“You’re not gonna fall for the banana in the tailpipe?”

While Eli Whitney is an honored and respected figure in African-American history for inventing the cotton gin, a more modern hero is Eddie Murphy, who has spun a lot of laughs through his acting career. After a successful run as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, Murphy advanced to the big screen and really started making a name for himself with his star turn in Beverly Hills Cop (1984).

As Axel Foley, Murphy plays a Detroit police officer traveling to Beverly Hills under the pretense of a ‘vacation’ while his real goal is to solve the murder of a friend, his former boss, Inspector Todd. Axel Foley is a cop who acts against normal procedures but, though his methods are unorthodox, he always seems to manage to get things done.

While in Beverly Hills, Foley is teamed up with the detective duo John Taggart (John Ashton) and Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), who are like a Laurel & Hardy type pair. (For those not familiar with comedy acts from the 1930’s, they comparable to Chris Farley and David Spade ). While Taggart is an all business, no nonsense type of guy, Rosewood is a dim witted, loveable screw-up. It is against their wishes to be forced to work with Foley, as he often gets them into trouble, such as luring them into a strip bar. It’s a far cry from the typical coffee shop, where a dollar tip has a whole different meaning.

As Foley’s case builds against the ‘bad guy’, Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff) who is an art dealer suspected of smuggling drugs, he refuses to go back to Detroit until justice is served. He pulls Taggart and Rosewood, along with the rest of the Beverly Hills police force into a wild shoot-out at the villain’s mansion. A lot of shots were fired, especially by the bad guys who seemed to have no aim while Foley and his crew only needed one shot to take most of them out.

Unbelievably, the lead role was once planned to be played by Sylvester Stallone, but is was mastered by Murphy who brought his unique laugh and specialized sense of comic timing to the character. I had not seen Beverly Hills Cop in over twenty years and the only thing I remembered about it was Murphy’s braying laugh.

Speaking of sounds, (we were, weren’t we?) the film also has an appealing sound track, featuring the techno rock that’s used as Axel Foley’s theme song, Axel F, playing almost every time he appears in a scene. It’s almost impossible to resist trying to hum along to it every time its on. The soundtrack also includes, New Attitude by Patti LaBelle, Neutron Dance by the Pointer Sisters, and Glenn Frey’s song The Heat is On.

Brief appearances are made by Paul Reiser as a fellow Detriot cop and Bronson Pinchot as a clerk at the art gallery, who would go on to use this accent in the sitcom Perfect Strangers.

A sequel to Beverly Hills Cop followed in 1987 and a third in 1994. Their is currently talks of resurrecting the franchise with a fourth installment.