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Two weeks ago, a Wendy’s on Queens Boulevard closed down, soon to be razed and turned into condos. The demolition elicited eulogies from cinema buffs and its one-time proprietor, Cleo McDowell (a k a actor John Amos), who ran the restaurant when it served as the set for burger joint McDowell’s in 1988’s “Coming to America.” “Everything crumbles in time,” Amos told the Wall Street Journal. “In the process we lose a lot of memories.”
While the faux eatery will soon be history, “Coming to America” endures. This month marks the 25th anniversary of cinema’s greatest triumph. Sure, highbrow folks might smugly drop buzz titles such as “Casablanca” or “Citizen Kane.” But “Coming to America” has everything those movies had and more: an epic love story, an exotic, far-flung kingdom, crazy culture clashes and more Jheri curl than Rick James’ bathroom.
The movie marked Eddie Murphy’s creative apex, when he was sneezing out blockbusters such as “48 Hours” and “Raw,” and gave no indication of dreck like “Daddy Day Care” and “Norbit” on the horizon.
From the moment we meet Murphy’s pampered Prince Akeem of Zamunda on his 21st birthday, he takes us on a 117-minute odyssey of one-liners and sight gags. He sets off from his kingdom seeking a bride who arouses his “intellect as well as [his] loins.” He winds up in Queens.
Fawning “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” fans will flog me with strands of pearls for this, but is there any other movie that better taps the romanticism of New York? This is classic ’80s Gotham: graffiti-plastered subways, crime-ridden boroughs and St. John’s basketball. But it’s seen through the eyes of a royal interloper who has never tied his own shoes.
When Akeem and loyal servant Semmi (Arsenio Hall) arrive wearing ridiculous pelts and golden adornments, they hail a cab and head for a poor area instead of the Waldorf-Astoria. They are promptly robbed of their “princely robes,” and Akeem is told, “F – – k you” after he wishes his new neighbor a good morning.
What’s more Big Apple authentic than a friendly F-bomb? Certainly not Micky Rooney as a Chinese guy.
Posing as a goat herder cum student, Akeem works at a Micky D’s knock-off and woos the owner’s daughter. He gets a lesson in larceny. “See, they’re McDonald’s — I’m McDowell’s,” Cleo explains. “They got the Golden Arches — mine is the Golden Arcs.”
The most groundbreaking scenes took place at My-T-Sharp, the neighborhood barber shop. Spitfire, hilarious banter flowed, riffing on boxing greats Rocky Marciano, Joe Lewis and Muhammed Ali, as well as MLK and Frank Sinatra. “You ain’t never seen Dr. Martin Luther King with no messy Jheri curl on his head,” says Murphy as gold-toothed barber Clarence. He also gives us kvetchy old Saul, in a performance so convincing, you swear you recognize him from the gefilte fish counter at Zabar’s.
It was the first time Murphy played multiple characters in a scene — elsewhere in the film, he also portrays flamboyant Randy Watson, who warbles “The Greatest Love of All” with his band, Sexual Chocolate — as well as a triumph of makeup and trick photography.
Hall, meanwhile, turns into a fellow barber, a linebacker of a woman and a preacher who doesn’t mind hitting on hotties in the congregation. (“Girl, you look so good, someone ought to put you on a plate and sop you up with a biscuit.”)
The movie set a new standard for rom-coms, striking a balance between raunch and sentiment that informed later frat-pack comedies. It was so prescient that it even predicted the Giants’ NFC championship win over Green Bay that sent them to the Super Bowl in 2008. Akeem describes in exact detail the last-second field-goal win, then declares, “It was a most ripping victory.”
Just one more reason “Coming to America” is the most ripping film of all time.