Risky Business: Summer of '83

Put on your Ray-Bans, rev up the Porsche, and crank up the Tangerine Dream! It’s time for the movie that made Tom Cruise a star, which somehow Javi and Paul had never seen! Listen as they, with the help of ever-patient Producer Brad, get past their preconceived notions and are rewarded with a teen sex comedy that has more in common with Blue Velvet than Porky’s. Suburban high school senior Joel (Cruise), afflicted with anxiety about getting into Princeton and left home alone by his materialistic parents, is prodded by devil-on-his-shoulder pal Miles (Curtis Armstrong) down the path to some Risky Business in the form of call girl Lana (Rebecca De Mornay), who turns Joel’s home into a brothel. Is it a swooning love letter to capitalism, or subversive indictment of it, or both? Javi and Paul marvel and muse at this unexpectedly layered, nuanced, and finely crafted film rife with symbolism, sex positivity, delightful dream sequences, awesome needle drops, surprisingly positive trans representation, a crystal egg, and a young Joe Pantoliano as Guido the Killer Pimp. There is no substitute!

Show Notes:

1983 Box Office

August 5-7, 1983, Weekend Box Office

Risky Business Box Office Results

Hollywood Reporter excerpts from Curtis Armstrong's 2017 memoir, Revenge of the Nerd.

Top 100 Stars in Leading roles at the Domestic Box Office

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