The Bowdoin Orient

December 8, 2000
Volume CXXXII, Number 12

Sex, five wives, and Rodney Dangerfield

by SIMON MANGIARACINA - COLUMNIST

   As I stepped into Movie Gallery, I felt like a guilty husband who was about to have an affair. In my four years here at Bowdoin, I have patronized Video Galaxy (formerly Matt and Dave's Video Venture) with absolute devotion. Unfortunately, Video Galaxy could not meet my needs this week, so I had to stray and surrender myself to the services of another video rental store.
   You must be wondering what caused me to commit such an adulterous act. As I explained to the store clerk while I was signing the Movie Gallery membership contract, "Understand something, I am doing this solely because you have this movie and Video Galaxy does not." I proudly waved a copy of My 5 Wives in the clerk's face.
   The film in question stars Rodney Dangerfield and Andrew Dice Clay. But wait, it gets better. Rodney Dangerfield plays a land developer who buys a plot of land in Utah, and little does he know, it comes with three beautiful Mormon wives (he later marries two more because the other three can't cook).
   Comedy and mad?cap antics ensue. Sheer genius, no? I must admit, I did not find out about this little gem all my own. An enormous thank you goes out to Craig Jewell and Nate Anderson for passing on the word about this cinematic masterpiece.
   Thanks to Comedy Central, and their perpetual broadcasting of Back to School, Rodney Dangerfield will never be forgotten. With My 5 Wives, Dangerfield proves that he is still just as fine a comedic thespian as ever. The video opens with a stream of Dangerfield's most choice material. "I go fishing, I catch nothing. I go to orgies, I catch everything."
   Dangerfield plays Monte Peterson, a successful land developer in Los Angeles. "And there's the new office building I erected. I also erected a new sports complex. I erected a downtown library."
   Can you see where this joke is going? In case not, I'll give you the punch line, "I got erections all over this town." Now that's Dangerfield at his best.
   Monte is getting a divorce from his most recent beautiful wife, who only wanted him for his money. "This woman married my client under false pretenses," announces Monte's lawyer at the divorce hearing. "Yeah, her chest," Monte adds.
   After the hearing, Monte flies out to Redwood Springs, Utah, a Mormon town where he plans on buying a plot of land to construct a ski resort. The town's motto is "Love thy neighbor as thyself." "What am I supposed to do, jerk him off too?" Ohoohh! Now this joke is funny because Dangerfield loves himself by masturbating, and if he were to love his neighbor as he does himself, well he would have to manually masturbate his neighbor as well.
   Monte outbids an evil and corrupt banker at the auction for the land he wants. As he is signing the deed, the town clergymen reveal to him that he will have to marry the three women that come with the land, who were all part of the former owner's "property." Upon seeing the stunningly gorgeous young ladies, Virginia, Stephanie, and Emily, Monte immediately agrees to wed them. Of course he has a separate ceremony for each girl he marries.
   "My wives are killing me, all they want is sex, sex, sex," Monte complains. "God gave me two of everything, two eyes, two hands.... The only thing I need two of, God gave me one." He's talking about his penis. If he had multiple penises he wouldn't be so tired from sex.
   So what does Monte do about his problem? He goes out and buys one of those red deli?counter ticket dispensers so his wives can take a number, and wait their turn for sex. Monte takes his wives to the town fair, where Virginia enters a kumquat pie in the annual bake?off. The judge winces as he tastes it and says, "I think it needs less kum and more quat." This is funny because... never mind:
   The plot thickens when one of the town residents dies, and his property and two wives go up for bid. To prevent the evil banker from getting the land, Monte buys it and marries the two girls, Meagan and Sarah. Monte takes his five wives to Las Vegas, where they play tennis and he buys them skimpy bikinis. While in Vegas, his wives become liberated and exposed to feminist ideals.
   Upon returning to Redwood Springs, the girls buy power?suits and get highpaying jobs, leaving Monte at home to do the cooking and cleaning. My, how the tables have turned. In spite of a distracting sub?plot involving Andrew Dice Clay as a mobster who wants to "whack" Monte because he keeps buying the land he wants so "the family" can build a casino in Mormon country, My 5 Wives pays off big when it comes to laughs. A++++