Troop Beverly Hills is based on a one-sentence concept: that a wealthy and pampered Beverly Hills housewife would become a perfectly awful Girl Scout leader. This premise is also the movie’s sole joke, which means there are 90 minutes’ worth of variations.
They aren’t called the Girl Scouts, actually; it’s the Wilderness Girls. But you get the idea. The whole thing is a vehicle for Shelley Long, who gets to do her prissy ostentatious thing throughout.
For some strange reason, she is suffering through a divorce from her husband, Hollywood’s “Muffler King” (Craig T. Nelson), as she takes over the leadership of the eight-member troop. At first it’s intended to be “just a little mother-daughter bonding thing” with her own child. But soon, she’s flinging herself into the robust outdoor life.
Admittedly, the first overnight campout, in the Hollywood Hills, is swamped by the presence of rain. But Long has the presence of mind to secure a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where the gals sit around the fireplace telling scary stories, like the time Long went to Christophe’s to get a wave in her hair and wound up with a perm. Eeee-yooo.
Eventually the girls get around to earning merit badges (such as gem appreciation, for which they visit Rodeo Drive jewelry stores) and they dive wholeheartedly into the cookie sale.
You might think that some of this material would be ripe for social satire; in the hands of a director like Paul Mazursky, perhaps it would be. But as directed by Jeff Kanew (Revenge of the Nerds), the worship of money and worldly goods is just another way of making these kids outsiders – rich nerds.
The movie actually wants you to start rooting for these spoiled brats. Thus they go up against a mean Wilderness Girls officer (Betty Thomas, from Hill Street Blues) who provides enough villainy to put you on the side of the kids from north of Wilshire. Unfortunately, by the time the film serves up its revenge on her, it’s run out of ways of telling the same joke.
The thing that keeps it almost bearable is Long, who vamps around in some appalling fashion creations by Theodora van Runkle. Long is still appealing in her enthusiasm – she seems to want to be the Lucille Ball of the 1990s – but she’s got to get better scrips and stronger support. And make movies, not vehicles.
First published in The Herald, March 16, 1989
Lots of Hollywood cameos, including Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, together, and Pia Zadora. First film for Carlo Gugino and Tori Spelling. This was during Shelley Long’s string of leading roles post-Cheers, most of which were not up to her particular gifts.