EDITOR’S NOTE: So Fine was on the CBS Late Movie on April 26 and October 18, 1988.

“The Unknown King of Comedy,” Andrew Bergman wrote Blazing Saddles and The In-Laws, which led him to this movie, which wasn’t a success. He also made The Freshman, Big Trouble, Fletch, Oh, God! You Devil and Striptease. Not a bad career!

Bobby Fine (Ryan O’Neal) is a professor of English at Chippenango State College. The head of his department, Chairman Lincoln (Fred Gwyne), let’s him know that he’s up for tenure. Yet he soon discovers that his dress-making father Jack (Jack Warden) is millions in debt to a loan shark named Mr. Eddie (Richard Kiel), who sends his underlings Eddie’s henchmen (Tony Sirico and Michael LaGuardia) to collect. They take Bobby, who has agreed to run the company, and threaten him. He’s only interested in Mr. Eddie’s wife, Lira (Mariangela Melato, Kala from Flash Gordon).

Their infidelity leads to Bobby wearing a pair of her jeans as he escapes the mansion, fixing the ripped back with a piece of clear plastic. Buyers who see him think that he intended these jeans to look this way. Called So Fine Jeans — and giving men a view of butt — they become huge. Everything works out and Lira gets to do opera again, as Eddie is defeated.

Producer Michael Lobell had his firsthand experience in the garment industry, as his father made dresses and he made Mod clothes himself. He claimed that he told the idea of this to Bergman and costumer Santo Loquasto came up with the pants.

The results? Pauline Kael said that it was a “…visual insult: crudely lighted and framed, and jumping out at you.”

A Warner Bros. press release claimed that Gail Robinson of Denver, Colorado won a search to find ”the girl who best suited to wear a pair of So Fine Jeans.” The competition’s prize? To be in the movie. Nope. She’s not in it.

At least the pants almost got made. In 1996, Joanne Slokevage filed a patent for a garment rear that made cut-out areas on the rear of various bottom garments that could be revealed with a glap. The patent was unregisterable and in her filing, she did include information on the movie So Fine.

Well, OK at least they got Ennio Morricone to do the music.