Every Coral Gables real estate owner needs to see Raising Arizona. Joel Coen directed the 1987 masterpiece about a bunch of baby stealing characters from the trailer parks. The film stars Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter as H.I. and Edwina, a.k.a. Ed. The screwball comedy of errors combines a little bit of off-beat satire with wacky dialogue, memorable personalities, and outrageous situations into this modern classic.
Cage is H.I., the film’s narrator, a small-time and incompetent crook known as a “repeat offender” who is partial to convenient stores. Locked up, one of his cellmates is a menstrual cramp suffering woman trapped in a man’s body, while another gentleman used to eat anything from crawdad to “sand” just to survive on the run. But when H.I. becomes a free man and proposes to a cop. When the convict marries an officer of the law twice decorated, the two cancel each other out for a bizarre chemistry. Despite living in the “Salad Days,” they decide that only thing missing is “a little critter,” as there was too much happiness for just the two of them.
Unfortunately, Ed is barren. H.I. describes his wife’s body as “a rocky place” where his “seed could find no purchase.” Of course, adoption agencies turn them down as well due to the man’s criminal record. So off-beat biology and the prejudices of others conspired to keep them childless. When a local celebrity has quintuplets, the couple decides that they have more than they can handle. After all, it’s not fair for some to have so little, while others to have so much. So the felon steals a beautiful toddler. Quite a story for a movie’s introduction, considering that it’s all seen in the opening 15 minutes, before folks with homes for sale in Coral Gables even see Raising Arizona’s opening credits.
Two of H.I.’s absentminded buddies from prison, John Goodman and William Forsythe break out, literally bursting out of the earth in a rainstorm. The escaped convicts try to convince their pal to revert to a life of crime. They even grow a little attached to the baby. Goodman is superb, giving the finest performance of his career in the first of his four unforgettable roles for the Coens. Pre-Fargo Frances McDormand also gives a minute, but superb performance as the child-bearing wife of a blue-collar “decent folk.”
H.I. loses it and reverts to his old ways. Upon entering a convenience store, he utters the line, “I’ll be taking these Huggies and whatever cash ya got.” Of course, the Mrs. doesn’t approve, leaving her husband in an intricate chase involving cops, a pack of irritated dogs, and a stolen pack of diapers. But the most surreal problem in the felons’ lives is a mythical biker from the underworld, portrayed by Randal “Tex” Cobb. The evil one seems to show up once Mr. and Mrs. McDonough steals the child, in order to nab the baby for himself. The villain is never fully explained, but people in Coral Gables luxury homes agree that it gives the film a mythical quality.
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