Category Archives: Comedy

Man’s Favorite Sport (1964)

Posted on July 15, 2012 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Winning a fishing contest.

            Roger Willoughby (Rock Hudson) works at a sporting goods department store and uses the information he overhears from his customers to become an ‘expert’ at fishing and best-selling author on the subject despite never having done it himself. Things unravel when his boss (John McGiver) enters him into a fishing contest and he must use the help of beautiful brunette Abigail Page (Paula Prentiss) to show him the techniques and save his reputation.

Billed as another screwball comedy much in the same vein as Howard Hawk’s classic Bringing Up Baby. However, this film doesn’t even come close to that one. It is extremely slow and the comedy bits are thrown in with a haphazard style. The pacing is none existent and the plot is far-fetched and contrived. I was willing to forgive it a little figuring that by the second half things would kick-in, but it never does. The jokes are simplistic and unimaginative.  I found none of it to be funny and mainly strained and labored. With the slight exception of the scene involving Roger’s inflatable wading pants I didn’t find any of it to be even engaging. Roger’s attempts at fishing are particularly disappointing as this scenario could have been played up a lot more.

Hudson is weak as the lead. His voice always has a hollow tone and his delivery is wooden. Cary Grant would have been a much better choice and the film could have been a lot funnier with his presence. When Grant became irritated it was always amusing, but with Hudson it comes off as forced and boring.

Paula Prentiss is the best thing about the movie. Many fans agree that this is her best performance of her career. She has a nice free-form style to her delivery and avoids having that stiff drama school touch. I liked the gaze of her brown eyes and at times it reminded me a lot of Karen Black’s. Her younger, more relaxed presence helps compensate against Hudson’s stiff older one. I’m surprised her career fizzled in the 70’s as she has an interesting and unique style that I would have liked to have seen more of. Her sparing with Hudson is the only thing that gives this film any energy. However, having them end up falling in love was formulaic and forced. The two really didn’t have the right chemistry and showing them not getting along, or getting on each other’s nerves was more entertaining.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: January 29, 1964

Runtime: 2Hours 1Minute

Rated NR (Not Rated)

Director: Howard Hawks

Studio:  Universal

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 60's Movies, Comedy, Outdoors, Romance

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The Monitors (1969)

Posted on July 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: They are watching us.

            Aliens, who dress in suits, long overcoats, and bowler hats, invade earth and an attempt to police everybody’s thoughts and actions while trying to quell a rebel uprising led by Colonel Stutz (Larry Storch). Working for the uprising is Harry (Guy Stockwell) who falls in love with Barbara (Susan Oliver) who secretly sides with the aliens.

The movie starts out with a lot of potential and piqued my interest with unusual montages and camera work. Unfortunately this subsides quickly and soon we are stuck with drab sets, extraneous scenes, and a film unable to hide its low budget roots. I began to wonder if the reason the rebels had their hideout in an abandoned farmhouse was more because the filmmakers could film there without having to pay for a permit than anything else.

The film should have gone completely for parody and farce and if they had done that this might have worked. Instead it seems to drift into a conventional sci-fi narrative complete with a pseudo philosophical climactic debate between the humans and aliens that we have all heard before and does nothing but slow the film down to a tedious level. Adding in the love interest angle between the two leads is contrived and formulaic.

The aliens aren’t too interesting either. There is never any explanation as to how they were able to take over the planet, but the fact that they are unable to even get through a locked door of an old crumbling warehouse made me wonder how they were able to succeed at anything. Equipping them with a little more sci-fi gadgetry would have helped. I realize they don’t have to be carrying around the proverbial ray-gun, but having them break up an angry mob by using ordinary canisters of pepper spray seemed unimaginative.

Spliced into the story are comical TV ads with famous celebrities of the day such as Stubby Kaye and Xavier Cugat promoting the monitors and convincing the public to support them. These commercials are not funny with the only exception being Alan Arkin playing a foreign man who speaks broken English. In the case of former Senator Everett Dirksen it is almost sad. He was very elderly at the time of the filming and he is clearly reading his lines from cue cards and mouthing the words and looking like he is barely functional, or coherent.

The music is another problem. Initially I really liked it as the opening credits feature a computer with a very robotic voice singing the theme. Singer Odetta sings most of the other songs and some of them have a distinctive sound, but they get overplayed and saturated by the end.

The production was shot on-location in Chicago and I loved the aerial shots showing the skyline. I almost wished there had been a little more of them although I did notice that the exact same skyline shots at the beginning get reused in the second half. I didn’t like the idea that it was filmed in the late fall/early winter as the cast is shown shivering in several shots while forced to wear light clothing and their breath is clearly visible.

Susan Oliver gives another solid performance and shown flying an airplane in one sequence as in real-life she was an avid pilot. Sherry Jackson’s presence is minimal, but she is always appealing to the eyes. Avery Schreiber, a comedian known to overact horribly in just every part he is in, comes off as rather amusing here playing the younger brother of Harry who reluctantly joins up with the resistance. Larry Storch, another notorious ham, is engaging as well especially when he appears in drag and later on dressed as General MacArthur.

This is a failed experiment that should have been a lot better. It seems to want to take on the quirky sentiments of the era, but is either too timid, or too unimaginative to go all the way with it.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: October 8, 1969

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated M

Director: Jack Shea

Studio: Commonwealth United Entertainment

Available: Netflix Streaming

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Posted in 60's Movies, Comedy, Low Budget, Movies that take place in Chicago, Obscure Movies, Quirky, Sci-Fi

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10 (1979)

Posted on July 6, 2012 | 4 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Bo Derek is hot.

George Webber (Dudley Moore) is a successful songwriter who has just turned 42 and finds himself longing for a beautiful younger woman (Bo Derek) that he sees while driving. Problem is he meets her on her wedding day and yet he still pursues her all the way to Mexico where she goes for her honeymoon.

It’s really, really hard to believe that this was such a big hit. It meanders badly and has a lot of slow stretches. It is also not that sexy. Bo is only shown sporadically and you never really get to see her naked, or at least not from the front. Writer/director Blake Edwards incorporates his patented slapstick humor, but it’s uninspired and doesn’t mesh well with a film that is supposedly working on a more mature and sophisticated level.

The issue of middle-age, or better yet ‘male menopause’, has been handled before and better. In fact this thing can’t hold a candle to Tom Ewell and The Seven Year Itch. The issues it brings up are quite general and handled superficially. It offers no new perspective and is shockingly unimaginative.

Dudley Moore fits nicely into his role and it seems not too far removed from the man himself as it deals with a uniquely talented man that harbors a degree of cynicism and detachment. His relationship with girlfriend Samantha (Julie Andrews) has some interesting elements and it could have been a foundation for a movie in itself.

Derek is stunning, but rather poor in the acting department. Having a beautiful lady portray such a shallow person is a real turn off. Sure it’s done to give the film its point, but it seems extreme.

Overall I found the film to be weak and empty and unable to even come close to meeting its reputation.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: October 5, 1979

Runtime: 2Hours 2Minutes

Rated R

Director: Blake Edwards

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy, Movies with Nudity, Sex

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Weekend at Bernie’s (1989)

Posted on June 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Dead body causes problems.

Larry and Richard (Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman) are two young executives that find an accounting error that could save the company two million dollars. They show their arrogant boss Bernie (Terry Kiser) the findings. He decides to reward them with a weekend at his beach house on the Hampton Island. However, unbeknownst to them Bernie also has mob connections and the mob decides to off him just as they get there. Antics ensue as the two young men must pretend that their dead boss is still alive.

It sounds rather mindless and I braced myself for the worst yet, at least at the beginning, it is surprisingly tolerable. The two leads are likable and have distinctive personalities. They mesh well and even have a few good exchanges. The pacing is decent and without the usual 80’s sloppiness or crudeness. It even culminates with a party that nicely satirizes the trendy, affluent set.

However, it collapses after this. The second half becomes stretched and one-dimensional and the action gets silly and cartoonish. There is a potential at making it slapstick, but like in the boat scene, it is not extended out enough. It seems almost amazing that such a simple and routine comedy could have been written by Robert Klane the same man who wrote Where’s Poppa?, which was so original and groundbreaking.

Silverman was a good choice for the lead. He has the perfect composure and attitude for frantic comedy. McCarthy gives his part a lot of energy, but his face looks like it never reached puberty. Recycled supporting player Terry Kiser is fun as the arrogant boss, but having him become such a patsy to the mob seems disjointed. His best work actually comes when he is playing dead. Trying to remain motionless and unresponsive to everything happening around you is much harder than you think. It’s also fun to see a cameo by talented director Ted Kotcheff half- naked in his underwear playing Silverman’s dad.

If you are looking for fluffy, undemanding comedy then this should do the trick. However, others will find it vapid and lacking in any type of depth, or distinction.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: July 5, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ted Kotcheff

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Back to the Future Part II (1989)

Posted on June 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: They go back again.

            Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and his girlfriend Jennifer Parker (Elisabeth Shue) use the DeLorean to travel 30 years into the future to help save their future son who is in trouble with the law. There Marty meets an older version of Biff (Thomas J. Wilson) who overhears about the time machine. He decides to take a discarded sports almanac listing all the scores for the past five decades and steals the machine and uses it to go back to the year 1955. The older Biff then meets up with his younger version and hands him the almanac telling him that he can bet on every winning team in every sport and make a fortune, which he does. This then changes the course of history drastically and it is up to Marty and the Dr. to go back to the 50’s and try and stop the transaction between the two Biffs from happening.

Like with the first film, I found the plot to be inventive and creative. Writer/director Robert Zemeckis has thought everything through and keeps the twists and turns coming at a fast pace making it virtually impossible to predict where it is going. Yet the story is complex and some may say convoluted. The idea of going back to the 50’s makes it seem almost like a retread of the first film. The characters even meet their counterparts going through the same scenes from the first, which ends up only tarnishing the original. Outside of the scenes from the future this film lacks the lightheartedness and fun of the first. The tone is much darker and the Biff character as well as his grandson Griff, which Marty meets in the future, are boring one-dimensional bad guys that are given too much screen time.

My favorite part is at the beginning. The flying cars and the space highway with similar road signs that you would see on a regularly highway is well done. I got a kick out of the Nike sneakers that can tie themselves and the coat that talks, can change shape to fit any size, and even dry itself off when wet. Marty’s trip to an 80’s café is fun and if you look closely you will see a young Elijah Wood in a brief part. The futuristic Texaco gas station and the movie marquee advertising ‘Jaws 19’ because this time ‘it’s really, REALLY personal’ is funny as is the holographic shark that jumps from the ad and scares Marty. Of course, as of this writing, we are now only three years away from the actual 2015 and it is safe to say that they got it all wrong, but it’s still interesting to see how they envisioned it. My only objection would be the clothing styles worn by the people that look like clown outfits, which may have been subtle satire, but I’m not sure.

I did feel the reason for them traveling to the future proved to be a loophole. In every other scene Emmett is always preaching about never trying to alter the regular course of events because this could cause unforeseen cataclysmic problems, so why then change his philosophy here? The reasoning given is sloppy and slapdash.

I did like that Marty turns out to be just a regular middle-aged suburbanite and not the famous rich rocker he dreamed of as the odds probably could have predicted. Fox is amusing as the older Marty and the make-up job is impressive for the way they get his perpetually boyish face to age.

Crispin Glover is certainly missed. He was unable to come to an agreement on the salary and thus turned down reprising the role of George McFly. A likeness of his image was used and he sued them for it and I say good for him.

Elisabeth Shue appears as Jennifer filling in for Claudia Wells who played the part in the first one, but then dropped out of acting to care for her sick mother. Shue has certainly grown into being a fine and respected actress, but here she is wasted. She does little except show facial expressions that are constantly perplexed and nervous, which eventually becomes laughable. The scene where Emmett and Marty decide to allow Elisabeth to lie sleeping amidst a pile of trash while they go off and do something else seemed questionable.

Had the film stayed in the future it would have been more enjoyable. I still found it to be entertaining, but it is easy to see why this entry is generally considered the weakest of the series. I was rather put off to see previews of Part III shown at the end, which made it seem like this whole thing was just an excuse to sell the audience on seeing the next one, which artistically isn’t a good precedent to set.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 22, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 48Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray (25th Anniversary Trilogy)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Adolescence/High School, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Sequels

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Back to the Future (1985)

Posted on June 4, 2012 | 4 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Traveling back in time.

Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is a 17 year old videotaping his older friend Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) who is planning on entering a time machine he has invented and going thirty years into the future. Just when he is about to enter the vehicle some angry Libyan nationalists with rifles appear who are upset that Emmett took plutonium from them under deceptive means. To escape the bullets Marty jumps into the machine, which is a DeLorean car, and goes back to the year 1955. Here he bumps into his father George (Crispin Glover) who is now a teenager himself and Marty inadvertently stops him from meeting his mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson) thus putting his entire existence into jeopardy. Marty must find a way to get them together while also working with Emmett on getting him back to the 80’s.

The concept is original and creative. Director Robert Zemeckis has every plot point and tangent covered. Just when you think you have a handle on it he throws in another twist that makes it even more interesting. It moves at a fast pace and a perfect blend of action and comedy. The dialogue is endlessly amusing as it takes full-advantage of the ironic scenarios and the special effects are good. The music, especially the song ‘The Power of Love’ by Huey Lewis and the News is rousing and Huey even appears in a brief cameo as a nerdy talent judge. There are a lot of great scenes that are both funny and exciting.

Fox is terrific in the lead although Eric Stoltz was cast in the part originally, but fired after four weeks of shooting. Fox is far better as he displays an intelligence and restraint that most other teen stars don’t have. His mannerisms are a plus and the way his voice reaches a high pitch whenever he is nervous is funny.

Crispin Glover is always interesting. He has such an eccentric personality and acting style that he makes every film that he is in better. However, in the early scenes he doesn’t look middle-aged and more like a skinny teenager with horn rimmed glasses.

I had the same issue with Christopher Lloyd only in reverse. Of course he is perfect for the role. His bulging eyes almost make it seem like he was born to play the part of a mad scientist. I was however surprised that no noticeable attempts were made to make him look younger when Marty meets him in the 50’s. I expected the character to be young and just starting out, but instead he already seemed established and living in a nice house making me wonder who was paying him to tinker around his home all day on his experiments?

Lea Thompson is not completely convincing as a mature woman during the first part and she looks very uncomfortable under all the heavy make-up. However, she is certainly cute in the scenes where she is younger.

In the complaint department I do have a few. First all the characters that Marty meets during his time in the 50’s seem excessively dopey. The film is too entrenched with an 80’s mindset. The 50’s is portrayed as a quaint bygone era with no relevance. There is too much of a ‘we’ve come a long way baby’ mentality and the 80’s played-up as being way ‘cooler’ than the 50’s even though some people may disagree. It would have been nice had there been a broader, transcendent approach to the story that would have been able to compare and poke fun of each era equally instead of just dumping on the 50’s like it was a joke.

The climatic sequence in which Emmett tries to connect a wire from a clock tower, which is set to be struck by lightning, to the DeLorean, so Marty can use the electricity to propel the vehicle back to the present gets overplayed. I don’t mind some unexpected mishaps to happen, but Zemeckis becomes obsessed with throwing in every type of calamity possible every few seconds until it becomes tiring and annoying. It got to the point where I just wanted the damn scene to end not so much because I cared anymore about Marty’s fate, but more because my ‘tension meter’ had become exhausted.

SPOILER ALERT

            My third and final grievance has to do with the very end when Marty returns to the present and finds that his father has turned into a much more confident and successful man then he had originally been at the beginning. This is because due to Marty’s meddling during his time in the 50’s, George ended up confronting Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) his lifelong nemesis and knocking him out with one punch, which gave George a new found sense of confidence. This also turned Biff from a bully into a patsy and thirty years later we see him as George’s mindless assistant. Now this twist may initially sound funny, but after a second when you really think about it, the humor is lost because it has absolutely no bearing in reality. No bully is going to take on a meek role for the rest of his life simply because some scrawny guy was able to knock him out with a lucky punch. If anything Biff would have become obsessed with getting back at him and even challenging George to another fight and not giving up until they did so. Or after graduation, he would have simply left that hick town and gone on with his life and leaving that embarrassing and isolated incident far behind him. Sometimes irony can be great and I usually do love it, but too much of anything is never good and at certain points this film seems to get to that level. Also, for such an otherwise clever film you would have thought that they could have come up with a more creative name than Biff for the bully.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: July 3, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 56Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray (25th Anniversary Trilogy)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Adolescence/High School, Classic, Comedy, Sci-Fi

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How to Beat the High Co$t of Living (1980)

Posted on April 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Ball full of money.

            Jane, Elaine, and Louise (Susan Saint James, Jane Curtain, Jessica Lange) are three women who find themselves in financial straits. They become aware of a contest going on at their local mall that features a giant plastic ball filled with money. The idea is to guess how much money is inside the ball, but the women decide to tunnel underneath the building and suck the money out with a vacuum.

The movie falls flat from the beginning. There is no action, hijinks, jokes, or pratfalls. Everything relies on the dialogue that is boring and conventional. The small attempts at humor including some Abraham Lincoln jokes are stale and unimaginative. It takes a plodding 35 minutes just to detail all of their financial difficulties and then another 40 minutes of going through their planning phase before we ever get to the actual heist, which proves not to be worth the wait.

Having a giant ball in the middle of the mall makes for an interesting visual and the concept of trying to get money out of it managed to hold my interest somewhat in what is otherwise a highly uninspired movie. However, I found it hard to believe that these women, as financially desperate as they were, would decide to pull off such a dangerous and complex heist when they had no experience in robbing anything before. Having them rob a bank, although more standard, would have made more sense and with a little imagination could have been even funnier and more interesting. The actual execution of the crime is dull and I thought it was really reckless and stupid that they chose to do it while security guards where standing around it and tons of people present watching a nearby play instead of waiting until the place closed. Also, it was ridiculous during the planning stage when they decided to force Jane to rob a grocery store in order to get her ‘psychologically ready’ and prove that she had the ‘guts’ to pull off the big heist, but this seemed stupid because if she got caught, which could easily happen, then all their plans would have been ruined.

The only thing that half-way saves it are the female leads and I liked all three of them. Saint James is a very attractive woman and normally I don’t particularly like ladies with husky voices, but with her it is sexy. I also enjoyed the naïve quality of her character. Lange is young and beautiful here and looking light years removed from the southern accented old crone that she has been playing in ‘An American Horror Story’. Her vivaciousness helps propel every scene that she is in. Curtain is a blast as well. She has impeccable comic timing and I always felt her presence on ‘Saturday Night Live’ was one of the main reasons that show was so successful and ground-breaking during its first five seasons. The only problem I had with the character is that she performs a striptease near the end, which isn’t funny or sexy and comes off as stupid and degrading instead. It is also quite clearly a body double and not Curtain herself that you end up seeing topless, so for any voyeurs out there who might think of buying this just for that reason, don’t bother.

The male leads are essentially wasted. Eddie Albert has a meaningless role as Jane’s father and I could see no other reason for why he took the part except that he wanted to stay busy in his old age. Richard Benjamin can be great at times, but here his character is vapid. I also thought it was a bit strange that he was cast as Lange’s husband since in real-life he was eleven years older and given her very youthful appearance here almost made it look like a middle-aged guy bedding a minor. Dabney Coleman is cast against type playing a nice guy for a change instead of a conniving jerk that he usually does. Since he plays conniving jerks so well I have always enjoyed him and the change of pace is interesting for a few seconds before it becomes boring like everything else.

The on-location shooting in Eugene, Oregon does not help. The music score comes about as close to ‘elevator music’ as you can get. The opening animation sequence is lame. Outside of a slightly amusing cameo by Garret Morris this thing never gels and it is one film you can afford to miss.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: July 11, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 44Minutes

Rated PG (Brief Nudity)

Director: Robert Sheerer

Studio: American International

Available: VHS, DVD, Netflix streaming

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Heist Movies, Movies with Nudity

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Good Neighbor Sam (1964)

Posted on April 8, 2012 | 4 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Pretending to be married.

            Sam Bissell (Jack Lemmon) is an advertising executive working for a demanding client (Edward G. Robinson) who is very conservative and insists everyone around him have a clean-cut image and lifestyle. Sam’s wife Minerva (Dorothy Provine) brings home her college friend Janet (Romy Schneider) for a visit and she rents out the neighbor’s place while she is there.  Janet then finds out that she is going to be left a large inheritance, but the will stipulates that she must be married even though Janet is instead going through a divorce. For the sake of allowing her to collect the large fortune, which is 15 million dollars, Sam agrees, with the blessing of Minerva, to pretend to be Janet’s husband by staying at her place until the money is paid out.  A private detective (Louis Nye) is hired to keep a close eye on them and matters become even more complicated when Janet’s ex-husband Howard (Mike Connors) returns.

The concept is original and to my recollection has never been done before, or since, which is amazing when you think about the fact that just about everything else has. It does rely heavily on coincidence and too much of the first hour is spent setting up the plot with some extraneous scenes that could’ve and should’ve been cut. For such fluffy material, even entertaining fluff such as this, a 130 minute runtime is too long.  Three different writers were credited with doing the screenplay and the overall vision seems disjointed as at times it works as a satire, slapstick, and sex comedy, but never coming together completely as a whole. However, there is enough eventual pay off to still make it worth it.

This is one of Lemmon’s better comedy vehicles, if not his all-around best. Sometimes he comes off as too strait-laced and benign in these things, but here it works to the film’s advantage. His best part is when he dreams seeing himself getting out of bed and going over to the bedroom where Janet is and trying to seduce her. She screams so loudly that the entire town wakes up and comes over, which is funny and should have been played-out more.

Schneider though is the best thing about the movie. I loved her bright, beaming smile and effervescent personality. She sparkles in every scene and I was impressed that although she could be pleasant she could also easily get into a shouting match with Howard and the fact that she could switch emotional gears so easily and quickly proves that she had talent. Costume designer Jacqueline Moreau puts her into some snazzy outfits that look great on her including an all red jumpsuit, a strapless evening gown, and a two piece white pajama outfit with pink polka dots that was my favorite. It is a shame that due to her severe depression over the accidental death of her son as well as alcoholism and a three-pack-a-day smoking habit her career and life was cut short as she most assuredly still had a lot of outstanding parts and performances left to do.

Blonde Provine looks almost as good and equally delightful in her role where she tries holding it all together. Connors, best known for starring in the long-running TV-show ‘Mannix’, is surprisingly engaging as the ex. His arguments with Sam are fun and in order to keep the scheme going he pretends to be Sam and stays in the home with Minerva, which culminates with the film’s funniest moment, which is the early morning ‘kissing contest’ the two men have with each other’s wives.

Nye is also amusing as the detective and I got a kick out of his van that was supposedly disguised to be that of a cleaning service with a giant model of a vacuum on top of it that was used as a telescope.

The only one who gets wasted here is legendary actor Robinson who really doesn’t have anything funny to say, or do. However, his dinner party is still memorable simply because everyone gets served on all gold dinnerware, which includes the plates, cups, and utensils.

The music score is bouncy and the climatic sequence that features the main characters defacing area billboards is artsy and creative. On a lightweight, inoffensive level this satisfies and delivers a few laughs along the way.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: July 22, 1964

Runtime: 2Hours 10Minutes

Rated NR (Not Rated)

Director: David Swift

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD (The Jack Lemmon Collection)

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Posted in 60's Movies, Comedy, Movies Based on Novels

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The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)

Posted on March 17, 2012 | 6 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Doris is a spy.

            This is an energetic and zany Doris Day vehicle featuring her as Jennifer Nelson a tour guide at the NASA Space Center. She meets Bruce Templeton (Rod Taylor) who at first she can’t stand, but when she finds out that he is one of the top scientists at the lab and makes a lot of money she immediately becomes infatuated. This certainly does nothing to help fight the gold-digger stigma that some women have, but it was made over forty years ago, so I guess it was more acceptable. Through quirky circumstances she comes under suspicion as being a Russian spy and spends the rest of the time trying to prove otherwise while continuing her romance with Bruce.

Day looks gorgeous and is hammy at just the right level without going overboard and becoming cartoonish. Her best segment is when Taylor imagines here as a Mata Hari spy complete with skimpy outfit, which she looks great in, as well as dreaming that she is blindfolded and speaking in a foreign accent while ready to be shot by a firing squad. She sings the film’s title tune, which is bouncy, and even does, later on, a goofy rendition of her signature song ‘Que Sera Sera’.

Taylor is perfect as the love interest and I think he is the best out of all of Day’s male co-stars. His funniest moment, although brief, is when Day crosses her eyes to be goofy and then keeps them that way, which makes him momentarily panic. I got a kick out of his model of the solar system that he had in his office that displayed the planets in a symbolic fashion after the Greek gods they were named after.

The supporting cast is full of familiar comic pros. Alice Pearce and George Tobias appear as Jennifer’s neighbors and a variation of the Kravitz couple that they played on the ‘Bewitched’ TV-series. Pearce is hilarious and it was a shame that she wasn’t in more scenes and died before the movie’s release. Dom Deluise is amusing as the actual spy, who goes undercover as an electrical repairman. Normally his goofy fat-guy persona becomes tiring, but here it worked especially during the climatic sequence. Paul Lynde, who was always hard to cast and in the process usually got meaningless parts, has one of his best roles as the lab’s security guard and even dresses up in drag at the end. Dick Martin, Edward Andrews, and John McGiver help round out the cast. Arthur Godfrey, as Jennifer’s father, is the only one who is boring, but his part was dull, so it might be hard to completely blame him.

Director Frank Tashlin creates sets with bright, vivid colors and each scene is a Technicolor dream. Being a former cartoonist he creates some nicely played-out comic scenarios including Bruce’s hands-free futuristic kitchen that has a little robot that comes out of the wall and cleans-up any messes that are left behind and ends up attacking Jennifer. The out-of-control boat ride is also amusing, but the best part is the wild, fast-paced ending when Jennifer decides to turn the tables on her accusers.

Sure it is silly, but you know that going in and on a non-think level it is perfect entertainment for all-ages.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 9, 1966

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Rated G

Director: Frank Tashlin

Studio: MGM

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 60's Movies, Comedy, Movies for the Whole Family, Romance, Spy/Espionage

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Bunny O’Hare (1971)

Posted on March 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

bunny

By Richard Winters

My Rating 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Bette becomes a hippie.

Extremely odd Bette Davis vehicle made in her later years when her career had crested and she was forced to be less choosy about her projects. The story has to do with a lonely widow named Bunny O’Hare (Davis) who losses her home to foreclosure and is rendered homeless. She meets an older man named Bill Gruenwald (Ernest Borgnine) who is an escaped bank robber. Together they dress up as hippies and rob banks throughout the state of New Mexico in order to survive.

Davis is exceptional. Usually she plays cold, manipulative characters, but here she gives a perfect, touching performance as a nice old lady. She is terrific in every scene that she is in and the only bright spot in what is otherwise a misfire. Borgnine though seems wasted and thrown in only as a stock character.

The story really has nowhere to go. The intention was to make the film a mixture of social satire and slapstick, but it fails on either end. The novelty wears off quickly and it soon becomes derivative. Initially their ploy to rob the banks seemed clever as Bill releases a bird into the bank, which causes such a distraction that they are able to rob it without detection, but it becomes tiring when it gets played-out again and again. The police are portrayed as being universally bumbling and making it seem like a six-year old could rob a bank and easily get away with it. I also did not like the banjo music being played as they are trying to get away from the cops as it seems too similar to the much better film Bonnie and Clyde and in fact the original title for this movie was going to be ‘Bunny and Claude’.

The casting of Jack Cassidy as Lieutenant Greely, the policeman who becomes obsessed with capturing them, should’ve worked.  He was very adept at playing cold, cunning, slightly offbeat characters as evidenced by his Emmy Award winning performances on the old Columbo TV-show as well as the cult TV-series He and She. He was the husband of actress Shirley Jones and the father of Shaun and David Cassidy whose career was unfortunately cut short when he ended up dying in a fire in 1976 after falling asleep with a lit cigarette. His unique talent here is stifled because the character is portrayed as being unrealistically dimwitted and saps any possible energy from the scenes that he is in.

Actress Joan Delaney makes a terrific addition as his female counterpart R.J. Hart. She is young, attractive, and hip. She plays off of Greely’s old, regimented ways quite well and it is a shame that, with the exception of a very brief appearance in the 1991 comedy Scenes From a Mall, this ended up being her last film.

The New Mexico landscape is nice, but I got the feeling that the location shooting had not been scouted out sufficiently. The police station didn’t look authentic at all. It seemed like scenes where shot in any building that they were able to attain a film permit. The lighting consists of one bright spotlight put on the subject while the sides of the frame and the background are dark and shadowy. Sometimes, in a good movie, this is done for artistic effect, but here I felt it was more because that was all they could afford. This one is for Bette Davis completest only.

Well known character actors John Astin and Reva Rose appear as Bunny’s two grown children, but are essentially wasted. The then acting governor of New Mexico, David Cargo, plays one of the state troopers.  Larry Linville, who would later become famous for playing Major Frank Burns on the classic TV-series M*A*S*H, can be seen very briefly at the end, but has no lines of dialogue.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: October 18, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 28Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Gerd Oswald

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: Netflix Streaming

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy, Low Budget, Obscure Movies, Offbeat, Robbing Banks

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