Heartbeeps (1981) ***

There's no denying that 1981's Heartbeeps should have turned out better than it did. You have Allan Arkush (of 1979's Rock 'N' Roll High School) in the director's chair, you have "anti-comedian" Andy Kaufman at the height of his notoriety and the always lovely and endearing Bernadette Peters playing robots who fall in love, you have really fun special makeup effects by the soon-to-be legendary Stan Winston (who was nominated for, but lost, the first Academy Award for Best Makeup—Rick Baker won for An American Werewolf In London (review)), you have a wonderful score by John Williams which uses a lot of synthesizer (uncommon for the famous composer), and you have a strong (though underutilized) supporting cast including Randy Quaid, Kenneth McMillan, Melanie Mayron, Christopher Guest, Dick Miller, Kathleen Freeman, Mary Woronov, and Paul Bartel. Despite all this, the film is tonally messy, a bit unexciting, and the story is underdeveloped, but it's far from a complete failure, in my opinion. Only some of the humor lands and I was certainly left wanting more, but it’s still a cute movie and I can't help but appreciate the fact that an oddball picture such as this exists.

Allan Arkush Films Ranked