Judge Reinhold will always have Ruthless People.
At a delightful 40th anniversary screening of the film on Wednesday, at the Arkansas Cinema Society’s Filmland, the celebrated actor noted that sometimes when he’s feeling down, he remembers the joyous experience of making Ruthless People, and seeing it become a critical and box office smash. Reinhold has close family ties in Arkansas.
“It’s the only time I’ve ever read a script and said, ‘If we don’t screw this up, it’s going to be a hit.’ I’ve never felt that confident about a script,” he told moderator John Wildman in a post-screening Q&A. “That’s the easiest work you’ll ever do as an actor, and maybe as a director too, because it’s just there, and all you want to do is not mess it up. And the way you don’t mess it up is to kind of get out of the way.”
Reinhold did much more than that, of course. Though he played a reluctant kidnapper who abducts Bette Midler’s boisterous millionaire character, he may be the most likable character in the film. He stars alongside Helen Slater as his wife, and Danny DeVito as the husband of Midler’s character, who refuses to pay the ransom because he secretly wants his wife dad.
The film, directed by the iconic trio of Jim Abrahams and brothers David and Jerry Zucker, was their first traditional narrative comedy after the rat-a-tat style of The Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane! and Top Secret. And while they came up with plenty of jokes, they didn’t write it, like they had written their previous films.
Ruthless People was the work of Dale Launer, who went on to write the also-brilliant Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and My Cousin Vinny.
Judge Reinhold on Kazoos, Ghost, and the Ruthless People Spider Scene
Getting offered Ruthless People was the result of years of hard work: Reinhold had played memorable roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Stripes, Gremlins, and Beverly Hills Cop, so he didn’t need to pursue Ruthless People. The filmmakers came to him.
He joked that he was also one of the few people Launer seemed to enjoy spending time with. He recalled the writer being as curmudgeonly on real life as he was witty on the page.
“He was a sourpuss,” Reinhold said. “A lot of comedy writers are like that.”
He remembered one particular day Launer visited the set.
“He sidled up to me and he was frowning. And I said, ‘Dale — how’re you doing? It’s goood to see ya!’ And he said, ‘Yeah… came to watch the kazoo players play my symphony.””
Reinhold said Jerry Zucker noticed that Launer seemed to like him, and deadpanned: “How can we get him to leave?”
But the production, Reinhold said, was a pleasant one — even the day Midler kicked him in the nether regions during a scene when her character tries to escape from a bag.
Things kept going well with the test screenings, Reinhold said — so well that the actors were invited to watch the audiences watch the film.
“The only reason they invited us actors is because it tested through the roof. We we had done it! We just did the script, and and it tested really, really high,” Reinhold recalled. “So normally the last thing they want to do is have the actors there, if it doesn’t test well. But Bette and I went, and for any for any complaint that I would have about living, or my life, I have to remember how how lucky and fortunate I was to be in theaters and listen to just the collective laughter that we got.”
He recalled that the film got so much laughter that more footage needed to be added in the edit, to allow time for the reactions.
“I don’t mean to be bragging — this was a great experience — they had to put footage in, to let the laughter die down, so the audience wouldn’t miss more dialogue,” he recalled.
Ruthless People was a huge hit — it was the No. 9 movie at the box office in 1986 — and Reinhold would sometimes sneak into screenings on summer days just to hear those laughs.
“I would just slide in whenever I was having a off day,” he said. “I would slip in the back of the theater and sit there and say, ‘Yeah, life is not bad.’”
He was also open about his occasional misses. When a member of the audience praised his body-switch movie Vice Versa, Reinhold noted that its failure at the box office ruined his chances of working in another Jerry Zucker project, 1990’s Ghost, that turned out to be huge. The role went on to be one of the defining ones of Patrick Swayze’s career.
“I would have just been different, obviously,” said Reinhold. “Maybe not better… Oh well.”
Reinhold remains in demand — one person in the audience asked him to be in movie he’s working on locally — but works less now than during his incredible ’80s run. He last appeared in the Beverly Hills Cop sequel Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F in 2024.
He’s thrilled that the twisty Ruthless People script has become a staple in some film classes, and understands why, noting that it shares some commonalities with 40s screwball films and the Coen brothers’ Fargo. He’s especially happy when actors point out a key scene that was his idea.
In the script, his character delivers a monologue about the need to be ruthless, as he gently uses a newspaper to remove a spider from his kitchen and drop it safely outdoors.
A few seconds later, he reconsiders, and stomps it. Originally, the film only had him saving the spider, not stomping it.
“It’s meant to convey that he couldn’t hurt a fly, and so I talked to Jerry and I said, ‘Wouldn’t he realize that he wasn’t ruthless, and and kill it?’ And so he said, ‘OK, if we have enough time, we’ll come around and and shoot that.’”
They had enough time.
“We shot it. I knew it was going to be good,” Reinhold said. “But what’s funny is, for me, it was just a topper. It was just a punchline. But I’ve had actors come up to me and say, ‘That was really profound. … If you if you have a gesture that conveys who the person is, without words, that’s really great.’”
He added: “It’s an interesting thing. Some of the most important moments of our lives are nonverbal.”
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Main image: Judge Reinhold introduce the Arkansas Cinema Society’s Filmland screening of Ruthless People. Photo by Content Titan, courtesy of AFS.
