Actors Anthony Edwards, far right and Robert Carradine, center, stumble with their suitcases during a scene for the film, "Revenge of the Nerds." Annette Knapp, far left and Susan Schellmeyer, were extras who played the part of picnicers on the University of Arizona. The movie was filmed on areas in and around the campus. Photo taken: January 30, 1984. Photo by: Alan Dorow / Arizona Daily Star
While the motion picture "Revenge of the Nerds" made national news, the fact that it was filmed largely on the campus of the University of Arizona was not so widely know.
Even less well known is the controversy surrounding the filming. First the UA said "yes" to the filming, then "no" — it might damage the university's reputation — and then, finally, "yes."
Two Arizona Daily Star writers offered opinions.
From a commentary in the Star, Dec. 21, 1983:
UA officials keep forgetting who owns the campus
By Steve Emerine
The Arizona Daily Star
University of Arizona officials were right to reverse themselves and OK the filming of "Revenge of the Nerds" on the UA campus.
But for a few days last week, those officials forgot an important lesson: They invariably get themselves in trouble whenever they begin regarding themselves as owners of the university instead of caretakers of it.
During those few days, UA policy-makers seemed oblivious to three facts:
- Tucson's citizens, business leaders and government officials have been doing anything possible to attract movie crews for more than 40 years,
- State officials also are working to expand Arizona's movie and television business.
- Inflation or not, $4 million is a rather large sum of money to throw away.
And so school officials told Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. that it couldn't film "Revenge of the Nerds" on their campus.
These leaders of an institution pursuing truth and new ideas called "Nerds" a "raunchy" film and said it might put college life, and particularly sororities and fraternities, in a bad light.
It may be "raunchy." But as a fraternity member and part-time UA instructor, I could suggest that any bad light has already been cast by the people involved in colleges, fraternities and sororities.
Whatever perception the general public has of ivy towers or Greek organizations is already present and won't be affected much by one movie, no matter how "raunchy" or unflattering it might be.
Besides, movie officials had promised that the UA wouldn't be referred to or identified in the film.
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There is more to the opinion, but the argument is clear.
Also from an column in the Star, Dec. 22, 1983:
Fast money a high price for film's damage to UA
By Ed Severson
The Arizona Daily Star
I think one place that needs a dash of stuffiness is the University of Arizona.
The reason I bring up stuffiness is because if you ask me the UA just made a $4 million mistake.
First it said "Yes," then "No," and, finally, "Yes" to the company that wants to film a comedy about a freshman fraternity on the UA campus. The comedy is titled, "Revenge of the Nerds."
It should have stuck with "No" to the Nerds, even though doing the film at UA will mean about $4 million will get pumped into Tucson. But after the "No," UA officials apparently changed their mind about Nerds when screams arose.
"They don't understand that the film industry is a tight, old-boy network, that Hollywood is a small town, and that you need just one problem like this and it gets around in a day," Don Haskell, assistant dean of the College of Fine Arts said, after UA officials told Hollywood, "No."
"I would be surprised if this city hears from a film company for another five years," he said.
With expected stuffiness, UA President Henry Koffler said: "I have been told that some aspects of it (the film) would reflect negatively on the university."
But when the heat got hotter, the UA "No" turned to "yes." As far as "Nerds" is concerned, I'm 100 percent for stuffiness.
Not too many years ago, anybody who lived in tucson knew about the UA's reputation. It was a play school. It was the kind of place where Playboy magazine routinely dispatched photographers to photograph local color. It was where you went of you'd just scraped through high school. If nobody else wanted you — and your folks had the dough — you were shipped off to the UA, to the sunshine, the palm trees . . . and to the loads of marvelous courses you could breeze through without breaking a sweat.
Back when I went to the UA, one such course was Introduction to Sociology. In those days, you knew if you just showed up for class you practically had a passing grade in the bag. As a matter of fact, that's one of the reasons I took the course.
Something's happened since then.
Recently, the Conference Board of Associated Research Councils polled 5,000 scholars across the country to rate the quality of their peers in 32 fields of study.
The UA sociology department ranked ninth in the country. The anthropology department ranked fifth.
"In competing against some of the most prestigious schools in the country, the top 10 is pretty difficult to crack," said a UA official. "And you don't often do it in more than one field of study."
In April, a survey by the National Science Foundation ranked the UA 21st in the country in a comparison of research and development spending. UA research and development spending was more than $80 million in 1981, almost 147 percent over 1976 when the UA was ranked 33rd in the country. The UA had moved ahead of 12 major universities, including Ohio State, Purdue and Pennsylvania State.
In other words, little by little, the UA has been getting a nice reputation as a top-notch school. Nice reputations are fragile.
Again, there is more, but again, the argument is made.
The movie was filmed on the UA campus, and whether or not the university's reputation was damaged, it has survived and done well.
