Review of Pink Motel

Pink Motel (1982)
5/10
silly comedy about one night at a motel
5 January 2011
Phyllis Diller (comedian) and Slim Pickens (from Dr. Strangelove) are husband and wife who run a cheap motel in Southern California. Since it's called the "Pink Motel", they wear matching pink shirts. According to Wikipedia and the LA Times, there really is a Pink Motel in Sun Valley, California, north of Burbank, and has been used many times as a filming location over the years. We can still see it with the same sign out front ("Air Conditioned... by Refrigeration") on google maps! We watch the various couples arrive, and there is a confrontation in the parking lot..... which never turns into anything. The only conflicts occur within the couples that check into each individual room. I kept waiting for a big blow-up ending, Three's Company style, where Diller would tell Pickens to go investigate that racket, and they would all get kicked out, or the police called to the scene, or some such Hollywood ending, but it never happens. Everyone ends up going their separate ways, some happy, some sad.

I'm sure glad I didn't pay to see this film in a theater....Too much talking, too little plot, and less than stellar acting and directing. There IS female nudity. The only big names in this are Diller and Pickens, and the writers didn't even give THEM any good lines. Those interested in seeing actual photos of the landmark Pink Motel can find them on flickr.com. And the credit for the theme song Pink Motel shows performed by NILE; acc to wikipedia, the rock group Nile wasn't formed until 1993... which is a little odd, because the film was made in 1982, and the VHS tape from Thorn EMI appears to have been distributed in 1991.... or maybe it was performed by Willie Nile ? I think if the film were more interesting, I probably wouldn't care about this other trivia. Its also interesting to note that the children's book "Pink Motel" by Carol Ryrie Brink was written in 1959 (!) and is also still available on amazon.... I wonder if her family had stayed there at one point, or maybe she lived nearby...
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