Just take those old records… and classic movie scenes… off the shelf.
Today marks the 42nd anniversary of Risky Business, an out-of-left-field, low-budget teen comedy that earned a substantial amount of money, garnered tremendous critical praise, and set Tom Cruise up for superstardom.
What made the movie such a success? Its mix of rebellious humor and suburban melancholy? Its blunt assessment of middle-class values and expectations? Its daring, sexually provocative sequences with Rebecca De Mornay and the cutting-edge synth-symphonics of Tangerine Dream? Well, surely it was all of this, but above all, it was Tom Cruise acting like a big ol’ adorable dope prancing around his parents’ empty house in his underwear.
Warner Brothers/Courtesy Everett
Tom Cruise (and Bronson Pinchot!) playing cards in the 1983 classic ‘Risky Business’
The film follows the adventures of Cruise’s Joel Goodson (Good Son, get it?), an ace student in a Chicago suburb working his tail off to get into Princeton University. (It goes unmentioned, but he’d like access to the coolest independent record store in America, you see.) When his folks go away for a trip, his pal Miles (Curtis Armstrong) convinces him to cut loose and have some fun. This eventually snowballs into a wild tail involving prostitution, car chases, stolen objets d’art, and an unsavory fella named Guido (Joe Pantoliano).
But before things go south, Joel enjoys his first night of teenage freedom. He pours himself a ridiculously large glass of whiskey, turns up the stereo, and enjoys a celebratory, half-naked dance.
The moment quickly became iconic.
Speaking about the scene with Australian television in 2017, Cruise said, after chuckling while rewatching the clip, that he could never predict its enduring legacy, and added, “I just ad-libbed that.”
He continued, saying first-time director Paul Brickman “showed me the opening frame and the composition, and I tried to go across at one point and it was too sticky. So what I did was I dusted the floor and put stick on the other side so I would get center frame on that. Then I wore the socks and that’s how I finally did it — to figure out how to get that smooth, right-on-the-beat flow.”
With that bit of cinematic physics explained, he added, “And then I just went around the room and was dancing. That’s something I just did as a kid.” Cruise later suggested that one of the Aussie interviewers was fibbing when he retorted that he never pranced around “in his jocks” to music in his youth.
Warner Brothers/Getty
Tom Cruise with the signature Ray-Ban sunglasses in ‘Risky Business’
According to Paul Brickman, before Cruise seized on the socks glide, the actor suggested other ideas on how the sequence should begin. Apparently he secured a trampoline off-camera, and then attempted to land in the center of frame like a gymnast. We can probably all agree that the current version works best.
The song used, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band’s bluesy “Old Time Rock & Roll,” was four years old by the time the movie hit theaters. Already a success (hitting No. 28 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1979), the film inspired a rerelease of the single, which climbed back to a respectable No. 48. It remains something of a bar band staple to this day.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty
Tom Cruise, photographed in Century City, Calif., a year prior to the release of ‘Risky Business’
For those who like to imagine parallel universes, it has been reported that Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn, Gary Sinise, and John Cusack each tried out for the part that ultimately went to Cruise. All of them, we’re sure, would have looked dandy in their briefs.
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For your enjoyment, check out this video that the Cedarville High School Music Department of Cedarville, Ohio, uploaded of their students playing “Old Time Rock & Roll.” Go Big Red!
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