Weekend at Bernie's

A one-joke movie which moves puerile party humour from the Animal House to the yuppie world of work. Pals Larry (McCarthy) and Dick (Silverman) - one a smooth-talking sloppy-Joe, the other a tongue-tied whizz-kid-in-waiting - share desks and frustration on the trading floor at Trans Allied Insurance. When Dick finds a million-dollar discrepancy in payouts, they force their way into an audience with jet-setter boss Bernie (Kiser), who invites them, with Bela Lugosi smile, for a weekend at his Hamptons beach-house. Death is in the offing, but it's Bernie who gets stiffed (by his Mafia associates), not the boys. Question is, how long can they party, party, party with the bathing-suited bimbos and cool cat coke-sniffers before anybody notices that Bernie's a corpse? Kotcheff aims straight for the juvenile and spends most of his effort, successfully, on getting the timing right for the endless gags with Bernie's cadaver propped up on the sofa, falling downstairs, etc. But it's strictly kids'stuff and quickly palls.