Not for Publication

For the 1951-52 DuMont television series, see Not for Publication (DuMont TV series).

Not for Publication is a 1984 screwball comedy film directed by Paul Bartel and starring Nancy Allen. It premiered at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival before being acquired for distribution by Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment.^[2] David Naughton, Laurence Luckinbill, Alan Rosenberg, and Alice Ghostley also appear.^[3]

Plot

Lois Thornedyke, the daughter of a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, writes a scandal column for a New York city tabloid. She gets a chance to upgrade her career when she uncovers a conspiracy reaching into city government at the same time she is being romanced by the city's Mayor. Lois and her quirky sidekicks pit naivete against evil and go undercover. Unfortunately, what they discover is not for publication...

If the Perils of Pauline were set in a campy New York City with a dash of trash added in, Not for Publication would result, though the awful jokes and kinky characters are not going to be entertaining to everyone. Lois is a reporter at a sleazoid newspaper, a paragon of yellow journalism that she is determined to turn back to its first incarnation as The New York Enforcer, a better paper. The not-so-good Mayor Franklyn adopts Lois as his personal assistant when she bursts into his office one day and strongly advises him to cut the pressure to shut down porn shops or he will lose the vote of New York's youth. She hires photographer Barry Denver to work in the mayor's office, planning to use his skills for her tabloid paper -- but then a quirky menage à trois arises between the mayor, the photographer, and Lois. After some undercover sleuthing in Long Island -- and help from a host of unsavory characters like Senor Wopperico and Troppogrosso -- Lois connects the mayor to various robberies that have occurred in the city and thinks of a way to return the New York Enforcer to its heyday and handle the mayor at the same time.^[4]

Cast

• Nancy Allen as Lois Thornedyke
• David Naughton as Barry Denver
• Alan Rosenberg as Bernie
• Alice Ghostley as Doris Denver
• Cork Hubbert as Odo
• Laurence Luckinbill as Mayor Franklyn
• Jeanne Evans as Mrs. Thornedyke
• Christopher Wycliff as 1st photographer
• Bill Engvall as 2nd photographer
• Barry Dennen as Senor Wopperico
• Richard Paul as Troppogrosso
• J. David Moeller as Sean Duffy
• Lynne Ritchie as Barbara
• Paul Bartel as TV director

Critical response

Rex Reed called Not for Publication "a delictable treat."^[3] While TV Guide offered even wider praise saying "The story is wildly improbable and sometimes hilariously funny. The dialog is inventive and the characters bizarre, and it all smacks of those cult movies that will have a long life in the Saturday night midnight shows around the country."^[5]

References

External links

• Not for Publication at the Internet Movie Database
• Not for Publication at AllMovie
• Not for Publication at Rotten Tomatoes