User reviews

Christopher Atkins! Lesley Ann Warren!! Eighties top-ten hits! For goodness sakes, the guy who played Tony HOSTED Dance Fever!! I remember that I had a crush on him.

This movie is so totally steeped in Eighties pop-culture. From the first scene where Whitney shuts down the computer (get a load of that thing?) to the hot pants worn by Atkins. The Eighties (especially the early Eighties) was a time when the lines blurred between being gay and straight. Ahh those heady pre-AIDS days...

At one point in the movie, Ricky (Atkins)responds to his sister complaining about his sleeping around, "I'm 21 years old, I'm right where I'm supposed to be..." And the fashions, man, the FASHIONS. The Peter Pan collars worn by Warren. The red dress complete with puffy sleeves when she goes to the strip club for the first time. The big hair! Pick ANY item worn by Tony... All Eighties, all the time!! And finally - the hottest sex scene that is STILL hot by today's standards!! The Big Easy comes close.... close, but not quite.

It's not a great movie. I don't think it's even a mediocre movie. But I DO think it's an IMPORTANT movie. One day our children will watch this movie and think... "what where they THINKING?!??!"

Heavenly, this film is not, but I must admit that it is one of my guilty pleasures.

The story centers on a community college speech teacher (Warren) with a recently laid-off husband. Her wild sister drags her to a male strip club one night where she discovers that her lazy student (Atkins) is the star attraction. Wouldn't you know it, eventually the teacher is getting private lessons from the student. It's really about temptation and devotion and the fight between the two.

While the plot and styles are incredibly dated, thee are some things to recommend about this film. Warren gives a strong performance, doing as much with the material as she can. Her transition from constricted and conflicted wife to released vixen is convincing. Her frustrated husband, Logan, also does a fine job. Atkins is Atkins and does nothing more than offer lingering stares and lots of skin.

What makes this film a guilty pleasure is the good use of Bryan Adams' music and one of the more erotic love scenes ever filmed with someone of Warren's stature (this was around the time she blew audiences away with her Oscar-nominated performance in Victor/Victoria). If you never thought of Warren as a sexual dynamo, stick around. Some cuts of the love scene contain a shot of Atkin's manhood, which shocked me even back then.

There are some dramatic elements involving the husband and his frustrations, as well as Warren's inner conflicts, but the film is far too short to go into these too deeply.

It's not a good film by any means but I do think it tried to be something more than the trash it was. Perhaps some of the plot ended up on the dance-room floor.

A Night In Heaven rates right up there as one of the trashiest films ever made. But Christopher Atkins is so goldarn sexy in this I have to say that this film is a guilty pleasure of mine.

The Blue Lagoon Boy with no curls any longer plays a trailer park kid who is the main attraction at a male strip club named Heaven located in Titusville near Cape Canaveral. He's also going to community college where Professor Lesley Anne Warren flunks him in her Speech class. At the same time Warren is not getting any attention from husband Robert Logan and she's frustrated.

On a girl's night out, she takes one look at Atkins and Atkins sees the look Warren is giving him and the results are inevitable. I think you can figure where this is going, it doesn't take a genius. But the climax I will say rates high in the ludicrous cinema department.

Interestingly enough while Christopher Atkins won the Razzie Award for worst actor, A Night In Heaven wasn't nominated for Worst Picture. It was probably unfair to Chris since all he was asked to do was look sexy and be seductive. He succeeded admirably on both counts. I suppose the Razzies are as inscrutable as the Oscars.

But if your taste runs to trashy movies, don't let this one get by.

I rented this movie as a total goof with a friend about a year after it came out, expecting it to be as cheesy and pathetic as the trailer. This is not great cinema by any means. But some actual thought went into the making of this and it was a lot better than I ever anticipated. In fact, back in the day, Siskel and Ebert actually gave this two thumbs up, for the chemistry between Lesley Ann Warren and Christopher Atkins. It has been said that he was so into his character that after the filming it took him a long time to get over his costar. Lesley Ann Warren's shocked expressions are priceless. The great Bryan Adams songs are relevant; not just tacked on because they are cool and will sell soundtracks. This is not a movie you would ever want to admit aloud that you like. But you may be surprised to find that you're secretly admitting it to yourself.

With a direction from John G. Avildsen ("Rocky") and a screenplay by Joan Tewkesbury ("Thieves Like Us", "Nashville"), one might expect more from this turgid drama about a married community-college teacher who discovers to her embarrassment that a male stripper she sees one night in a dance-club is actually one of her students. Lesley Ann Warren does what she can with a nearly unplayable role, but even her personal style can't dress up this flick with much class. The poorly-produced and edited film has become something of a cult item--mainly due to Christopher Atkins' nude shots--but the script and surrounding melodrama are inept and unfulfilling. * from ****

Why would a movie centering on a young male stripper and an uptight, slightly older woman begin with... and continue through the entire opening credit sequence on... an average guy who works at NASA?

Leslie Ann Warren's mousy housewife Faye Hanlon is married to the NASA engineer: she's who he comes home to. Robert Logan plays Whitney Hanlon; he's been down lately... not giving his wife a good time after hours, or wanting to work for the military (sound familiar?). She's got a wild sister, played by the always cute and energetic Deborah Rush, and both wind up spending a night at... Let's back up a bit...

Faye is a community college speech teacher/professor who fails a student too flaky and optimistic for his own good. That would be hot property Christopher Atkins, famous for his role opposite Brooke Shields in THE BLUE LAGOON and, as Ricky "The Rocket" Monroe he appears in a space suit on stage, eventually stripped down to the bare essentials and providing special attention to women who give him an F during the daytime... This is how our May/August romantic-interests connect, and yet their windswept romance is hardly enough to base an entire movie on...

The problem with this RAZZIE nominated clunker directed by ROCKY Oscar winner John G. Avildsen (partnered with otherwise talented NASHVILLE writer Jan Tewkesbury) is there's no chemistry between the leads, nor is there a point to their relationship. Meanwhile, the guy who opens the film winds up losing his job, buying a gun and scaring the piss out of the womanizing boy toy (the NASA worker facing off with a dude named Rocket, get it?)...

Which provides Atkins an opportunity to really act as he cries naked on the deck of a boat, but alas, he winds up embarrassing himself more than ever. (Farewell, movie career, you're headed to television.) What's really impressive is how they make the gorgeous Leslie Ann Warren so homely in the beginning before the sexy/sultry transition for two "heavenly" nights...

That first strip club outing and then in a hotel room during a steamy yet ponderous sex scene between lovers more suited to a fantasy driven porno... at least as the simplistic storyline goes...

It's when pointless characters, like Rocket's hardworking waitress mother and his banal actress girlfriend... and completely useless subplots are added... that the pace really meanders, turning what could have been a guilty pleasure into an exercise in humiliation, for the actors and especially editor/director John G. Avildsen. But a year later he'd redeem himself ROCKY style by waxing on and off with that winning underdog sports theme in THE KARATE KID. Which couldn't have happened at a better time.

It just cracks me right up when people mention "A Night in Heaven" and the word "plot" in the same sentence. Yeeping yimminy, take a look at the box cover! All they ever promised us was Chris Atkins in his Xanadu disco-slut-wear, pulsating and gyrating and waving his goodies at the camera. A male nudie flick. That's what they promised us, and that's what we got!

Mr. Blue Lagoon prances about the entire movie wearing nothing more than a cheap self-tanner and dental floss. The direction is nothing more than an endless string of tight close-up shots of Mr. Atkins' generously lathered nether-regions. Pure smut. That's what they promised us, and that's what we got!

Word of caution: This flick is where that "Obsession" song came from ("I will have you, yes I will have you..wah wah wah...") It's not the Animotion version either, it's, gasp ...even worse. It sounds like it was recorded at one of those amusement park "You be a Star!" karaoke-style "recording studios". Shudder.

But that's irrelevant. As is the acting, the cinematography, the editing, the lighting and most of all Lesley Ann Warren. "A Night in Heaven" is all about an oiled-down Atkins, a few clutzy dance moves, and a skimpy boy-toy thong. That's what they promised us, and that's what we got.

Yay them!

It's really too bad that people think of "A Night In Heaven" as 'the male stripper movie,' because it's really not that at all. Yes the wife has an affair with her student, who happens to be a stripper, but this accounts for maybe 10 minutes of screen time. At it's center is a believable study of a marriage on the rocks, after a husband loses his job, and begins to completely alienate his wife. Lesley Ann Warren is good in her role as Faye, the wife who begins to feel insecure, and undesirable after her husband shuts her out. When she finds herself attracting the attention of one of her young, handsome students (Chris Atkins) she resists as best she can, but soon an affair ensues, that might possibly have some serious consequences.

The interesting thing about the movie is how the husband and wife interact. They have such different views of what is really happening. "A Night In Heaven" doesn't dissolve into a smutty exploitation film, nor does it deteriorate into some 'revenge flick' at the end. The husband is actually perceptive enough to see that his wife's affair was perhaps, his fault. Directed by the man behind the original "Rocky," some qualities of that film are evident here, as well as some themes. It's physical, and passionate, and it has a kind of urban grittiness about it. An odd, obscure film from the 80's, worth seeing for some quality drama and good performances...and yes, some very sexy scenes too..

This pathetic film barely runs eighty minutes, yet the plot is too thin to even fill up the short running time. Lesley Ann Warren tries hard, but unfortunately for her, she is stuck in a dull story, and even worse, she has to share the screen with Christopher Atkins. The only good thing about this movie was that it happened to contain some good music by Bryan Adams, and obviously, I could've heard them somewhere else. His songs were a pleasant distraction, but the remaining seventy-five minutes are about as boring as a film can get.

Here's another movie that gets a bad rep. What happens is every 10 years or so a film comes along tailor made for women (and gay men) and people (most likely straight men) go berserk. They weren't trying to remake Gone With The Wind but were simply trying to please the audience with the assets and charms of that beautiful 1980s underrated heart-throb Christopher Atkins. Forever regulated to "the blonde haired guy in the Brooke Shields movie"(the Blue Lagoon), this was his chance to shine. And he DOES! But of course, men reviewers and maybe some uptight female ones slammed the movie. It is actually entertaining with a good and subdued performance from Lesley Ann Warren not playing her usual "nervous broad" type role here. There is even a featured role by 1970s and 1980s Dance Fever host Deney Terio. The chemistry between Chris and Lesley is incredible and undeniable. Their sex scene is like a taking a peak in real life....was that a tongue he slipped her? Awesome soundtrack featuring the song Heaven by Bryan Adams and an early version of the hit song Obsession, later to be recorded by Animotion. But the real star is of course Christopher. What he is presumed to have lacked in thespian quality he more than makes up for, not only with his gorgeous looks, but also charisma. He never wanted to be Spencer Tracy...he simply wanted to entertain us...and in A Night In Heaven - he DOES! Viva Atkins!

Okay, "A Night in Heaven". It has big name stars in it like Warren, Garcia (in a bit part), Snodgress, Atkins, Deney Terrio (you wondered what happened to him, here he is.) - good director in Avildsen (!!!!!) - decent writer (Joan Tewkesbury; I'm serious, look for yourself!). So, why is it you haven't heard of this film unless you caught it at 3 or 4 am on Showtime?

Well, I'll tell ya.

Seems college teacher Warren (yeah, that's right) is flunking student Atkins, who happens to dance at this male strip bar called The Odyssey, where Warren's friends happen to drag her one night, whereupon she notices him - this being a weak moment in her life, as she and her husband (Logan) are having marital problems, and she thinks Atkins is rather hunky as he prances around in his g-string, and she begins to have some un-teacher-like thoughts about him, while her husband is considering having an affair while....

But I forget the most important part of the whole movie: with all these plot points to mull over, this thing STILL clocks in at under 90 minutes! WHAT the.... It is mind-boggling that so much plot can be truncated in to so little of a movie, and I mean that not only in substance but in IQ points as well.

Warren is the only one here worth watching (as is usually the case), and as an actor, Atkins is a good dancer. But if the main part of a movie you remember is the end theme (Bryan Adams' "Heaven"), you not only have a bad movie on your hands, but a bad movie that no amount of re-casting, plot-padding, double-billing or sex scenes can make enlightening.

"A Night in Heaven", huh? Gee, I was thinking more the opposite....

One star, for Bryan Adams' music. Hope they didn't make him watch it while he sung, or he WOULD have found it hard to believe he was in "Heaven".

In "A Night In Heaven", Lesley Ann Warren plays a college professor named Faye. Christopher Atkins is Ricky, a student in her class. At the end of his final report for his class, Ricky cracks a joke and Faye is not amused. She decides to fail him and make him take the course over again.

The next thing you know, Faye goes to watch some male strippers with some friends of hers. Who is one of the strippers? Ricky! Anyway, they develop one of the dreariest affairs I have ever seen. No sparks whatsoever.

There is also a dull side plot involving Faye's husband(!). He quits/is fired from his job. He puts 2 and 2 together and figures out that his wife is seeing the stripper. What does he decide to do? You'll just have to see in the exciting, I mean boring, climax.

I'm not really sure what the point of this movie is. There is no passion in anyone's performance. There is no actual plot and the romantic part of the film is tedious. Only recommended for fans of Christopher Atkins naked body. 2/10

I remember when the "Ladies Night" in clubs with male strippers became popular.One scene in "Mr Mom" and this entire movie made the male stripping industry for females really take off.Afterwards Every TV sitcom of the 80's on had at least one episode with the male stars doing a strip and the females stars catching them and dragging them off the stage or going crazy and spending tons of money like Peg Bundy. That said this movie was corny.Only because Christopher Atkins was the boniest,non-dancing male stripper I've ever seen.Clearly he was chosen to capitalize on the "teen hunk" factor and "The Blue Lagoon" movie which he starred.Lesley Warren is dressed like a school marm in the 1880's until she gets a make-over up by a girlfriend to hit the club and snap!She's a hot mama in a snazzy red dress with her hair down and plenty of make-up on.What she doesn't know is a student she flunked recently (Chris) is the star stripper in the club she goes to and he knocks her off her feet with a super sexy kiss.Oh yeah-She's married to a fuddy-duddy older than she is. It's an okay film to catch on cable.Just don't expect any deep acting by anyone and you'll be fine.

Here is a head-scratcher of a movie. I recall when this first came out, it was marketed only as a movie about a teacher who sees a strip performance from one of her students, then has an affair with him. Yes, that does indeed happen, but the movie is as much about her husband and his midlife crisis. Also thrown in for good measure is her sister's (I think it was her sister) marital troubles, some uninteresting back-story about the stripper and his friends. Also the stripper wanting to start a career in hotel management, so he can support his tired old mother who has been a waitress her whole life and is now exhausted. All of that in just over 80 minutes! Needless to say, a lot of the principal photography of this one probably hit the cutting room floor, and most of what was left dealt with the sexier ideas of the story.

The movie stars capable actress Lesly Ann Warren as the teacher and Chris Atkins of Blue Lagoon fame as the sexy young stud student. Gone is his late 70s white man's afro from Blue Lagoon. In this one, he looks more like Luke Skywalker from The Empire Strikes Back. Not terribly muscular, either. Whatever. I've never completely understood why women find some men so sexy. Warren looks like a frigid librarian when in class, but of course looks beautiful when in a nice dress and out with her friends at the strip club. Her marriage is not going well... at least not total bliss. Her husband (named Whitney, no less) works at NASA, and seems conflicted from the first moment we see him. It appears now (because its the 1980) they want him to develop weapons instead of launch rockets into the far reaches of space. That evil warmonger Ronald Reagan! Oh, you mean the one during who's presidency was perhaps the most peaceful time (certainly during my lifetime) in all of human history? That Ronald Reagan? You mean the one who took down the Soviet Union WITHOUT firing a shot at them? That warmongering Ronald Reagan? Yeah.... well, never mind the facts. Anyway, Whitney isn't happy, and it certainly isn't helping their sex life. All it takes is a night at the strip club known as Heaven (get it?) and Warren and Atkins are bound to hook up.

With Warren, her motivation is clear. She is a frustrated house wife who sees a chance and takes it. With Atkins, however, the motivation is not as clear. Is he doing it so she'll pass him in the speech class after originally flunking him? Maybe at first, but he really does seem smitten by later in the film. Maybe he has had so much sex with girls his age, he sees the older woman as more of a challenge. While their affair is going on, Whitney seems to have a chance to fool around too with an old friend. Whether he does is not clear, or maybe it hit the cutting room floor. The conclusion of this film is a little bit suspenseful, but ultimately logical. Just too damned abrupt. This director, the late John Avildsen, had some big hits and much bigger titles on his resume. Rocky, Karate Kid... This finished product seems beneath his talents. I'm guessing the studio is to blame. Events are so randomly thrown in, at first I didn't even think I was watching the right movie. The whole opening sequence shows some of NASA's finest hardware, and Whitney riding his bike past it on his way home from work. Until I saw Atkins and Warren's names go by in the credits, I was convinced it was not the same movie I remembered seeing commercials for in 1983. There is some decent sex in the film, I will give it that. But once it was over, about the only thing it made me do is play some old Bryan Adams music! The overall film is not very residual. 4 of 10 stars. The Hound.

In countries with dominant feminism there are funny naughty discos where the strippers are all men and the customers are all women.

The movie depicts the life of a frustrated working woman (Lesley Ann Warren), her husband (Robert Logan), and a young student (Christopher Atkins) in the speech class , Warren teaches at the local junior college.

As the events unfold, the husband gets fired in job as an engineer at the Kennedy Space Center because he cannot follow directions to work on missiles or other instruments of war. In the midnight that protagonist returns from dancing disco. The husband is apparently too "tired" to sleep with his wife, whose sister takes her to Heaven, a male disco in a shopping center. Incidentally, the handsome young student not a good performer in the class is a dancer there, and in a scene of alluring sensuality , he flirts with her and kisses her.

Eventually, the futility of foolish affair is exposed, the loving pair get reinstated to their happy family. The movie runs smoothly beyond the stamp of a comedy or tragedy.

Especially for the ladies, this movie gives a good look at one of the best looking actors ever - Christopher Atkins. The movie is not overly deep but what do you expect?

Leslie Ann Warren is very good in her role as a sexually frustrated married woman. Not to mention, she is beautiful!

It's a movie - it does not have a deep message but then again, VERY few movies do. When you hear an actor, actress, or writer talk about the "meaning" of a film - they're lying! :)

With very few exceptions, movies are made for one reason - to make money. Don't let Hollywood fool you into believing anything else.

Anyway, this movie is much better than most pinheads give it credit for.

I saw this when I was young, and never really got it until I was 30 something. The writer really identifies with the conflict someone the lead female feels at this age. How lonely and stagnant marriage can be, the urges and desires you can feel you missed out on when younger. Great soundtrack by Jan Hammer and Bryan Adams. Every time I see this film I cry because I can really identify with every woman in this film, from Slick, Patsy, Faye, and even Rick's mom. I have yet to see a film that encaptures everything a woman can be...housewife, vixen, mother, sister...etc. I have been with one person for 8 years and will ALWAYS look for my "Night in Heaven" PS LOVE the way Atkins nibbles on his cookie while looking at Warren!

I know that a lot of people who write reviews always try to find some deeper meaning and/or raised consciousness from the silver screen. However, some movies appeal to nothing more than our base instincts.

In this case, there is not a guy reading this that hasn't fantasized about a good looking teacher. On the other hand, there probably are no female teachers who did not find a single young man as attractive, appealing, and worthy of a few fantasies herself.

That's all this movie represents. I think that's all it ever meant to be. I enjoyed it - but then again I think Lesley-Ann Warren is hot!

"A Night in Heaven" is an intriguing film to discuss in the context of the female and gay male gaze, particularly when compared to "For Ladies Only" the "other" male stripper film from the time, created to capitalize on the sudden rise and popularity of the Chippendales in the early 80s.

The film, set in Titusville, Florida, revolves around a college student, Rick, who works as a stripper and his professor, Faye Hanlon, who is going through a marital slump. Their worlds collide when Faye, taken to a strip club by her sister, sees Rick perform.

In contrast to the other film, "A Night in Heaven" delves into a more complex and emotionally charged narrative. It attempts to explore the dynamics of desire and power from a female perspective, with Faye's character finding an unconventional escape from her unfulfilling marriage. However, the film has some challenges, particularly vis-a-vis plot and dropped/unresolved storylines. In this way, the execution might not have fully captured the nuances proponents of the female gaze seeks in storytelling.

While "For Ladies Only" focused more on the spectacle and excitement of male strippers, primarily serving as entertainment for the female gaze without deeply engaging in complex emotional narratives. "A Night in Heaven" aimed higher as a film, trying to venture beyond just the physical appeal of its subject. But, to be honest, it struggles in cohesively articulating its themes, potentially limiting its impact on advancing the female gaze in cinema, but not negating it.