If you’re going to be down and out, Beverly Hills is the place you want to be! That’s what Jerry Baskin discovers in Touchstone’s Down and Out in Beverly Hills, which was out in theaters on this day in 1986. The film was released under Disney’s Touchstone label, which allowed the Company to release films with more mature themes, and Down and Out in Beverly Hills has the distinction of being the first “R” rated movie released by The Walt Disney Company. After three successful movies for Bette Midler, including Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Ruthless People, and Outrageous Fortune, Disney signed Bette to star in three additional successive movies, a unique situation that harkened back to the contract system of Hollywood that was common decades earlier.
