A tasteless rip-off of American Graffiti (1973), Hollywood Knights was a raucous non-starter whose funniest moment had four members of a college fraternity urinating into a punch bowl.
Set on Halloween night in 1965, the film divided itself into several sub-plots in order to disguise the feebleness of a storyline which involved a group of teenagers taking revenge on the elders of Beverly Hills for closing down Tubby’s Drive-In – the suburb’s only drive-in eatery, and the regular hang-out for the Hollywood Knights Car Club.
Led by Turk (Robert Wuhl), the boys create havoc wherever they go, whether by regularly thwarting the magic career of an obese nerd (Stuart Pankin) or merely spiking the punchbowl at an uptight school function.
One of the group is being sent to fight the good fight in Vietnam tomorrow (did we mention American Graffiti already?), one of them is going off to college, and one has a girlfriend who stands a very good chance of becoming a famous actress and leaving his four-wheel brain very far behind.
Hollywood Knights starred Tony Danza and Michelle Pfeiffer (in their feature film debuts), Fran ‘Nanny’ Drescher, Leigh French, Randy Gornel and Robert Wuhl.
On the plus side, there was a lot of nudity . . . and the high point of the film was arguably the inclusion of songs by The Beach Boys.
Duke Tony Danza Suzie
Michelle Pfeiffer
Sally
Fran Drescher Turk
Robert Wuhl Jacqueline
Leigh French Wheatly
Randy Gornel Jimmy
Gary Graham Smitty
James Jeter Dudley
Stuart Pankin Simpson
P.R. Paul Nevans
Richard Schaal Rimbeau
Gailard Sartain
