The Crime Fiction Résumé of Whoopi Goldberg
Some holiday viewing suggestions featuring an American icon and EGOT
The raison d’être of this post is to platform the criminally under-appreciated first film on the list from Whoopi Goldberg, née Caryn Elaine Johnson (1955-).
Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986)
If you’ve never seen this spy comedy, in which Goldberg, playing a low-level computer operator at a bank, saves a British Intelligence agent trapped in Eastern Europe, do yourself a favor and give it a stream.1 It’s one of the first films to feature online work as exciting and dangerous, and not in a, forgive me, hacky way.2 The missions are genuinely exciting, while Goldberg’s adeptness at one-liners and physical comedy also makes them hilarious. It’s got those 80s Cold War vibes, supporting performances from Carol Kane and Annie Potts, and believe you me, if you only watch the scene of Whoopi trying to decipher the lyrics of the Rolling Stones classic that gives the movie its name, it will be time well spent.
Burglar (1987)
The next year saw Goldberg star in two crime comedies, but I’m going with Burglar over Fatal Beauty (in which she plays a L.A. detective) because the premise is a bit juicier and it’s based on a series of crime novels by Lawrence Block.3 The plot finds Whoopi playing a former burglar wrongly suspected of murder who travels around San Francisco bars with her friend Carl (classic “remember him” 80s actor/comedian Bobcat Goldthwait4) trying to find the real killer. The rest of the supporting cast, featuring G.W. Bailey, Lesley Ann Warren, and John Goodman (!), are also big selling points.
Ghost (1990)
Okay, some5 might call this classic, for which Goldberg won Best Supporting Actress, a supernatural romance, but the plot doesn’t plot without some pretty heavy crime. The engine of the movie involves Sam, an incandescent and undead Patrick Swayze, trying to solve his own murder and protect his girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore) with the help of Goldberg’s Oda Mae Brown, a funny and poignant, and very reluctant, medium. Sam and Oda Mae, along with the help of Molly, uncover a drug money laundering scheme run by corrupt bankers and in the process free Sam to move forward to whatever comes next. Villains get punished, we get an interesting philosophy of the afterlife (yes, cats can see ghosts, we all know that), and “Unchained Melody” becomes one of those songs inextricably linked to a film.
Sister Act (1993)
When we lost Dame Maggie Smith this year (who also has a healthy crime fiction résumé, watch this space), the first film I rewatched in her honor was this iconic Goldberg vehicle, in which Smith plays a sarcastic Reverend Mother tasked with protecting Whoopi’s lounge singer Deloris Wilson, who has witnessed her mobster boyfriend (Harvey Keitel!) murdering an underling and has been placed in Witness Protection as a nun transferring to the San Francisco order. A film that is honestly more warmhearted comedy than crime, as the real meat of the movie is watching Whoopi chafe, literally and figuratively, against the religious life while also getting to know the quirky group of nuns and whipping their choir into a Motown-inspired ecumenical hit machine. But there is gunplay, chase scenes, and the Mob, so crime fiction I’m calling it!
“Suspicions” from Star Trek: The Next Generation (season 4)
Guinan, Goldberg’s recurring role on Next Gen is probably my favorite Star Trek character. She’s mysterious, wise, and empathetic, like all of the best bartenders I know. In this episode, she plays a key role in a fascinating mystery plot featuring Dr. Beverly Crusher. Crusher explains to Guinan, who has come to her complaining of tennis elbow, how she finds herself under court martial for disobeying a direct order in order to learn more about a colleague’s death, ruled first an accident and then suicide. Guinan encourages Crusher to continue her investigation into the incident, and she eventually discovers a plot to steal advanced technology and use it for nefarious purposes. The conclusion of the episode reveals that Guinan faked the injury in order to prompt Crusher to solve the crime. Truly, watching all the Guinan episodes is a fun way to organize a limited Next Generation rewatch.
Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) and The Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
Closing out the ‘90s, Goldberg had supporting but powerful roles in two very different films that center around crime. Ghosts of Mississippi is a historical courtroom drama based on the 1994 trial of civil rights activist Medgar Evers’s assassin. Goldberg plays Evers’s widow Myrlie, who spent decades trying to bring her husband’s murderer to justice.
The Deep End of the Ocean is an adaptation of the (trivia alert) first novel to be selected for Oprah’s book club. It follows the emotional breakdown of a woman whose child was kidnapped at three and then, nine years later, becomes convinced a neighborhood boy is her missing son. Goldberg plays a detective who investigates the mother’s claims, and provides some free emotional labor as well once the reunion does not play out as she hoped.
Whoopi Goldberg has spent most of the twenty-first century in comedic roles, oftentimes playing herself, doing voice work, and lending her expertise in Hollywood racial and gender politics to documentaries like The Celluloid Closet and The Problem with Apu, as well as spending the last eighteen years as a co-host on the influential talk show The View. Whenever and wherever she shows up on screens large and small is a treat, especially in these crime fiction classics. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the notorious Theodore Rex (1996), at the time the most expensive direct-to-video film ever made. I’ll let Wikipedia describe the plot of this Razzie classic, which stars two Oscar nominated actors6:
In an alternate futuristic society where humans and anthropomorphic dinosaurs co-exist, a tough police detective named Katie Coltrane (Whoopi Goldberg) is paired with an anthropomorphic Tyrannosaurus named Theodore Rex (George Newbern) to find the killer of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals leading them to a ruthless billionaire bent on killing off mankind by creating a new ice age.
Not gonna lie, I’d watch it.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, happy end of year vibes to absolutely everyone, and I’ll be back next week with a brief wrap-up and farewell to 2024. In the meantime, which Goldberg roles are your favorite? Does anyone else remember her insanely funny Comic Relief hosting gigs with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams? Did you get any good true crime fiction-y gifts this year? Let me know in the comments!
Looks like it’s available for rent on YouTube and Amazon Prime.
Looking at you, The Net.
I don’t know who decided to replace Block’s white “gentleman burglar” Bernie Rhodenbarr with a Black woman, but it’s a great call.
Speaking of, if you’re looking for an Christmas Eve specific watch for today, well, you should watch The Muppet Christmas Carol. But! If you’d like a doubleheader, Scrooged, a retelling of the same with Goldthwait in a minor role, holds up beautifully.
Wikipedia
You can run but you cannot hide, Armin Mueller-Stahl.
Did you just know that ghosts are undead, or did you have to look it up? I had to look it up. I would have classified them as 'all dead' instead of 'mostly dead'. I was taught that 'mostly dead' is actually 'slightly alive', which threw me off some.
'like all of the best bartenders I know' oooh! oooh! I know one of those! :-P