The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear

“Naked,” etc., stars Leslie Nielsen, first utilized by the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team in the original “Airplane!” in 1980, and since developed into the superstar of this genre. Nielsen’s secret is that he does almost nothing, and certainly nothing he seems to think is funny.

He is the wooden straight guy, unaware of all that’s going on around him, completely lacking in insight, without charm, grace or intelligence, a total square - in other words, everyman. In this movie he plays Lt. Frank Drebin, his character from the old “Police Squad!” TV series, who as the movie opens is a guest of honor at a White House dinner, at which a Barbara Bush lookalike is pummeled with doors and lobsters. Later, as the plot develops, he tries to rekindle his old love affair with Priscilla Presley, while getting to the bottom of an attempt to sabotage the national policy on the ecology.

Sample dialogue reflecting the nature of their relationship: He: “How are the children?” She: “We never had any children, Frank.” One of the knacks of the filmmakers is to find actors who can get laughs more or less by playing their images, as Zsa Zsa Gabor, Robert Goulet and George Kennedy do in this movie. Another knack is the crude, unsubtle nature of their visual style, in which the favored camera angle is to stare a sight gag right in the eye. A third is the low blow, as in a hilarious restaurant scene where all of the pictures on the wall depict great catastrophes - some natural, some human, one political.

Hey, look. The same day I saw “Naked,” etc., I saw a movie about a mother who seeks her long-lost son, and another movie about a savior from the future who has come back to save the human race. It was kind of fun to settle back for the third bill on the triple feature and know that for 85 minutes I might possibly laugh, and would certainly not be called upon to think.