An older adult male in a tailored dark gray suit jacket and light blue collared shirt, set against a dark green curtain backdrop.

8:46

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Leslie Nielsen's driest lines as Frank Drebin

Name: Leslie Nielsen's driest lines as Frank Drebin
Uploaded: 2017-09-30T01:20:16Z
Duration: 8 min 46 s
Description: Leslie Nielsen spent years playing it serious, in live dramas and science fiction classics like "Forbidden Planet." Then he turned to comedy and never once let the joke show on his face.

Leslie Nielsen spent years playing it serious, in live dramas and science fiction classics like "Forbidden Planet." Then he turned to comedy and never once let the joke show on his face. more

The turn came with "Airplane," the disaster movie spoof that gave the Canadian-born actor a second career. The people behind it cast him again in "Police Squad" and later in "The Naked Gun," as Frank Drebin, a detective whose clueless adventures somehow keep saving the city.

Frank's gift is that he means every word. Asked "Cuban?" about a cigar, he answers as if it were a question about his family tree. His father, he explains, was from Wales. Someone gets to the hospital in time and lands in the intensive care ward at Our Lady of the Worthless Miracle. And when a suspect is described as a white guy with a mustache, about six foot three, Frank has one note. "Awfully big mustache."

A man with white hair, in a suit and tie, holds papers and looks down in a medical setting. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third. — Someone lands in intensive care at Our Lady of the Worthless Miracle.

Priscilla Presley plays his love interest, and their scenes run on quick, silly back-and-forth. Offered a nightcap, he politely declines. "I don't wear them." Romance, as he tells it, is the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girl dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day. "Goodyear?" "No, the worst."

He has a lot of theories about love. Cops and women don't mix, for one. "Like eating a spoonful of Drano. Sure, it'll clean you out and leave you hollow inside." Love itself is like the ozone layer, he decides. You never miss it until it's gone.

An older adult male in a tailored dark gray suit jacket and light blue collared shirt, set against a dark green curtain backdrop. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third. — Leslie Nielsen spent years playing it serious, in live dramas and science fiction classics like "Forbidden Planet." Then he turned to comedy and never once let the joke…

His manners hold up, mostly. When someone says his name isn't on the guest list, Frank is kind about it. "Nothing to be embarrassed about. I sometimes go by my maiden name." Asked if he gambles, he says, "Every time I order out." Offered a special post with long hours, dangerous nights and some of the scummiest elements in society, he asks, "You want me to be in your cabinet?"

He even gets a speech, about a world where Frank Jr. and all the Frank Juniors can sit under a shade tree, breathe the air and swim in the ocean. When someone points out that he hasn't shot anybody in six months, he agrees. "Funny how you miss the little things." Warned that he might end up dead, he doesn't blink. "You might end up dead" is his middle name, he says.

An older man with white hair, in a suit and tie, looks ahead as he speaks at an event near a flag. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third. — Frank speaks up for a world where all the Frank Juniors can breathe the air and swim in the ocean.

Behind the cold gray walls of Statesville prison, he sizes up the crowd and decides it's like being in the stands at a Los Angeles Raiders game. Later, a one-in-a-million chance gets a cheerful spin. "That's still better than any state lottery."

Presley and George Kennedy keep pace beside him the whole way, and his face never cracks. One fan put it best. Frank Drebin seems to know he's in a movie. He's just sure it's an action movie.