NEARLY 15 years after it played in movie theaters, the Chevy Chase comedy “Fletch” has become a cult phenomenon – especially on college campuses.
There are fraternities and clubs at top schools like Georgetown with membership limited to those who can pass a “Fletch” test.
There are dozens of “Fletch” sites on the Web. And there are young men all over the country who believe there’s a “Fletch” quote appropriate for every situation.
“It’s huge,” Chase tells The Post. “I would get calls from colleges like Amherst and Williams when I was back in L.A. a few years ago. And I actually spoke to a [film studies] class at one of those colleges by speaker phone! Here I was, talking to a class of 200 people – and you know, it’s not ‘Lawrence of Arabia.'”
The cult is so widespread the popular satirical magazine The Onion ran a parody item in February entitled “Area Insurance Salesman Celebrates 14th Year of Quoting Fletch.”
The salesman in question confessed to quoting the movie “an estimated 241,500 times since first dropping lines from the film into conversation in November 1985.”
Filmmaker Andrew Bergman (“The In-Laws” and “Honeymoon in Vegas”), who wrote the “Fletch” screenplay, points out that “the film was very successful at the time and did terrific business.”
It grossed $50 million, making it a big hit by 1985 standards. “But its endurance afterwards is quite remarkable,” says Bergman.
He recounts being told by Disney honcho Michael Eisner that a Princeton University dining club requires its prospective members have the whole movie memorized.
“It’s so bizarre, but ‘Fletch’ strikes a chord. There’s a group of movies like that in the ’80s, like ‘Caddyshack,’ too, that captured a certain wise-ass thing.”
If you watch “Fletch” today, what stands out isn’t the dated ’80s soundtrack so much as the balanced blend of detective story and humor, and the dry, low-key nature of its comedy.
The main character, an investigative reporter, shows amazing insolence toward bullying or powerful people. He’s also a smart guy who finds the ignorance of those around him very amusing.
Bergman also points out that “Fletch” was based on a very successful series of mystery novels by Gregory McDonald, and that “the pursuit works, and the chase stuff was shot really well by [director] Michael [Ritchie]. It was also terrifically well cast in the little parts.”
He also remembers that the film’s breezy quality reflected the circumstances of its birth.
“I wrote it very fast – I did the first draft in four weeks, and I usually can’t write a check in four weeks. Then there was a certain amount of improv, and something that we used to call dial-a-joke. Michael found this aircraft hanger, and called me and said we need a scene set in an aircraft hanger. So I wrote it that afternoon. It was like old-time movie-making, seat-of-the-pants style.”
Chase takes credit for many of the movie’s apparently improvised jokes, like Fletch’s effort to pass as a doctor at a hospital by murmuring variations on the name “Dr. Rosen” – “Dr. Rosenfetus, Dr. Rosenrosen … “
“It was at the height of my career in film, and it was as close to me as a person as any part I’d played,” Chase says. “It’s for that reason that people in the street felt they could say, ‘Hey, Chevy’ and do some lines from ‘Fletch,’ because they were very Chevy.”
Chase thinks that the movie continues to appeal to college students because of “the cheekiness of the guy … everybody at that age would like to be as quick-witted as Fletch, and as uncaring about what others think.”
A disappointing sequel, “Fletch Lives,” was released in 1989. “I didn’t like it at all,” Chase says. But the original’s enduring popularity led Universal to approach indie filmmaker Kevin (“Chasing Amy”) Smith to develop a “Fletch 3.” But, according to Chase, Smith never came through.
“Kevin has never called me,” Chase says. “He promised to write a ‘Fletch’ for two years but never called me. Then, after two years, he told a friend he wasn’t going to do it. It’s Hollywood-type crap treatment, so rude. I could have been writing a ‘Fletch’ with someone else during that time. There’s no hard feelings, but I’ve never done that to anybody.”
Bergman says that if Chase “hadn’t screwed up the second one, he could have been Clouseau – he could have done that part forever.”