Jerry Zucker

Jerry Zucker directed alone Ghost (1990), a romantic thriller that does not want to scare but It is an artful combination of different genres: a ghost story, a thriller, a romantic comedy. wants to move with a romantic story of eternal love. There is a sentimental plot (the love between the couple that not even death can break), a comic one (the medium and her entourage of charlatans, gullible people, and spirits), and a thriller (the friend entangled with the underworld). Well thought out. Sam and Molly love each other tenderly. Sam works in a financial agency together with his best friend Carl and realizes that something is wrong with the database. One night, as Sam and his wife are walking down a narrow alley, a petty thief attacks them. Sam tries to defend himself and is stabbed to death. Molly is devastated, but best friend Carl helps her cope somewhat. Sam is not quite dead, though. He's invisible, but conscious. He sees himself die in the operating room, attends his own funeral, stays close to his wife in their apartment. Sam is a ghost for whom the laws of Physics still apply, except that no one can see or hear him and he cannot interact with objects. And so one day Sam sees his killer break into the house while Molly is out and search the house. When Molly returns, the killer manages to escape without being seen. Sam follows him to his house: his name is Willie, and Sam realizes that Willie was paid to kill him. Sam is desperate because he cannot warn Molly that this gangster is coming back for something, the thing he killed him for. Sam happens to enter the parlor of a charlatan medium, who dupes gullible clients. Sam attends one of the sessions and, surprised, discovers that the medium hears him. The medium, a Black woman, is terrified, because up to that day she was just a fraud and had no idea that she possessed supernatural powers. Sam realizes, however, that he has found the means to communicate with his wife. He continues to stalk the medium until he convinces her to visit his wife and bring her his message. The medium takes a while to convince poor Molly to listen to her, but eventually the amount of intimate facts this female charlatan seems to know about Sam succeeds in getting Molly's attention. The medium thus relates to her what Sam says: that he was premeditatedly murdered, that the murderer's name is Willie, that Willie has already sneaked into the house once and will return. Sam also tells the medium Willie's address. However, the medium recognizes that address as a block of dangerous thugs and, hearing that a murder is involved, she leaves in fear. Molly is uncertain what to do. She seeks advice from best friend Carl, who obviously thinks she is out of her mind and tries to bring her to her senses. Then, to comfort her, he promises to visit the person who lives at that address and see who he is. Sam, who sees and hears everything, is pleased and follows him. Carl goes to see Willie and... it turns out that they are accomplices! It is Carl who asked Willie to rob Sam, as he desperately needs a secret code to transfer a large sum of money. But Carl cannot explain how the medium could discover Willie's identity. Carl still orders Willie to find her and eliminate her. Sam, who has heard everything, is disgusted and desperate: his best friend betrayed him, paid someone to kill him, and now even threatens his wife. Molly goes to the police, but the police do not believe her, partly because the police has a long record of her little scams. Sam is desperate because he has no way to warn Molly about their best friend. Carl goes to see her and tries to seduce her, and Sam witnesses it powerless. Sam then decides to look for a ghost that he saw in the subway who was able to move things with his mind. The ghost teaches Sam how to move objects. Sam returns to the medium. The medium is now haunted by dozens of spirits who want to talk to their relatives (word has spread among the spirits that she understands them). When Sam shows up in the middle of a session, she goes on a rampage and accuses him in front of all the other spirits of ruining her existence. She refuses to help him again. But just then Willie enters and Sam is just in time to tell her who it is so that she can flee before he shoots her. Sam devises a scheme to get Carl into trouble. Sam takes the medium to the bank and, knowing all the details, has her close the bank account on which Carl has blocked dirty money. The medium signs all the papers and comes out with a million-dollar check. Sam forces her, however, to donate the check as charity to some nuns who are begging in the street. When Carl realizes that his dirty money is missing, he pales: he knows the gangsters will kill him. Carl stays late hacking away on the computer. At one point Sam reveals himself: he types "MURDERER" on the keyboard. Carl rushes distraught to Molly's house. He realizes that the medium's story was true: Sam is still with them. Molly reveals to him that she saw the medium at the bank withdrawing money. Alone in the room, Carl realizes that Sam used the medium to withdraw the money. Carl correctly suspects that Sam is right there and shouts a blackmail: if Sam does not return the money, Carl will kill Molly. First, Sam warns the medium, because obviously Carl is on her trail. Then he goes to terrorize Willie to death. Sam can now move objects and starts a pandemonium. Willie runs terrified into the street and is hit by a truck. Once dead, Willie sees Sam for a moment, but then is dragged away by evil spirits (to hell, presumably). Sam takes the medium to Molly and manages to convince Molly that it is indeed him. He even manages to put a penny in her hand. He explains to her (again through the medium) that Carl is the author of everything and will come back to kill her. Molly finally obeys and calls the police. But Carl arrives before the police and the two women have to make a hasty escape down the fire escape stairs. Carl is furious, catches up with them, takes Molly hostage and yells at Sam to give him back his money. Sam, using his mental force, manages to move big objects and Carl is eventually killed by a glass window falling on him. Carl suffers the same fate as Willie: for a moment he sees Sam, then evil spirits carry him away. It's all over. For a moment the miracle takes place: Molly sees and hears Sam. These are the ghost's last moments, however, and he is swallowed up in a whirlpool of light. First Knight (1995) Rat Race (2001) Jerry Zucker produced and his brother David directed and wrote the sequel The Naked Gun 2 1/2 - The Smell of Fear (1991), with a legendary gag of the detective climbing to a roof only to find out that his harpoon had harpooned a ferocious guard dog. Among the gags are the "Sex, Frank?" gag and the gag about Ed's wife being pregnant ("If i catch who did it..."). The president of the USA chairs a dinner for executives of the various energy corporations, notably the oil and nuclear industries, attended by the police chief and by hapless bumbling hero Frank of Police Squad. During the dinner Frank repeatedly injures the president's wife and makes a mess of a lobster, but the attention is on the president who announces that he will decide the energy policy of the USA based on the recommendation of a wheelchair-bound scientist, Dr. Meinheimer. This greatly upsets the oil and nuclear executives because it is known that the scientist leans towards solar and wind. After leaving Frank, the beautiful Jane works in the lab of this scientist and one night notices a red van parked in front of the building. Minutes later a janitor finds a bomb in a wastebin which he mistakes for a clock and which the security guards mistake for a clock. They are all killed in the explosion. When Frank and his buddy police captain Ed arrive, there are dead bodies everywhere. That's when Frank and Jane meet again, both pretending that they moved on from their relationship. Jane just started dating the rich and powerful oil executive Quentin. We then see that this Quentin is plotting to hijack the president's plan: he has hired a man to impersonate Dr. Meinheimer and has kidnapped the real one, so that the fake one will advise the president to choose oil over wind and solar. Frank and Ed track down the thug who was driving the red van, Hector, and find out that he works for Quentin, but Jane thinks that Frank is just being jealous. Nordberg pretends to be a mechanic and is planting a tracking device under the thug's car when the thug starts driving. Nordberg is stuck under the car and dragged around with the tracking device. When finally released, Nordberg slides down a steep hill towards the police car driven by Frank and Ed, who see the signal coming closer and closer. They don't realize that Nordberg is now stuck under their car and drag him around the city until finally he gets released but then stuck under a bus headed for Detroit, all the time screaming in vain for help. To arrest the thug, who is surrounded by the police in a house but refuses to surrender, Frank drives a military tank into the house but loses control of the vehicle that keeps destroying building until it makes a hole in the zoo, letting dozens of wild animals escape. Frank meets Dr. Meinheimer again at a party but this time the scientist, who is known to have a photographic memory, does not remember him. Frank and Jane dance together making Quentin jealous (a comically acrobatic dance). Frank visits Jane in her apartment and mentions that fact and Jane ridicules the idea that this could be a double of the real scientist, something that Frank had not thought of but now becomes his theory. Jane takes a shower (reminiscent of Hitchcock's "Psycho") and the thug enters the bathroom to kill her but starts singing the song that she's humming, so that she can scream and Frank can kill him (not before both thug and detective remain hypnotized for a few seconds in front of her naked body!) Jane now believes Frank that Quentin is a criminal. Jane and Frank make love simulating a famous scene from Zucker's film "Ghost". Frank and Ed lead a police operation to raid Quentin's warehouse where the real scientist is held captive. Frank comically tries to climb the roof but ends up lifting a dog to the roof which then chases him on the roof. Eventually, Frank is captured by Quentin's thugs and tied up in a room with Dr. Meinheimer. Frank manages to cut his rope but in the process he causes a comical disaster to happen to the powerless scientist. Anyway, Ed's cops free them both. Now they have to head quickly to the venue where the fake scientist is about to deliver his recommendation to the president. The only way for them to enter the building is to masquerade as a Mariachi band. After several misunderstandings that mortify the police chief in attendance, they manage to unmask the fake scientist. Quentin flees taking Jane hostage. Quentin has set up an atomic bomb that will blow up the building and only Quentin knows the code to stop the bomb. Frank catches him, and is about to make him confess the code when Ed throws him down a window (Quentin falls unarmed on an awning but is then devoured by an escaped lion). Frank, Jane and Ed only have seconds to disarm the bomb. They try everything but only make it worse. Meanwhile in the main ballroom the audience has fallen asleep to the real scientist's speech, but the police want them to evacuate the building. It takes a simple trick to wake them up: they give the scientist a pornographic novel to read aloud and everybody wakes up. When they finally decide to flee the room, Frank trips over the power chord and the machine stops: all they had to do was to unplug it! Days later Frank is publicly hailed a hero by the president who offers him to join his government but Frank chooses to marry Jane instead. The trilogy was completed by Naked Gun 33 1/3 - The Final Insult (1994), directed by Peter Segal and written by David Zucker and others. While the titles are scrolling we see a grotesque parody of Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Rocco the terrorist is visited in prison by his evil mom and by an evil mastermind, Pahpshmir. Rocco asks for a huge sum to carry out a major terrorist attack and feels confident that he can escape. Meanwhile, Frank the detective is retiring. Frank is married to Jane, and after six months their marriage is collapsing. Jane is a lawyer and we see her prosecuting a man who failed to pay alimony to his wife in front of a jury of mothers with their babies and a judge with a child behind the bench. Frank has become a househusband who shops at the supermarket and watches soap opera. Ed and Nordberg visit him: they have heard of Rocco's plan and want Frank to investigate incognito Rocco's girlfriend: nurse Tanya. He is told that she works at a clinic, but not that the clinic is fertility clinic. He fakes a sport injury and visits the clinic, and realizes only at the last second that he is being asked to masturbate (the doctor hears him complaining about breaking his arm while fooling around with his uncle and the doctor thinks he's thinking about his penis). He can't masturbate so the clinic provides a sadistic women to flog him. When he returns home, Jane sees the bruises and gets so angry that he has returned to police work that she walks out of the house (he pleads in vain that he is simply having an affair with another woman). Frank had written Tanya's address on a handkerchief but lost it so it was all for nothing. Now a desperately lonely Frank volunteers to go undercover in prison and derail Rocco's plan. Frank is locked in Rocco's jail and gains his trust and confidence by causing a comic riot. Frank and Rocco escape and Rocco's mother drives them away. Meanwhile, Jane finds the handkerchief on which Frank wrote Tanya's address and assumes that Frank was telling the truth: he was having an affair with another woman. And so she decides to forgive him. She starts driving towards that address, assuming that it's where Frank lives now. Rocco, his mother, Rocco's girlfriend Tanya and Frank hide in a rural cabin, which is Tanya's home. Jane arrives and Frank pretends that she's just a lunatic whose car broke down. Rocco's mother would like to kill her to eliminate a witness, but Frank convinces them to keep her alive as a hostage. Frank learns that Rocco is planning to blow up the venue of the Oscars ceremony in Hollywood. And so Frank and Jane have to infiltrate the ceremony, with Frank impersonating one of the hosts and failing to read properly his parts in the teleprompter. Frank guesses that the bomb must be hidden in one of the envelops. He keeps stopping Raquel Welch from reading the name of the winner because he fears the envelop contains the bomb, ending with a physical fight with the sexy actress. Frank looks for Jane backstage but instead finds Tanya. The sexy Tanya tries to seduce him, and almost succeeds, but reveals she has a penis. Frank returns to the stage just in time to stop Rocco and his mom. His mother dies in a grotesque accident. Rocco takes Jane hostage. And now Frank gets confused on what to do. The audience is thrilled. Frank decides to hand the bomb to Rocco and the whole audience rolls their eyes at his stupidity. Frank and Rocco keeps dueling and the audience reacts like it's a movie. Finally Frank manages accidentally to eject Rocco into out of the venue. Rocco ends into Pahpshmir's helicopter and the bomb explodes, killing both. The audience gives Frank and Jane a standing ovation. Jane has always wanted a child. Nine months later, Frank and Nordberg rush into the hospital as Jane is giving birth, but are shown the wrong baby, a baby who is Black like Nordberg. Frank starts chasing Nordberg while we see Jane coming out of another room with the real child, who is White like Frank.