Off the Shelf: UNDERGROUND ACES (Blu-ray)

 by Patrick Bromley

They'll park your car where the sun never shines!

I had never heard of the 1981 comedy Underground Aces before it was announced that Kino Lorber Studio Classics would be releasing it on Blu-ray. On paper, it's the exact type of movie for which I have a real soft spot: the sort of raunchy '80s comedy that would have played regularly on USA Up All Night and is only now being rescued from obscurity. 

What D.C. Cab was to taxi drivers and Police Academy was to cops, Underground Aces is to parking attendants. There is no real plot, just the hilarious goings on with a group of car parkers at a Los Angeles hotel. There's unmotivated nudity and casual racism. Dirk Benedict plays the handsome, smug new guy who becomes the de facto leader because of course he does. T.K. Carter is in it, because of course he is. Frank Gorshin is the antagonistic head of security named Fred Kruger (!!). Michael Winslow plays a guy who makes sound effects. DO YOU SEE WHAT I'M GETTING AT? It's as if AI wrote a late night '80s comedy that I'm just now finding out about.

In practice, however, Underground Aces isn't quite what I was expecting. For starters, it's not really raunchy at all; it has some of the energy of a late-night comedy, but little of the crassness. That's because a) it's actually rated PG, which I didn't realize when I pressed 'play' on the movie and b) it's not interested in sleaze and is instead disarmingly sweet. This is not some horny movie about a bunch of wild valets looking to get laid. It's about (surprise!) men who have some growing up to do but who really want to find real love. Dirk Benedict's character spends most of the movie pursuing a disinterested Melanie Griffith, pretty much standard stuff for movies like this. But then there's a plot involving Kario Salem as a Middle Eastern sheik who goes undercover as one of the Aces to woo a beautiful hotel guest (Audrey Landers, A Chorus Line) he intends to marry. Welcome Back Kotter's Robert Hegyes falls for that woman's sister and engages in conversation after conversation with his co-workers about how he can tell he's truly in love. It's all incredibly charming.

It's not always funny, however, and seeing as it's meant to be a comedy I have to dock some points for that. Director Robert Butler, who made his bones directing the pilots for such shows as Batman, Star Trek, and Hill Street Blues, doesn't quite have a handle on the anarchic energy that material like this demands. The story pacing is fine but the rhythms of the individual scenes and gags often feel off 

would direct an even better raunchy comedy a few years later with 1984's Up the Creek. 

Kino does their usual solid work upgrading an otherwise forgotten catalogue title to Blu-ray. The 1080p HD transfer is taken from a new 2K scan, resulting in what I have to assume is the best Underground Aces has looked since it hit theaters in 1981. The only bonus feature included is a commentary by James Chandler and Ash Hamilton from Horror-Fix.com, a curious choice since Underground Aces is decidedly not a horror movie.

It's hard to champion a movie like Underground Aces too hard. I've tried to offer some context for why I had a good time with it, which is all a critic can really do. If it sounds like your bag, it probably is. The movie exists somewhere between USA Up All Night and a Saturday afternoon cable staple of the early '80s. I like both of those things.

Disc Specs

1.85:1 (1080p HD)

DTS HD 2.0 Master Audio (English)

95 minutes

1981

Rated PG

Blu-ray Release Date: July 23, 2024

Bonus Features

Audio Commentary by James G. Chandler & Ash Hamilton (Horror-Fix.com)