Making the Grade

I barely remembered this one from back when I saw it in the VHS days, and I can see why. It's highly unmemorable, despite being Judd Nelson's first starring role and the debut of the Andrew Dice Clay persona. Nelson plays Eddie Keaton, a small-time conman in debt to a local loanshark named "Dice" played by Andrew Dice Clay, who seems to have instantly graduated from playing an annoying wannabe comic in films like 1982's Wacko and this same year's Night Patrol to embodying his ultra-confident stage character in movies. Dana Olsen plays Palmer Woodrow, a spoiled, lazy, rich prick expelled from numerous prep schools whose parents give him one last chance to graduate before cutting him off financially. He comes up with the plan to hire the street-smart high school dropout Eddie to attend the shoddy Hoover Academy in his place while he lives in Europe. Eddie must learn how to fit in with the preppies, which is tough for him, but after he falls for preppie gal Tracey (Jonna Lee), he starts to fill the persona too well. When Palmer returns early from Europe and Dice comes to collect on Eddie's gambling debts before the graduation payoff, the scheme starts to unravel. WKRP in Cincinnati's Gordon Jump plays the hapless headmaster, and Walter Olkewicz (who would gain fame as the sinister Jacques Renault in Twin Peaks) plays the slobbish coach.

This was a Golan-Globus, Cannon Group production, originally made under the working title The Last American Preppie, a reference to The Last American Virgin, Globus & Golan's successful remake of Boaz Davidson's Israeli hit Lemon Popsicle. However, Chuck Vincent, the writer/producer/director of the competing 1984 high school comedy Preppies, filed a complaint with the MPAA over the use of the word "preppie" in the title. The MPAA sided with Vincent, forcing a name change. When the producers could not come up with a better title, they turned the problem into a PR stunt and created a contest during test screenings in which Fort Lauderdale preview audiences who watched this picture under the title Name This Movie were invited to suggest the best name for the film. Eighteen-year-old University of Central Florida student David Thollander suggested the winning title, Making the Grade, which had been an alternate title considered and rejected before the contest. Typical of '80s trends, the term "preppie" was already on its way out. An early ADR like in Martha Coolidge's Joy of Sex has one character tell another that "Preppies are out and Yuppies—young urban professionals—are in."

Golan & Globus were so confident about sequels in 1984 that they released both Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo and shot Missing in Action and Missing in Action 2: The Beginning back-to-back this year. They ended Making the Grade with the promise that the Olsen and Nelson characters Palmer and Eddie would be back in Tourista, but Making the Grade's low box-office numbers meant that the sequel never materialized, which is no great loss.