My review was written in May 1987 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.
Its title something of a misnomer, "Outtakes" is a lame-duck henry in the comedy sketch film genre which numbered such hits as "The Groove Tube" and "Tunnelvision" over a decade ago. There are a few laughs, lots of vulgarity and long stretches of boredom.
Pic is dedicated upfront to the late Forrest Tucker, who acts as irreverent host to the melange of skits on view. Clapperboards indicate the Tucker scenes were filmed in 1983, though the picture itself was completed in 1985.
Extremely long segments are devoted to an often funny spoof of the Phil Donahue tv show. And a lampoon of late night tv newscasts which has its moments but is a pale imitation of so much funnier material on "Saturday Night Live" or in "Tunnelvision". A satire of a Santa Claus as a slasher in horror pics is stupid and amateurish, while the interstitial sketches are brief but unfunny. Actual outtakes do not appear until the end credits, which drag on in order to pad out the feature's abbreviated running time.
Filmmaker Jack M. Sell obviously is having fun, even poklng barbs at himself, but his frequent onscreen appearances as the sleazy director ultimately seem like an ego trip (he even warbles the title song he wrote in an opening poverty row budget attempt at a music video about a starlet's travails in Hollywood). Rest of the repertory cast is pretty weak, the unidentified Donahue impersonator doing the best job. Tucker seems uncomfortable, even beyond the put-on "fed up" routine he is called upon to enact.