Siskel and Ebert review Heartbeeps starring Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters

This is a "Two Thumbs Down" review of "Heartbeeps" by Siskel and Ebert on their WTTW Chicago show: Sneak Previews. The movie was debuted in 1981 only to receive a wave of bad reviews. This was Andy's big launch into the movies. Because of it's failure it also caused the collapse of "The Tony Clifton Story" being made, as the movie studios didn't want to take another chance on a movie in Andy's hands bombing. Andy blamed the writing and direction as the reason the movie played out so poorly... I think he was right as it is at least a great performance by Andy.

Category:

Entertainment

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• Heartbeeps
• Andy Kaufman
• Bernadette Peters
• Siskel and Ebert
• Movie Critic
• Reviews
• Movie Reviews
• Tony Clifton
• Comic Relief
• Hurricane Katrina

[cinemavirtualis]

The boys from Chicago were right, of course, its a truly awful film in every way, including Andy's faux attempt to recycle his Latka/Foreign Man voice into something robotically cutesy (and instead coming off sounding like Latka with a bad cold). Its a great tragedy that this piece of crap ended up being the beginning of the end for Andy's career, and especially that it killed off the potential Tony Clifton movie, which would have been a true classic.

Don Alex (Subterranean Cinema)

[ertznay]

Knowing of Andy Kaufman's eccentricities, has it occured to anyone, that he picked the worst script he could find, just to be Andy Kaufman. I'm ot saying he did that, but he liked to take a joke real, REAL far. I couldn't even sit through the whole thing. I laughed more at Ebert's review than at any scene I saw in Heartbeeps.

[Charlenefabulous]

OMG, can anyone get more tasteless and gross than Ebert? He tells you what to watch?

[CoolerKing37]

I only know this movie from being a reference on The Simpsons. A coffee mug from this film was put in the Smithsonian!

[mcasual]

i liked that movie, it's always re-comforting to realize the amount of boredom and distaste i can sidestep :)

[jksonny]

Is Kaufman made up to intentionally look like Tony Bennett?

[Jawsphobia]

Nice to hear the old theme and see the old goofy intro of Sneak Previews. But Ebert is wrong about the sunset scene he mentioned. Someone posted the opening on youtube. The sunset scene takes place AFTER the opening credits. I don't like Heartbeeps, but I can say the same thing for a lot of well-reviewed art films.

[mrgb46]

Real bad movies are a pain to sit through and can drag on forever.This movie is both.

[kellygreen5556]

ebert is so ugly and yesterday

[guendoloena1]

@mbarbarelli I was born in 76 so we must be about the same age :)

[mbarbarelli]

@guendoloena1 Ha, I saw Heartbeeps in the theatre also. I was about six years old and bored to tears.