JERRY ZUCKER, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker had a problem. It was one entirely of their own making, but a problem nonetheless. In 1980, they were flying high on the back of the enormous success of Airplane!, their disaster-movies spoof that, thanks to its relentless pacing and incessant bombardment of visual gags and inspired wordplay, all delivered with the straightest of faces by the straightest of actors, had very quickly been elevated into the comedic pantheon.
Immediately, they began to concern themselves with their follow-up project, and wanted to remain in the sphere of spoofery. They initially talked about a movie which would target cop dramas and film noir, before reconfiguring it as the TV show Police Squad!, which would be cancelled after just six wildly misunderstood episodes (and would then be reconfigured a few years later as The Naked Gun). Bloodied but unbowed by that bump in the road, they started talking about ideas for their next movie. Airplane! had been a micro-specific, quasi-remake of a 1957 disaster movie called Zero Hour!, and Police Squad! had been a piss-take of police dramas. For their next movie, though, they were torn between embracing two topics: World War II movies and Elvis Presley flicks. Naturally, the trio decided to do them both. At the same time. And thus, Top Secret! was born.
Shorn of the strictures of structure, Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (who shall henceforth be known as ZAZ, because a) that’s their accepted common moniker, and b) we’ll run out of space otherwise) concocted a story so rampantly ridiculous that there’s virtually no point in recounting it, because nobody will believe you. All you need to know is that Val Kilmer, in his debut role, plays Nick Rivers, a rock star who is invited to East Germany at a point in time that could either be immediately after World War II, or the 1960s, or just after the Jimmy Carter Presidency (or all three), and ends up battling Nazis with the aid of the French Resistance and the woman he loves. And we haven’t even mentioned the bit where Nick’s manager is killed after impaling himself on a sex toy called The Anal Intruder.