USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK: THINKIN' BIG

Thinkin’ Big (1986)

Director: S.F. Brownrigg; Cast: Bruce Anderson, Nancy Buechler, Randy Jandt

Reviewed By Mike "McBeardo" McPadden

Ello readers, Erok/ Crankenstein here with a short intro. Just like the fictional Lord Summerisle, every May I've decided to hold a satanic festival devoted to USA UP ALL NIGHT not witchy birthing rights, flaming hands of glory or human sacrifices. We've got an exciting special guest contributor, Mike "McBeardo" McPadden who wrote the excellent book Heavy Metal Movies. He's written for Mr. Skin, was in "Adjust you Tracking" And is featured on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal podcast, which I'm hooked on like nobodies business. Take it away McBeardo!

Over the course of just five releases, Texas-based regional filmmaker Sherald “S.F.” Brownrigg branded an indelible mark on drive-in cinema culture. Three Brownrigg efforts are brooding, brutal experiences that generated millions on the trash-flick circuit: Don’t Look in the Basement (1973), Don’t Open the Door (1974) and Scum of the Earth aka Poor White Trash II (1974). A fourth film, Keep My Grave Open (1976), is less known, but still a lurid spelunk worth taking. Then we’ve got Thinkin’ Big.

here's the story of a guy named PUD!

Ever reminding us that “everything is bigger” in the Lone Star State, Thinkin’ Big chronicles four teenage buds (all of whom look like a cake with 30 candles is in the rearview mirror of the Sno-Cone truck they’re driving) as they beat a path to the sunny beaches of South Padre Island. At some point, virtually every human who appears on camera declares the need to “think big.”

Two characters matter most: morbidly obese good-time glutton Pud (Bruce Anderson) and Wong (Randy Jandt), who’s described early on as “the Oriental Sno-Cone King.” Wong speaks with a “ching-chong” accent, practices martial arts, and does, in fact, own and operate the aforementioned Sno-Cone truck. In a delightful subversion of stereotypes, though, Wong’s wang is a wondrous whopper. Ah, so!

Danielson dropped the crane kick and went with the Welcome Home Brother Charles approach

After endless references to Wong’s trouser dragon, we actually get to see it in (hilarious) silhouette as he does “karate stuff” on the shoreline at dawn. If things are bigger in Texas, they appear to be absolute monstrous in Asia. Endlessly impressed (to the point of tying a prick to his own pricklet), Pud asks his Wong how he, too, might expand his one and only non-gigantic appendage. Wong replies (get ready): “Think big!”

that's as hackneyed as wearing this t-shirt!

Female nudity abounds. Some occurs at a wet t-shirt contest, more results from skinny-dipping, and an abundance crops up while Pud’s “thinks big” about a topless carwash. Also, in keeping with a reoccurring theme in all these fun-in-the-sun flicks, mobsters threaten everybody’s carefree and/or clothes-free nice time. One goombah gets shot in the head. No more thinkin’ big for him.

I keep telling youse, it's liquor in the front, poker in the rear, Jeez!

S.F. Brownrigg himself may have thought a little too big about Thinkin’ Big. It runs a long one-hour, 30-minutes. Still, the whole thing is a hoot that’s flecked with entertaining. Idiosyncrasies. It’s also delightful to imagine how like Bert I. Gordon did with Let’s Do It (1982) and The Big Bet (1985), one of vintage exploitation cinema’s unique visionaries witnessed the ’80s teen T&A flick explosion, and thought: “Grab a camera, I need in on this idiotic goldmine!”

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