RICHARD BENJAMIN & MOLLY RINGWALD TV MOVIE 'PACKIN' IT IN'

Upon heavy glance this is a creepy picture: Year Televised: 1983

The husband/wife team of Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss isn't famous for what's arguably their best effort — a television movie titled PACKIN' IT IN with a non-famous Molly Ringwald whose father... like the theatrical TEMPEST... is tired of the ordinary life, moving to a rural location — not an island but in this case, the woods...

TV Movie Curve: ****1/2

As the family goes to a better place to raise their kids and to breath the clear air, the jokes are quick and never forced while our hero provides the weak husband out of his element with ease. In one moment, before the shift from L.A. to Oregon (or Washington?), Molly's boyfriend, a punker named Johnny Crud, repeats how life is basically for the birds, and Benjamin replies: "Crud, get a job!"

Sam Whipple reigns

The opening stages back home seems like its very own episode — followed by the family's luck running dry in the mountainous town that's more of a survivalist camp and that, at one point, winds up without any food or supplies. Benjamin, and comic actors like him who aren't exactly the macho type, are all reminiscent of (and inspired by) Woody Allen, so Tony Roberts, as the family's best friend and eventual foil, fits right in...

Meanwhile, Paula Prentiss is her usual tomboyish, independent pretty, smart and clever gal; Molly and AIRPLANE child actor David Hollander are suburb brats and only annoying to their parents, not the audience...

And the passive yet fully effective scene stealer is the monotone son of Kenneth McMillan's survivalist a--hole, played by Sam Whipple (who appeared with two more Brat Packers, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy, in BLUE CITY, as shown in the picture below). Making PACKIN' is a nearly perfect adventure, and you'll feel right there, out there, in the comedic nightmare of "bad things constantly happening to nice people" i.e. "a nice person,"which is basically a sub-genre in itself.

Sam Whipple w/ another Breakfast Club Brat Packer, Judd Nelson Blue City Sam Whipple Blue City Sam Whipple Packin' It In