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Show Business: Street-Smart Cop, Box-Office Champ Eddie Murphy

4 minute read
Richard Corliss

Tell me, children, what did you get for Christmas? And the answer came in a choral blast that has rocked 2,006 moviehouses: Eddie Murphy! The 23-year-old alumnus of Saturday Night Live, whose first feature film (48 HRS.) was released just two years ago, is Hollywood’s uncontested box-office champ. Beverly Hills Cop, a defiantly ordinary action picture that Murphy ignites with his urchin charm, is by far the runaway hit of this holiday season. In its first 23 days Cop earned $64.5 million–more than the combined take of its three closest competitors (Dune, City Heat, and 2010). Trumpets a jubilant Frank Mancuso, who runs Paramount Pictures, the studio releasing Cop: “The picture is so dominant that it’s hard to determine who’s No. 2.” In December, when 17 new releases were vying for attention, one of every three box-office dollars came from moviegoers paying to see Eddie Murphy. And only Eddie. In Beverly Hills Cop there is no romantic interest, no high-voltage partner, no hairpin twist of plot. This is a no-frills star vehicle, with Murphy as a Detroit police detective scouring Rodeo Drive for clues to the murder of a friend back home. The film’s only function is to provide Murphy with the opportunity to work a dozen or so variations on his familiar and oddly endearing routine: top Whitey. All of white America is a classroom for Fast Eddie’s crash course in street smarts and larcenous one-upmanship. And everyone loves it, in the movie and in the audience, because Murphy’s jive is blessedly free of malice. Under the ghetto gutter talk lurks a sassy little boy, outfoxing the grownups at a game he has been practicing all his life. He % is a Little Rascal playing Dirty Harry, and winning.

Beverly Hills Cop is a winner too, but eight months ago it was hardly a starter. At that time the property, which had been percolating at Paramount for eight years, was to star Sylvester Stallone. Then Stallone turned in a rewrite of the script, and soon the star and studio parted company. Paramount sent Murphy the script and within hours he agreed to do it. “Directing this movie was like doing live television,” Director Martin Brest recalls. “There were seven versions of the script that were cut, pasted and rewritten before each scene. We were reshaping the material every day, and whenever we needed inspiration, Eddie would provide it. That the film turned out to be coherent is a miracle. That it is successful proves there is a God.”

In this story, the god is black. “Eddie is beyond brilliant,” says Brest. “Audiences can vicariously enjoy a ride on his quicksilver mind, whirling a million miles an hour.” Robert Wachs, Murphy’s comanager since 1979, gauges the actor’s appeal this way: “People want to gift wrap him and take him home.” Joe Piscopo, Murphy’s partner for 3 1/2 years on Saturday Night Live, says that “Eddie is actually playing himself on-screen. He manages to be totally natural and relaxed. I’d also like him to try something more serious, though, something with Scorcese or Coppola. I know he can pull it off, but I’m not sure he does.”

For now Murphy will remain rich and happy doing what he does so well, so easily. Paramount has secured him for a concert film, referred to familiarly at Paramount as Beverly Hills Cop Goes to London, and five features, possibly including a Cop sequel. His fans–just about everyone–need no catchy titles for his movies. Just call them Eddie V, Eddie VI, Eddie VII. Then watch the lines form and the smiles start to glow.

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