speaking of eyes agog, Rodney Dangerfield is not the most obvious leading man (in a year that featured leading men Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe). He was 64 at the time but, as Jay Nordlinger noted in his review of Nothin' Comes Easy, Dangerfield didn't make it big until his appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, when he was 45. Then came regular stints on The Tonight Show, countless comedy club acts, and Caddyshack in 1980, which catapulted him to Hollywood stardom. Except the follow-on movie, Easy Money (1983), was both a critical and commercial flop. Thankfully Orion Pictures was willing to give Dangerfield another shot. It paid off—Back to School finished the year with $91 million, edging out James Cameron's Aliens. So what made Back to School a box office smash? Whereas Easy Money featured Rodney doing his shtick, without a compelling angle (he needs to "behave" in order to inherit his mother-in-law’s fortune), the bits come off as obnoxious or flat ("skimpy in the joke department and flabby in every other way," wrote the Hartford Courant).