Risky Business

For other uses, see Risky Business (disambiguation).

Risky Business
Theatrical release poster by Drew Struzan
Directed by	Paul Brickman
Written by	Paul Brickman
Produced by	Jon Avnet Steve Tisch
Starring	Tom Cruise Rebecca De Mornay
Cinematography	Bruce Surtees Reynaldo Villalobos
Edited by	Richard Chew
Music by	Tangerine Dream
Production company	The Geffen Film Company
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	August 5, 1983 (1983-08-05)
Running time	99 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6.2 million
Box office	$63.5 million

Risky Business is a 1983 American coming-of-age teen comedy film written and directed by Paul Brickman (in his directorial debut) and starring Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay. It follows the sexual exploits of high school senior Joel Goodson (Cruise), who is staying home alone during his parents' vacation trip and meets a call girl named Lana (De Mornay). The film is considered to be Cruise's breakout role.

Risky Business was released theatrically in the United States by Warner Bros. on August 5, 1983. A commercial and critical success, the film grossed more than $63 million at the box office, making it the tenth-highest-grossing film of 1983 in the United States, and received acclaim, with many comparing it to The Graduate (1967). Cruise's performance earned him the first Golden Globe Award nomination of his career.

Retrospective critical analysis has recognized Risky Business as one of the best high school and teen films of all time.

Plot

High school senior Joel Goodsen lives with his wealthy parents in the Chicago North Shore community of Glencoe. His father wants him to attend Princeton University, his alma mater, and arranges an interview for Joel with one of its admissions officers. Meanwhile, Joel worries about his SAT scores and his participation in Future Enterprisers, an extracurricular activity in which high school students work in teams to create small businesses.

When Joel's parents leave on a trip, his friend Miles encourages him to relax and enjoy his newfound freedom. On his first night home alone, Joel raids his parents' liquor cabinet, plays the stereo loudly, and dances around the living room in his briefs to "Old Time Rock and Roll". On the second night, Miles arranges for an escort named Jackie to visit Joel. Jackie turns out to be a burly, cross-dressing Black man, so Joel pays him simply to leave. As Jackie departs, he gives Joel the number of another escort, Lana. Unable to sleep, Joel hesitantly calls Lana, who turns out to be an attractive young woman, and the two spend the night together.

The next morning, Lana asks Joel for $300 (equivalent to $792 in 2024) for her services. He goes to the bank, but when he returns, she is gone, along with his mother's expensive Steuben glass egg. Joel and Miles later pick Lana up downtown and demand the egg back, but her pimp, Guido, interrupts them and pulls a gun. After driving off in his father's prized Porsche 928, Joel outmaneuvers Guido during a car chase. Lana tells Joel that the egg is with the rest of her belongings at Guido's apartment. Joel allows her to stay at his house while he goes to school. When he returns home, Lana has invited another prostitute, Vicki, to stay, but Joel objects. The women leave, only to encounter Guido on the front lawn, where they tell him that they now work for Joel. To avoid further escalation, Joel reluctantly agrees to let them stay for one more night.

Later that night, Joel, Lana, Vicki, and Joel's friend Barry go out and get high on marijuana. After Lana accidentally bumps the Porsche out of gear while retrieving her purse, the car slowly rolls down a hill and onto a pier. Despite Joel's desperate attempt to stop it, the pier collapses, and the Porsche sinks into Lake Michigan. When Joel takes the car to a body shop, he is horrified by the repair cost. To pay for it, he decides to host a large pay-to-enter party in his home while simultaneously turning it into a brothel for one night, staffed by Lana's co-workers.

Donning Ray-Ban sunglasses and a sport coat, Joel adopts a laid-back business persona and convinces many of his male peers to pay for admission to the party. However, he is unaware that Princeton admissions officer Bill Rutherford is scheduled to arrive that same night for their planned interview. Their conversation is repeatedly interrupted by partygoers, and Rutherford remains unimpressed by Joel's average academic record. Believing his chances of admission to have vanished, Joel jokingly resigns himself to attending the University of Illinois instead. He and Lana drive to a Chicago "L" train, where they have sex.

The brothel venture proves to be a huge success, prompting Rutherford to remain at the party. After retrieving the repaired Porsche the following day, Joel discovers that his house has been burglarized. He tries to call Lana, but Guido answers and tells Joel that he will have to buy back the furniture. Joel and his friends manage to move everything back into the house just as his parents return home, though his mother confronts him after noticing a crack in the glass egg. Later, Joel's father congratulates him, revealing that Rutherford was impressed by Joel and recommended his admission to Princeton.

Joel subsequently meets Lana at a restaurant, where they speculate about their future together. Lana tells Joel that she wants to continue seeing him, and he jokes that it will cost her.

Cast

• Tom Cruise as Joel Goodsen
• Rebecca De Mornay as Lana
• Joe Pantoliano as Guido
• Nicholas Pryor as Mr. Goodsen
• Janet Carroll as Mrs. Goodsen
• Richard Masur as Bill Rutherford
• Curtis Armstrong as Miles Dalby
• Bronson Pinchot as Barry
• Shera Danese as Vicki
• Raphael Sbarge as Glenn
• Bruce A. Young as Jackie
• Kevin Anderson as Chuck
• Nathan Davis as Business Teacher
• Fern Persons as Lab Teacher
• Anne Lockhart as Babysitter
• Megan Mullally as call girl

Production

Sean Penn, Gary Sinise, Kevin Bacon, John Cusack and Tom Hanks all auditioned for the role of Joel Goodsen. Michelle Pfeiffer was offered the role of Lana, but turned it down.

Filming took place from mid-July to late November 1982 in locations throughout the Chicago metropolitan area.

Soundtrack

Main article: Risky Business (soundtrack)

The film was scored by Tangerine Dream. Their music comprises nearly half of the soundtrack album. Also included are songs by Muddy Waters, Prince ("DMSR"), Jeff Beck, Journey, Phil Collins ("In the Air Tonight"), and the song for which the film is best known, "Old Time Rock and Roll" by Bob Seger.

The film also includes "Hungry Heart" by Bruce Springsteen, "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, and "Swamp" by Talking Heads. The LP and CD versions of the soundtrack include two different versions of "Love on a Real Train (Risky Business)," both of which are different recordings from the version used in the film for the final love scene or closing credits.

Release

Risky Business premiered in New York and Los Angeles on August 5, 1983.

Home media

The film was first released DVD on August 20, 1997, and on Blu-ray by Warner Bros. in 2008. Extra features included audio commentary with the director and Cruise, a featurette titled The Dream Is Always the Same: The Story of “Risky Business”, an alternate ending, screen tests and trailer. The Criterion Collection released the film on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray disc on July 23, 2024, with a new 4K digital restoration of both the director's cut and original theatrical release, with bonus material from the 2008 Blu-ray release. New special features include interviews with Avnet and casting director Nancy Klopper and a conversation between editor Richard Chew and film historian Bobbie O’Steen.

Reception

Box office

The film opened in 670 theaters, with an opening weekend gross of $4,275,327. It went on to gross a total of $63.5 million domestically.

Critical response

The film holds a 93% rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes based on 54 reviews, with an average of 7.3/10, with the site's consensus stating; "Featuring one of Tom Cruise's best early performances, Risky Business is a sharp, funny examination of teen angst that doesn't stop short of exploring dark themes".

Risky Business is considered by many critics as one of the best films of 1983. Janet Maslin, in her 1983 review of the film for The New York Times, called it "part satire, part would-be suburban poetry and part shameless showing off" and said the film "shows an abundance of style", though "you would be hard pressed to find a film whose hero's problems are of less concern to the world at large." She called De Mornay "disarming as a call girl who looks more like a college girl" and credits Cruise with making "Joel's transformation from straight arrow to entrepreneur about as credible as it can be made".

Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave Risky Business his top rating of 4-stars, saying while the concept at a glance might seem trite, the film was actually "one of the smartest, funniest, most perceptive satires in a long time" that "not only invites comparison with The Graduate it earns it." He praised Cruise for effectively personifying "male adolescent guilt" and also lauded DeMornay for rising above what could have been a type of stock character to create a "very complicated young woman". Brickman's script was highlighted as the "very best thing about the movie is its dialogue."

Variety said the film was like a "promising first novel, with all the pros and cons that come with that territory" and complimented Brickman on "the stylishness and talent of his direction".

Accolades

Year	Award	Category	Nominated work	Result	Ref.
1984	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy	Tom Cruise	Nominated
	Writers Guild of America Awards	Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screenplay	Paul Brickman	Nominated

Legacy

The remastered 25th-anniversary edition offers "both the upbeat studio ending and Mr. Brickman's original, more tentative and melancholic conclusion".

In 2015 the film was No. 31 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies. The magazine called the film a "sharp satire of privileged suburban teens", portraying the "soul-crushing pressure to be perfect."

In the years since the film's release, the iconic scene featuring Cruise's character sliding across the floor, dancing in just his pink shirt, socks, and white briefs to Bob Seger's rendition of "Old Time Rock and Roll" has been recreated in episodes of many television series, as well as in films, parodies, viral videos and advertisements. The song was No. 100 on AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs list.

External links

• Risky Business at IMDb
• Risky Business at Box Office Mojo
• Risky Business at Rotten Tomatoes
• Risky Business at Discogs (list of releases)