Weekend at Bernie's is a 1989 American black comedy film directed by Ted Kotcheff and written by Robert Klane, loosely based on the 1959 novella The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell by Jorge Amado. The film stars Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman as young insurance corporation employees who discover that their boss, Bernie, is dead, after arriving at his house.
While attempting to convince people that Bernie is still alive until they can leave to prevent them from being falsely suspected for causing his death, they discover that Bernie had ordered their own assassinations to cover up his embezzlement. It grossed $30 million on a $15 million budget. The film's success inspired a sequel, Weekend at Bernie's II (1993).
Lawsuit[]
On January 24, 2014, director Ted Kotcheff and screenwriter Robert Klane filed a lawsuit against Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and 20th Century Fox for breach of contract for profits they claimed were due from the film.
Plot[]
Larry Wilson (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard Parker (Jonathan Silverman) are two low-level financial employees at an insurance corporation in New York City. While going over actuarial reports, Richard discovers a series of payments made for the same death. He and Larry take their findings to the CEO, Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser), who commends them for discovering the insurance fraud and invites them to his beach house in the Hamptons for the Labor Day weekend.
Unbeknownst to the pair, Bernie is behind the fraud. Nervously meeting with his mob' partner Vito (Louis Giambalvo), Bernie asks to have the two killed. However, after Bernie leaves, Vito orders that Bernie himself be killed instead due to Bernie having been sleeping with Vito's girlfriend, Tina (Catherine Parks).
Bernie arrives at the island before the pair and plans the murders with Paulie (Don Calfa), the hitman, on the phone, unaware the conversation is being recorded on his answering machine. Bernie then plants cash and a fake confession note implicating Larry and Richard in the insurance fraud, but Paulie arrives early and kills Bernie with a heroin overdose. When Larry and Richard arrive at Bernie's house, they are shocked to find Bernie's body. Before they can call the authorities, guests arrive for a party that Bernie usually hosts every weekend.
To the pair's amazement, the guests are too busy partying to notice he is dead, with the dopey grin from the fatal injection and his sunglasses concealing his lifeless state. Fearing implication in Bernie's death, and wanting to enjoy the luxury of the house for the weekend, Larry proposes he and Richard maintain the illusion that Bernie is still alive, which Richard finds absurd. Only the arrival of Richard's office crush, Gwen Saunders (Catherine Mary Stewart), a summer intern for the company, convinces him to go along with Larry's plan.
Later that night, Tina arrives at the house, and has the pair direct her to Bernie. There, she also fails to realize he is dead. At that moment, Marty, one of Vito's mobsters, witnesses the two of them apparently having sex. Fooled into thinking Bernie's assassination failed, he notifies Vito. The next morning, Richard is appalled to discover Larry furthering the illusion of Bernie being alive by manipulating his body's limbs. Richard attempts to call the cops, but instead activates the phone message detailing Bernie's plot against them.
Unaware of how Bernie died, they mistakenly believe they are still the targets of a mob hit and, as Bernie had said not to kill them while he was in the area, decide to use Bernie's corpse as a shield. All of the pair's various attempts to leave the island are thwarted, as they repeatedly misplace and recover Bernie's body, and they are finally forced to return to Bernie's home. Meanwhile, Paulie, unhinged by his apparent failure to kill Bernie, returns to the island.
At the house, Gwen confronts Larry and Richard, who confess that Bernie has been dead since before their arrival. Paulie then appears and opens fire on Bernie, then turns his attention to Larry, Richard, and Gwen. Chasing after the trio, Paulie corners Larry, who clumsily manages to subdue him with a phone cord and a punch. The police eventually arrive and arrest Paulie, taking him away in a straitjacket as he continues to insist Bernie is still alive.
Bernie is loaded into an ambulance; however, his gurney rolls away and topples off the boardwalk, dumping him onto the beach right behind Richard, Larry, and Gwen, who run away after noticing him. Afterwards, a young boy (who also taunted Richard and Larry earlier) comes along and starts scooping buckets of sand over the body, burying Bernie.
Different versions[]
In the mid-'90s, a slightly edited version was released to tie in with Weekend at Bernie's II to maintain continuity between the two films. This is the version that is currently available today. There is also a PG-rated version released in the UK that tones down the stronger language and innuendos, and a German television version that cuts the stapling of Bernie's toupee to his head. Availability of the different versions is noted on the film's home media subpage.