The Naked Gun

A hugely memorable role in the 1980 disaster spoof Airplane! gave veteran actor Leslie Nielsen a chance to pivot from the dramatic and romantic roles that had been his meat and potatoes in the movies and on TV since 1950 to the deadpan comedy that made him ubiquitous. As the steely Lieutenant Frank Drebin, first in the ABC TV series Police Squad! and then on a grander scale in the 1988 feature film The Naked Gun, Nielsen bumbled his way into celluloid history. As Drebin’s right-hand man, Detective Nordberg, charismatic football star O.J. Simpson is the butt of one calamitous mishap after another—a gag that admittedly landed differently as Simpson became infamous for his relationship with Los Angeles police, onscreen and off.

Series curator Steven W. Thrasher introduces the screening on June 7.