Four misfit young boys. A treasure map. A legend of a pirate's gold. Escaped bank robbers in pursuit. Now that I was a parent, watching the HARRY POTTER and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN films with my son and daughter, the genius of THE GOONIES finally came to light. It was really meant for young kids and their parents not a college kid. I just caught THE GOONIES at the wrong time in my life the first time. I couldn't relate to it. But as a parent, I found my inner kid with my children. I rediscovered pirates and dinosaurs and STAR WARS with them. And, I found a new fondness for THE GOONIES.
Another thing I discovered that I somehow missed the first time I watched THE GOONIES was that it showcases my home state of Oregon very nicely. Ecola State Park, Cannon Beach, and the town of Astoria, Oregon all feature prominently in THE GOONIES. Originally, young wunderkind Steven Spielberg was going to direct THE GOONIES (based on an idea of his). Instead, another young hotshot Chris Columbus (fresh off his GREMLINS script) wrote the screenplay with Spielberg serving as Executive Producer. Veteran director Richard Donner (SUPERMAN, LETHAL WEAPON) would be the surprise director of the film starring mostly kids.
THE GOONIES are what four boys living in Astoria, Oregon call themselves. There's the asthmatic Mikey Walsh (Sean Astin), the loud Clark aka "Mouth" (Corey Feldman), the gadget kid Data Wang (Ke Huy Quan), and the chubby, accident prone Lawrence aka "Chunk" (Jeff Cohen). The Walsh family and many other families are about to be evicted from their homes to make way for a golf course. Mikey's nostalgic for one last Goonie weekend before he may be separated from his best friends. The four boys along with Mikey's older brother Brandon aka Brand (Josh Brolin) sneak up into Mr. Walsh's attic, full of carnival junk, costumes, and old nautical relics. While rummaging around, Mikey discovers an old pirate map behind an oil painting and Chunk finds a doubloon from 1632 with strange markings on it.
Mikey believes the map leads to the rumored treasure of the pirate One Eyed Willie. Years earlier, amateur treasure hunter Chester Cobblepot had searched for Willie's loot only to disappear. The Goonies tie up big brother Brand and head to the coast to begin their search. Brand breaks free and follows the boys, running into jock Troy Perkins (Steve Antin), his girlfriend Andy (Keri Green) who Brand likes and her tomboy best friend Stef (Martha Plimpton). The boys match the doubloon piece to some sea stacks along the beach. They check out an old diner nearby which happens to be the hideout for recently escaped bank robber Jake Fratelli (Robert Davi), his brother Francis (Joe Pantoliano), and mother Ma Fratelli (Anne Ramsay), the ringleader. The Goonies send Chunk to tell the authorities about the Fratelli's but he's caught by the opera singing Jake. The Fratelli's throw Chunk in a room with their hideously deformed brother Sloth (John Matuszak).
The rest of the Goonies including Brand, Andy, and Stef find a passage under the diner. Like a good Hardy Boys mystery, the Goonies enter the passage as they follow clues from the map. Along the way, they will discover what happened to Chester Cobblepot (it's not pretty). The kids encounter multiple chambers with pirate booby traps and a colony of bats. The Fratelli's interrogate Chunk who quickly tells them about their quest for pirate treasure. The Fratelli's are in hot pursuit of the Goonies leaving Chunk locked up with Sloth.
At times, the kids want to give up the hunt for One Eyed Willie's loot but Mikey pushes them on. "Goonies never say die!" is Mikey's motto. Sloth helps Chunk break out of their locked room. They pick up the Goonies and Fratelli's trail for One Eyed Willie's plunder. One final pirate trick blocks the Goonies path - a musical trap. If Andy plays one wrong key on a makeshift organ, it's death for the Goonies. The Goonies survive (did you really have any doubt) and catch a natural water slide that takes them to an underground pool where a large pirate ship awaits them. Will the Goonies find One Eyed Willie's treasure on the ship and save their homes from foreclosure or will the Fratelli's catch them and make the kids walk the plank?
On the surface, THE GOONIES appears to be a kid adventure film. But like Rob Reiner's STAND BY ME (1986), another film about four boys set in the 50's that came out a year later, THE GOONIES has more depth than Chunk's "truffle shuffle." The four boys who call themselves "Goonies" are rejects. Loved by their families, they are outcasts to some degree. Each has a physical or social barrier that doesn't quite fit with the cool kids. Mikey's health condition, Chunk's weight, Mouth's social awkwardness, and Data's goofy Rube Goldberg inventions (and he's Vietnamese). They find understanding and kindness (as kind as 10 years old can be) in their small circle. During their adventure, each Goonie will use his or her particular skill to keep the group and the quest alive.
Like the "Goonies", One Eyed Willie and his band of cutthroats are also misfits and rejects. When Mikey finally meets his pirate idol in his jewel laden quarters, he whispers to the skeleton that Willie was "the first Goonie." Mikey feels a kindred spirit with the pirate. Like the Goonies, Willie had a physical handicap. He was missing an eye. Forced to wear an eye patch, One Eyed Willie and his gang had their own adventures 200 years earlier as they stole treasure and outran the authorities (in this case the British Navy).
Although Richard Donner directed THE GOONIES, the film has Steven Spielberg's stamp all over it. Spielberg has a story credit and was Executive Producer on THE GOONIES (and reportedly directed a few scenes to boot). Spielberg's long time editor Michael Kahn (E.T., EMPIRE OF THE SUN) handled the cutting. Actor Ke Huy Quan who plays Data in THE GOONIES had just appeared in Spielberg's INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984) as Short Round. Many of the pirate traps involving large boulders, skeletons, and sharp spikes have a TEMPLE OF DOOM feel to them. Spielberg never did direct a pirate film until HOOK (1991) so THE GOONIES was his first chance to explore that genre indirectly.
Director Donner and screenwriter Columbus also throw in some easter eggs of their own from their previous film works. Sloth reveals a Superman t-shirt late in the film when he rescues the Goonies from the Fratelli's. Donner directed SUPERMAN in 1978 starring Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder. When Chunk calls the Sheriff (Paul Tuerpe) to report a murder at the diner, the skeptical sheriff reminds Chunk about a previous phone prank Chunk made warning about little creatures that multiply when doused with water. The Sheriff is referencing Joe Dante's GREMLINS (1984) which GOONIES screenwriter Columbus wrote. Even actor John Matuszak who plays the hideous Fratelli brother Sloth has some fun. Matuszak was a former NFL defensive lineman. He sports an Oakland Raiders t-shirt (the team he played for) when we first see him bound in his room like Notre Dame's Quasimodo.
When I was in film school, two of my film school buddies were always talking about gags that they wrote for their student films. Gags were a funny visual or a funny scene. Steven Spielberg is not one I would normally associate with gags but a featurette I watched about the making of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) talked about how Spielberg finally worked a gag about a coat hangar into RAIDERS after failed attempts in some earlier films. THE GOONIES has plenty of funny gags in it. There's Chunk continually getting tangled up with a dead FBI agent. Mouth's unusual Spanish translation to the Walsh cleaning woman Rosalita (Lupe Ontiveros) is a running gag ("upstairs is where Mr. Walsh keeps his sexual torture devices"). Data's hit or miss inventions are humorous (in the finale we see where Data gets his ideas when his father shows up with similar gadgets attached to his body).
The success or failure of an ensemble film hinges on the chemistry between the kids. Donner and Spielberg got it right in THE GOONIES. For two of the kids, they chose actors with Hollywood pedigree. THE GOONIES is Josh Brolin's first credit ever. Son of James Brolin (TVs MARCUS WELBY, M.D. and Barbara Streisand's long time companion), Josh has become a huge star appearing most recently in Denis Villenueva's SICARIO (2015) and the Russo Brothers AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018). But Brolin bummed around after THE GOONIES in television and movies with little fanfare until 2007 when the Coen Brothers cast him in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Brolin is so natural as Mikey's older brother Brand, trying to be responsible and cool at the same time. Sean Astin who plays Mikey Walsh is the son of actress Patty Duke (THE MIRACLE WORKER). Like Brolin, THE GOONIES was Sean's first film as well. Besides THE GOONIES, Astin is best remembered as Notre Dame football walk on Rudy Ruettiger in David Anspaugh's RUDY (1993) and as the hobbit Samwise Gamgee in Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. In GOONIES, Astin's Mikey is the unofficial leader of the gang.
Corey Feldman who plays Mouth in THE GOONIES had an unbelievable decade in the 80s. In a four year span, Feldman appeared in GREMLINS (1984), THE GOONIES, Rob Reiner's STAND BY ME (1986), and Joel Schumacher's teen vampire tale THE LOST BOYS (1987). Feldman's characters always had an edge to them. His characters could have an abusive father (STAND BY ME) or have no father at all (THE GOONIES). Like many child actors, Feldman's early years were his best. THE GOONIES was just Martha Plimpton's second feature film. With her unique looks and sense of humor (she's also the daughter of actor Keith Carradine), Plimpton steals many of her scenes in THE GOONIES. Plimpton would work with some good directors afterward appearing in Peter Weir's THE MOSQUITO COAST (1986) with Harrison Ford and Sidney Lumet's RUNNING ON EMPTY (1988) with River Phoenix. More recently, I enjoyed watching her in RAISING HOPE, a television comedy series that ran from 2010 to 2014 on Fox.
To offset all the young actors, Donner went with some veteran character actors to play the heavies. There was no mistaking granite faced, raspy voiced actress Anne Ramsay. She would scare me in my own dark hallway. Ramsay started her career late in life but will always be known for Ma Fratelli in THE GOONIES and as Danny DeVito's insufferable mother in THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN (1987). Robert Davi as Jake Fratelli played both heavies and good guys. He was FBI Agent Big Johnson in John McTiernan's DIE HARD (1988) but played villain Franz Sanchez in the James Bond film LICENSE TO KILL (1989). Davi may have a killer's face but he shows off his vocal chords as well in THE GOONIES with a little opera singing. Davi and Joe Pantoliano as his toupee wearing brother Francis have fun with the Fratelli brothers, making them more humorous than scary with their slapstick antics. Pantoliano played another baddie with a darker sense of humor in Paul Brickman's RISKY BUSINESS (1983) and was John Malkovich's smuggling partner in Spielberg's EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987).
There is one element of THE GOONIES that still doesn't work for me. That would be Sloth, the Fratelli's brothers monstrosity of a younger brother. Sloth is just too unbelievable (and this is hard to say when the film's plot involves the discovery of an underground grotto with a pirate ship). His character and role make sense. Like the Goonies, Sloth is an outcast, mistreated and misunderstood by his family and outsiders because of his appearance (think Quasimodo but if he were the size of a linebacker). He's needed to help the Goonies outwit and outmuscle the Fratelli's. But his look is unrealistically grotesque. There's nothing wrong with John Matuszak's performance as Sloth. I just wish the filmmakers could have come up with a more believable looking character.
I mentioned earlier that I was surprised that Richard Donner was tapped to direct THE GOONIES as he was more associated with macho action films like THE LETHAL WEAPON series. But Donner proved he was adept with directing kids as well. Donner would also make the youth oriented RADIO FLYER (1992) with Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazzello and executive produce THE LOST BOYS (which starred the two Corey's - Feldman and Haim) and FREE WILLY (1993). Donner found movie success later in his career after a long period of television directing. Donner directed at least one episode on almost every popular television series from THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE MAN FROM UNCLE to GILLIGAN'S ISLAND and GET SMART. His feature film debut would be THE OMEN (1976) with Gregory Peck and Lee Remick.
The little film that I hated as a college student called THE GOONIES has become a phenomena today not just in Oregon but the world. Every year on June 7th (the day the film was released), the town of Astoria, Oregon holds a 3 day Goonies festival and even has a website called The Goondocks with the latest info. Jeff Cohen (now an entertainment lawyer and much slimmer) who played Chunk appeared with some of the other cast and crew for the 25th Anniversary in 2010. I've taken a friend visiting from Oklahoma to Astoria to see the Goonie house (so many tourists have come to see the Walsh house that it's now off-limits to fans). Sometimes we misjudge a film the first time we watch it. I've done it many times. THE GOONIES is one those films. It may not be a classic like GONE WITH THE WIND or CITIZEN KANE but THE GOONIES has its heart in the right place and a fun universal story that kids and adults can connect with.
