Heartbeeps

Heartbeeps
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Allan Arkush
Screenplay by	John Hill
Produced by	Michael Phillips
Starring	Andy Kaufman Bernadette Peters Randy Quaid Kenneth McMillan Christopher Guest Melanie Mayron Richard B. Shull Dick Miller
Cinematography	Charles Rosher Jr.
Edited by	Tina Hirsch
Music by	John Williams
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	December 18, 1981 (1981-12-18)
Running time	78 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$12 million
Box office	$2,154,696

Heartbeeps is a 1981 American romantic-comedy and science fiction film about two robots who fall in love and decide to strike out on their own. The film was directed by Allan Arkush, written by John Hill, and stars Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as the robots alongside Randy Quaid, Kenneth McMillan, Melanie Mayron, Christopher Guest, and the voice of Jerry Garcia in a rare film appearance. It was Kaufman's final performance in a theatrical film. Universal Pictures released the film in the United States on December 18, 1981.

Stan Winston's make-up work for Heartbeeps made him one of the nominees for the inaugural Academy Award for Best Makeup in 1982, losing to Rick Baker for An American Werewolf in London.

Plot

ValCom 17485 (Kaufman), a robot designed to be a valet with a specialty in lumber commodities, meets AquaCom 89045 (Peters), a hostess companion robot whose primary function is to assist at poolside parties. At a factory awaiting repairs, they fall in love and decide to escape, stealing a van from the company to do so. They are joined by Catskil, a standup comic robot (which is seen sitting the entire film). His name is a reference to the Catskill resort.

They embark on a quest to find a place to live, as well as satisfy their more immediate need for a fresh electrical supply. They assemble a small robot, Philco (also called Phil), built out of spare parts from the van they stole, whom they treat as their child. Phil speaks in a manner similar to R2-D2.

A malfunctioning law-enforcement robot, the Crimebuster, overhears the orders of the repair workers to get the robots back and goes after the fugitives. With the help of humans who run a junkyard and use Catskil's battery pack, the robots are able to save Phil before running out of power and being returned to the factory. Brought back to the factory, the robots are repeatedly repaired, and their memories cleared. Because they continue to malfunction, they are junked. They are found by the humans who run the junk yard and reassembled. In the junkyard, they live happily and build a sister for Phil. The film ends with Crimebuster, after only pretending to have his mind erased, continuing to malfunction and going on another mission to recover the fugitive robots.

Cast

• Andy Kaufman as ValCom-17485
• Bernadette Peters as AquaCom-89045
• Randy Quaid as Charlie
• Kenneth McMillan as Max
• Melanie Mayron as Susan
• Christopher Guest as Calvin
• Richard B. Shull as Factory Boss
• Dick Miller as Factory Watchman
• Kathleen Freeman as Helicopter Pilot
• Mary Woronov as Party House Owner
• Paul Bartel as Party Guest
• Wally Ann Wharton as Party Guest (as Anne Wharton)
• Barry Diamond as Firing Range Technician and Catskill Performer
• Stephanie Faulkner as Firing Range Technician
• Jeffrey Kramer as Party Butler Robot
• David Gene LeBell as Robot Forklift Driver
• Jerry Garcia as Phil's voice
• Jack Carter as Catskil-55602's voice
• Ron Gans as Crimebuster's voice

Production

Development

Sigourney Weaver was offered a role and was interested in the film, as she wanted to work with Andy Kaufman, but Weaver's agent persuaded her to turn it down.

Because of a strike by the Screen Actors Guild, filming was shut down in July 1980 (along with numerous other movies and television shows). The strike ended at the beginning of October 1980 (filming had started in June).

In his 1999 book Andy Kaufman: Revealed, Bob Zmuda wrote that Kaufman and Zmuda had "pitched" the screenplay of Kaufman's The Tony Clifton Story, a movie about the life and times of his alter-ego Tony Clifton, to Universal Studios. The Universal executives were concerned that Kaufman had not acted in films except for a small role, and they arranged for him to star in Heartbeeps to test whether he could carry a movie. When it became "a box office disaster", plans for the Clifton movie were cancelled.

John Hill adapted the screenplay into a novel, Heartbeeps, published in December 1981.

The film was promoted in magazines such as Starlog and Famous Monsters.

Reception

Critical response

Reviews of the film were negative. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 0% based on reviews from 6 critics, with an average rating of 1.6/10.

Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times that it was "unbearable" and a "dreadfully coy story." Gary Arnold from the Washington Post noted how the film's stars Kaufman and Peters were "unlikely to face serious career setbacks from a minor fiasco only a handful of people will ever see," adding that he faulted the film for having "so little inherent momentum that it seems to need rewinding every few minutes."

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave the film a thumbs down, unfavorably comparing it to Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz and the 1967 Jean-Luc Godard film Weekend.

In spite of the negative reviews, Brad Jones of The Cinema Snob praised the film in his review of it in 2013.

Kaufman felt the movie was so bad that he personally apologized for it on Late Night with David Letterman, and as a joke, promised to refund the money of everyone who paid to see it. Letterman's response was that if Kaufman wanted to issue such a refund, he'd "better have change for a 20 (dollar bill)."

Accolades

Award	Category	Recipient(s)	Outcome
Saturn Award
	Best Science Fiction Film	Douglas Green	Nominated
	Best Make-Up	Stan Winston	Nominated
54th Academy Awards	Best Make-Up	Stan Winston	Nominated
1981 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards
	Worst Picture*	Universal Pictures	Nominated
	Worst Screenplay		Nominated
	Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy		Nominated
	Worst Actor	Andy Kaufman	Nominated
	Most Annoying Fake Accent (Male)		Nominated
	Worst On-Screen Couple	Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters	Nominated

• Note: the film was nominated for Worst Picture both back when the original 1981 ballot was made and when it was revised in 2007. It lost both times.

Home media

The film was released on DVD on September 13, 2005 and on Blu-ray on February 4, 2020.

External links

• Heartbeeps at IMDb
• Heartbeeps at the TCM Movie Database
• Heartbeeps at Letterboxd
• Heartbeeps at Rotten Tomatoes
• Heartbeeps at Box Office Mojo
• Heartbeeps Archived February 13, 2010, at the Wayback Machine on TheMakeupGallery