I saw this in San Francisco at a theater on Filmore Street in 1988 shortly after it was released. I’d completely forgotten about it until I ran across this clip.
Big Business came out in 1988, and the entire premise is exactly the kind of wonderfully ridiculous comedy setup that could only work this well in an 80s movie.
Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin each play TWO characters — two sets of identical twin sisters who are accidentally mixed up at birth after both sets are born at the same hospital on the same night. One pair grows up wealthy in New York City, while the other grows up in a small West Virginia town… and years later all four women end up in the SAME hotel.
So yes, Bette Midler is playing opposite Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin is playing opposite Lily Tomlin, and everybody is running around trying to figure out why strangers suddenly look exactly like them.
Fun fact: the movie was directed by Jim Abrahams, one of the filmmakers behind comedies like Airplane!, so the increasingly ridiculous mix-ups make a lot more sense once you know that.
And can we appreciate how much work movies like this required BEFORE modern digital effects? Scenes featuring both versions of the same actress had to be carefully staged using techniques like body doubles, split-screen photography, and precise camera setups to sell the illusion that the twins were actually standing together.
Honestly, Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin playing four women in one movie was already enough to get me.
0 comments