I watched the 1985 Warner Bros. Pictures comedy/adventure movie “The Goonies” on AMC. The Goon Docks are about to be foreclosed on. The neighborhood kids (Goonies) end up looking for a treasure to save the day. They find a map in the attic and are off on their bicycles and into the hands of an evil Mom who, with her son, had broken her other son out of prison. They also have a secret chained up in the abandoned restaurant they all end up in. It’s kinda like the Stranger Things kids in the Temple of Doom, with some Pirates of the Caribbean mixed in.
The story and the Executive Producer is Steven Spielberg. The movie is produced and directed by Richard Donner (The Omen, Superman, Superman II, Lethal Weapon 1-4, Scrooged, Maverick, Conspiracy Theory, TV episodes of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, Get Smart, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Gilligan’s Island, Get Smart, Twilight Zone)
The movie stars Sean Astin (Encino Man, Samwise in The Lord of the Rings movies, TV episodes of 24, Stranger Things), Josh Brolin (1999 Mod Squad, Hollow Man, Grindhouse, Jonah Hex, Men in Black 3, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron,
Deadpool 2, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, TV episode of The Young Riders), Jeff Cohen (TV episodes of Tales from the Darkside, Webster, The Facts of Life, Family Ties, Amazing Stories, She’s the Sheriff), Corey Feldman (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter,
Gremlins, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Stand by Me, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Meatballs 4, 1994 Maverick, TV episodes of Mork and Mindy, The Love Boat, Family Ties, Married with Children, Sliders), Jonathan Ke Huy Quan (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Encino Man),
Kerri Green (Summer Rental, TV episodes of In the Heat of the Night, Mad About You, Murder She Wrote, ER, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), Martha Plimpton (The Mosquito Coast, TV episodes of Family Ties, ER, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,
Anne Ramsey (Fun with Dick and Jane, Goin’ South, Any Which Way You Can, Throw Momma from the Train, Scrooged, TV episodes of Wonder Woman, Three’s Company, Family Ties, Night Court, Alf), Robert Davi (Die Hard, Predator 2, Son of the Pink Panther, The Expendables 3,
TV episodes of Charlie’s Angels, The Fall Guy, The A-Team, Hunter, The Equalizer, VR.5, Profiler, The Pretender, Stargate: Atlantis, Criminal Minds), Joe Pantoliano (Risky Business, The Fugitive, The Matrix, Memento, Daredevil, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, TV episodes of The Sopranos, Roswell),
Mary Ellen Trainor (Romancing the Stone, Lethal Weapon 1-4, Die Hard, Scrooged, Ghostbusters II, Forrest Gump, Congo, Freaky Friday, TV episodes of Remington Steele, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Roswell), Keith Walker (co-wrote Free Willy, writer for TV like The Fall Guy, Emergency!, Quincy, M.E. and M*A*S*H),
Steve Antin (TV episodes of Silver Spoons, 21 Jump Street, NYPD Blue), Lupe Ontiveros (TV episodes of Eight is Enough, Alice, Soap, Caroline in the City, Desperate Housewives), Michael Paul Chan (The Joy Luck Club, Batman Forever, US Marshalls, Spy Game, Batman & Robin, TV episodes of The Wonder Years, Babylon 5, Arrested Development, Bones) and George Robotham (The Ten Commandments, Spartacus).
Richard Donner, the director, also appears as a Prison Guard. Datasoft produced a Goonies video game for Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit family, and Apple II in 1985. The movie soundtrack, on Epic (EK 40067), includes songs by Cyndi Lauper, Philip Bailey, The Bangles, Teena Marie, REO Speedwagon, Luther Vandross and Dave Grusin.
Much of the filming took place in Astoria, Oregon the setting for the film. The jail break took place in the old Clatsop County Jail which is now the Oregon Film Museum. The goonies ride their bikes to Ecola State Park which is really 26 miles from Astoria. They use the Haystack Rock (235 foot sea stack in Cannon Beach, Oregon) for the starting location on their map.
This is a fun movie, but I thought it was a little draggy at the beginning. I am surprised that I had never seen it before, but I did buy the soundtrack back in 1985. I’ll give “The Goonies” 4 out of 5 stars. For more information read Wikipedia, IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.
