Customer Reviews

A Night in Heaven

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Rather lame plot.... but who cares? Chris gives fans 'everything' they want, by providing a frontal shot, and lots of buns. Wow!

What I liked about this "B" movie is that the characters were so "ordinary."

He: Shallow, not so smart poor boy with not much to offer the world but good looks and lack of sexual inhibitions.

She: Neglected wife, school teacher, female puts down macho student in class.

Student sees opportunity to take her down sexually and does.

Not a nice guy, but how many people are nice? Vulnerable wife, and how many people are vulnerable?

A lot of nice people get hurt by others who are not evil, necessarily but only shallow, and often shallow and bitter.

Husband: A sympathetic character.

Much better than most low-budget and yet non-"art" films.

This movie took me back to my teen years and the era of disco and strip clubs. Lesley Ann Warren who plays the teacher delivers a flawless performance, she is one of my favorite actresses. Christopher Atkins is something to behold, if you have ever had a crush on any one of your teachers this is the film for you! It is light and very entertaining, I highly recommened it.

Mmmm. . .Should Lesley Ann Warren risk a lifetime commitment for a few blissful hours with Chris Atkins? Oh, sure she should!!! Actually, this is a sweet, romantic story about two people who, beyond their strong mutual attraction, seem to genuinely like and find comfort in one another's company. The dance scenes are fun, the plot contains strong elements of humor and sensuality, and the leads turn in some engaging performances.
Good movie, especially for the ladies.

Every Christopher Atkins fan should have this film in their collection.
A good addition to any *male stripper* themed library collections as well.
If you never saw the film, go rent it first.
The movie is not the greatest, when judged just on movie traits alone.
But you aren't looking at this movie for a great story line....be honest.
You are looking for a young, fresh, Christopher Atkins in all degrees of naked.
The movie holds up on it's own merit, and is helped by the man-flesh of the supporting cast/extras.

Woo. This ultra steamy film was just the motivation we needed to go see a male revue of our own. Lesley does a wonderful job of playing the demure Faye while Atkins rocks as the baby face stud she decides to "take on." In any effect, with all the fantasy being lived out, we are given a true taste of what also happens due to extramarital affairs. While out on a boat, Faye's husband gives "Rickie the Rocket" a good reason to keep his pants zipped up.

I personally liked the movie.

Chris Atkins is incredibly sexy even without the Blue Lagoon hair. If you're into the Lifetime-type movies about extramarital or student-teacher affairs, this is one for you.

I really enjoyed the movie soundtrack and the dancing in the movie. The plot was very interesting too. Over all I think A Night in Heaven was a okay movie.

"A Night in Heaven" opened in 1983 to terrible reviews and even worse box office. It was a mainstay on ten worst lists everywhere. It was dubbed "Flashdunce" after another hit movie of that year.

Really, its not that bad. Insubstantial, yes. Ill-conceived, yes. Entertaining? Quite.

Lesley Anne Warren plays Faye, a speech professor at the local community college who is having marital problems. Her husband Whitney (Robert Logan), an emotionally stunted inventor, has seemingly lost interest in her and she is becoming depressed when her sister Patsy (Deborah Rush) takes her out with friends to a local strip club. There, Faye is surprised that the club's star stripper, Ricky the Rocket (Christopher Atkins), is the same cocky student she just flunked in her class. When he sees her in the audience, Ricky does a virtual lapdance for her, and it isn't long before they have plunged into an affair.

Actually, there was probably a very good, serious film buried somewhere in writer Joan Tewkesbury's original script, which is glossily directed by Oscar-winner John G. Avildsen, who went from this fiasco to "The Karate Kid". Unfortunately, the casting of Christopher Atkins in what was obviously originally a supporting role hurts the film considerably. Cast after his breakthrough role in "The Blue Lagoon", Atkins received star billing and all of the film's pre-release publicity. But Warren and Logan are the lead characters, have most of the screen time and obviously have the main relationship in the film. This caused the film to be quite obviously heavily reedited to emphasize the Atkins character, who is a total jerk, completely amoral and unlikable, and poorly played by one of the worst actors ever to be spit out of the Hollywood system. This sinks the film faster than the "Titanic". As a result, what should have been a serious examination of a marriage at a crossroads becomes a smarmy sex-comedy/marital drama in which the disparate elements just don't fit. Note the brief 80 minute running time. This is one film which I wish could be reedited to a director's cut, so we can see what the writer and director's original intent was. Instead, we will forever be saddled with the studio's botched reedit.

In spite of all this, "A Night in Heaven" remains entertaining and easy to watch. Lesley Ann Warren gives a good performance here, although I'm sure this film isn't listed on her otherwise stellar resume. Robert Logan is also quite good, although his presence is a bit of an eye-opener considering he is best-known for family films like "The Wilderness Family" and this film comes as close to soft-core porn as any major Hollywood studio film of recent decades. Deborah Rush gives able support, and there's a decent performance here by an actress named Sandra Beall as Ricky's long-suffering girlfriend Slick. The late Carrie Snodgress also has a couple of good scenes as Ricky's mother. Unfortunately, Atkins' horrible acting just about negates the performances of everyone around him. It's impossible to do excellent work when the person you are acting with can't act to save his life. It makes you appreciate Warren's work even more. That she manages to give a good performance under the circumstances is commendable.

One note: This film contains one of the sexiest love scenes I have ever seen in a film, and is one of only three reasons to see it. The other two? Warren's performance and Bryan Adams' now-classic love them "Heaven", which plays in its entirety over the opening and closing credits. When you take away the seven minutes for these sequences, that leaves 73 minutes of story, which makes the cuts even more noticeable.

"A Night in Heaven" is one bomb from the early '80's that should have been much better, but remains more entertaining than many much better films of the era.

**1/2 (out of *****); ** for execution; *** for entertainment value.

In "A Night In Heaven", Lesley Ann Warren plays a college professor named Faye. Christopher Atkins is Ricky, a student in her class. At the end of his final report for his class, Ricky cracks a joke and Faye is not amused. She decides to fail him and make him take the course over again.

The next thing you know, Faye goes to watch some male strippers with some friends of hers. Who is one of the strippers? Ricky! Anyway, they develop one of the dreariest affairs I have ever seen. No sparks whatsoever.

There is also a dull side plot involving Faye's husband(!). He quits/is fired from his job. He puts 2 and 2 together and figures out that his wife is seeing the stripper. What does he decide to do? You'll just have to see in the exciting, I mean boring, climax.

I'm not really sure what the point of this movie is. There is no passion in anyone's performance. There is no actual plot and the romantic part of the film is tedious. Only recommended for fans of Christopher Atkins naked body.