Synopsis
A scandalous comedy!
A tabloid reporter and her new photographer, who've recently started working for the mayor of New York City, stumble upon evidence of conspiracy and political corruption that may involve their beloved mayor.
Not for Publication
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Alternative Titles
Corruzione a New York, Geheimsache Schweinebacke, Não Publicar, 미공개 사건
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Theatrical
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USAR
Releases by Country
USA
01 Nov 1984
- TheatricalR
Popular reviews
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2 wacky 4 me: nancy's fine & when they finally get around to weird eyes wide shut stuff bartels sensibility occasionally shines thru the weird qanon/college-republican gags of sicko libs using pervert shit to... get $$ for public housing?? huh?? reagan's about to 84-landslide falwell into babylon while ignoring AIDS and p.b.'s urgent political satire is "virtue-signaling carelords are degenerate hypocrites"... is this a pj o'rourke script? hes funnier when hes the snob offing raoul - "people are bored with the poor." as an atlantan i guess its cool to hear "mayor franklin" a bunch, multiple shots of a dianetics h.q., laurence luckinbill saying "porno zines" and a v young bill engvall as a v gay photgrapher.
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I love the idea of doing a 30s style newspaper caper but about a sleazy 80s tabloid (and Paul Bartel creates a mixed-period alternate reality here several years before Tim Burton did a similar thing with a much higher budget on Batman), but this never quite hits the potential of that concept. That's not to even mention its weird political POV, complicated by an ending that I guess is supposed to come off as humorously cynical but actually seems like a pretty good arrangement for everyone involved as well as the city of New York. MVP: Laurence Luckinbill.
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![Erik [Auk]](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e29f7c74cb1d4a3859a3511566e4040e?rating=PG&size=80&border=&default=https%3A%2F%2Fs.ltrbxd.com%2Fstatic%2Fimg%2Favatar80.74798e0d.png)
Not for Publication is a Paul Bartel film that feels like a cross between a Bartel film and a mediocre 80s comedy. The first half is an okay at best threading of the needle between those two things but the second half is a total letdown devolving into just an underwhelming generic 80s comedy. About halfway in the warehouse scene when Barry starts getting holier than thou on Lois is when it nosedives sharply.
It's sad but easy to see how this was a failure, Bartel is too weird for a wide audience but the film is too tame to really inspire any cult interest either. The wildest it gets is the little dance scene in animal costumes that Nancy…
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"I'm putting in for combat pay for this interview."
Not Bartel's best film, but it may be his oddest, which considering his filmography is saying something. It's unambiguously set in present-day New York City, yet the cars, clothes, and some of the characters are decidedly anachronistic. Bartel also thinks nothing of setting an entire set-piece at a club called The Bestiary where, prefiguring Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut by a decade and a half, the well-heeled patrons wear animal masks and engage in wild orgies, to which tabloid reporter/photographer team Nancy Allen and David Naughton gain access by donning animal costumes and doing a song-and-dance routine to a ribald tune called "You Bring Out the Beast in Me." How that hasn't caught on with the furry set, I have no idea.
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I miss Paul Bartel.
Not For Publication is Bartel's follow-up to his breakout feature Eating Raoul, and although none of the main cast of that film reappears here in a significant way, the tone and dry sense of humor remains consistent between the two.
The film follows a tabloid-reporter (Nancy Allen) and her newly-hired photographer (David Naughton) as they go undercover to investigate corruption in city politics. There's a charming, almost naive quality to the main characters which only adds to the yuks in some of the more provocative scenes. For instance there's a great gag where the duo infiltrates a high-roller's animal-themed orgy by claiming to be the musical entertainment "Bird and Lamb" (everyone in the place is in animal costumes), and then proceed to sing and dance to the sweetly lurid "You Bring Out The Beast In Me".
Obscure, but worth hunting down for fans of either Bartel or Allen.
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has a better crash landing in the Hudson than Sully does on what must be 1/16 of the budget
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A weird duck of a film that's a bit scattershot in plot but has some solid screwball elements. The 80's retrograde politics seep into the film in a way that's unwelcome and hobble it from being anything but an artifact of it's time.
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Allan Arkush and I did the commentary track for the new Kino Lorber DVD/Blu-ray. The best thing about this film is the musical number about an hour or so into it. "You Bring Out the Beast in Me" renders it worthy of another half-star in the rating. It's a delightful sequence. Overall though, not one of Paul Bartel's better films
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Paul Bartel tries his hand at screwball? I can't say it is successful but it *is* unique. Every choice here is weird. The only thing that seems to ground it in a recognizable reality is that it takes place in New York City. If this had been set on Pluto it might have made a little more sense.
The cast is game and seems to be on the same page even as the plot bounces from one piece of nonsense to the next. Nancy Allen comes off the best and seems at home playing the 30s gal reporter archetype.
Stylistically, it almost feels of a piece with Allan Arkush's work from this time (Get Crazy, Rock 'n' Roll High School) but with Bartel's quirks folded in. Definitely not for everyone but I had a lot of fun with it.
Surprisingly cynical for such a light film.
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Scandal! Sex! Murder! Orgies!
Paul Bartel perverts the “Investigative Reporters solve a mystery and fall in love” plot by maintaining his goofy 1940s sense of style and adding in furry orgies and hypnopimps.
Nancy Allen (Carrie) stars as Lois Thornedyke, daughter of a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, a mayors assistant by day and, by night, reporter for the Informer who specializes in social issues like Showgirls getting bloody revenge on their pimp. She teams up with Barry Denver (David Naughton, An American Werewolf In London), a bird photographer who gets suckered in to both of her jobs.
Despite having an innocuous tone and very little nudity or horrific violence, this is a perverse film that manages to creep down your…