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Amid the jocks, nerds and shoulder pads of the ’80s teen rom-com landscape, a dark horse emerged: 1985’s “Just One of the Guys,” which wore its feminist agenda lightly. In a riff on Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” high-schooler Terry (Joyce Hyser Robinson) goes undercover as a boy at a rival school after deciding she’s been discriminated …
Amid the jocks, nerds and shoulder pads of the ’80s teen rom-com landscape, a dark horse emerged: 1985’s “Just One of the Guys,” which wore its feminist agenda lightly.
In a riff on Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” high-schooler Terry (Joyce Hyser Robinson) goes undercover as a boy at a rival school after deciding she’s been discriminated against, in a journalism contest, for being just a pretty face. The cast, including a young Sherilyn Fenn, was mostly unknown, though Billy Zabka of “The Karate Kid” played a bully.
Ahead of the film’s 35th anniversary on April 26, Hyser Robinson and her director, Lisa Gottlieb, give us some behind-the-scenes insight into the film, which has a Blu-ray release out April 28.
How a first-time director in her 20s was discovered with an award-winning college film.
Lisa Gottlieb: It [“Murder in the Mist”] was a takeoff on misogynist film noir, and because of this little gender-bending movie, a guy from ICM found me and said, “I’d like to do a high school version of ‘Tootsie.’ ”
Her lead actress didn’t have to look far for inspiration.
Joyce Hyser Robinson: I grew up with three brothers … a street kid from Philadelphia who loved movies. I had a good idea of how I wanted to portray Terry. And remember, I’m not supposed to BE a boy — I’m a girly girl PRETENDING to be a boy.
How Hyser Robinson kept her cool in the plaster-casted bodysuit she wore as a guy.
JHR: It was so hot, when we shot outside they would have — I don’t even know if this exists anymore, Sea Breeze [an astringent face toner]. It had this cooling effect, and they had buckets of it around and would pour it down my bodysuit between takes.
Billy Jacoby, as Terry’s sex-obsessed younger brother Buddy, was the set’s comic relief.
LG: When he walked into my office, I called everybody and said, “I just found the 14-year-old Bill Murray.”
JHR: We would constantly get in trouble, because we couldn’t stop laughing.
Co-writer Jeff Franklin, who went on to create “Full House,” was the soul of Buddy.
LG: Jeff was everybody’s horny little brother. He wrote the ball-scratching speech [where Buddy teaches Terry how to act like a guy] and lines explaining how men stand: “We stick our d - - k out because we want the world to know how big it is.”
Gottlieb fired her initial cinematographer for being sexist.
LG: He was older, from this generation of men that can’t talk to women. We would meet to go over shots and he would just say, ‘Don’t worry, babe, I’ll make you look like a good director.’ I was like, I’m not gonna give up the look of the film to this a - - hole.
How Terry should reveal her true gender to love interest Rick (Clayton Rohner) was the subject of debate.
LG: I talked Joyce into taking her shirt off; I knew we needed that. One of the first lines I wrote was, “Where do you get off having tits?”
JHR: I had a no-nudity clause. But Lisa said, “What if we shoot it both ways, and you make the decision?” When I looked at the dailies, it was so much more impactful when you actually saw them!
The final scene, in which Rick insists on being the stereotypical guy, seems at odds with the rest of the film.
JHR: I agree! We shot that ending months later.
LG: I wrote an ending where she’s on the soccer field and Clayton tackles her and they roll around. But Jeff came back and told the executives he didn’t think it worked. He had a hit [TV] show by now; everybody kissed his ass.
On opening weekend, the studio abandoned them for John Travolta.
JHR: A movie called “Perfect” was released then, also by Columbia. Because it starred Travolta, they poured every marketing dollar they had into it. Ours still made more money.
LG: It was really obvious which film was going to excite audiences. And it wasn’t the aerobics class dramedy.
Hyser Robinson has gradually connected with the now-cult-film’s fan base.
JHR: I had just started the Harold Robinson Foundation [named for her late father-in-law and to benefit underprivileged children in South LA] and I thought conventions might be a great way to raise money. So I started meeting fans. So many people said this movie was life-changing. The LGBTQ community went crazy for it. I was overwhelmed.
