Tag Archives: David Wayne

The Front Page (1974)

Posted on June 29, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Reporters covering an execution.

In 1928 Chicago convicted killer Earl Williams (Austin Pendleton) is set to be put to death over the accidental shooting of a police officer. All the reporters from the press are there set to cover it as it happens except for Hildy (Jack Lemmon) who plans on getting married to Peggy (Susan Sarandon) and get out of the reporting business once and for all much to the chagrin of his tenacious editor Walter (Walter Matthau). Problems ensue when Earl escapes from his cell. All the other reporters take to the streets presuming he must be hiding somewhere in the city, but instead he breaks into the press room when only Hildy was there. Hildy soon realizes that Earl isn’t the cold-blooded killer that everyone has made him out to be and decides to jump back into being a reporter to cover the big scope just as his fiancée sits outside in a taxi waiting to take him away on a train to their honeymoon.

The film is based on the 1928 hit stage play of the same name that was remade into a movie twice before this one and then once after in 1988. While this one isn’t as poor as the 80’s version, which starred Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner, it isn’t as good as the first two. This version, which director Billy Wilder later admitted he wasn’t proud of, is rather slow and doesn’t manage to hit its stride until the second hour. I remember watching His Girl Friday, which was the second film version, and finding each and every scene and line of dialogue to be hilarious while here there’s only a sprinkle of occasional laughs. Part of the problem is that the older versions had a rapid fire pace, but in this movie, everything is slowed down and stagy and the blame could be put squarely on Wilders as he insisted all the words of dialogue needed to be heard clearly versus having overlapping conversations where one character would occasionally talk over or interrupt the other, which would’ve helped the scenes move along faster.

Lemmon is only funny when the characters he plays are in some sort of anxious bind and he responds to it in a nervous, hyper sort of way. Here though he’s way too relaxed. He walks into the scene like he’s not even a part of the cast. While everyone else is frantic to get an edge on the story he sits back like he’s more of an observer who really doesn’t have anything to do with the main plot, and the contrast is not humorous or interesting. It would’ve been better had he still wanted to cover the story, but his soon-to-be wife wouldn’t let him and thus there could’ve been a funny balancing act of him trying to keep her happy while still trying to do his job behind her back.

The film also suffers from the miscasting of Carol Burnett, who has later admitted to this being one of her weakest performances. The problem is that she’s too one dimensional coming off like some angry, emotional woman who has nothing funny to say. Had it been played by a younger woman with a physical appeal who could’ve elicited her lines in a softer way that would’ve made her seem less embittered. Switching the roles where Susan Sarandon played Molly who could’ve conveyed a less angry inflection while Burnett could’ve shined as the nagging fiancée, which she’s more adept at.

The rest of the supporting is the one thing that helps keep it afloat. Matthau again scores, but more for his body language like the scene where he gives Sarandon a knowing stare down when it finally hits her that deep down the man she wants to marry is really more in love with his job. David Wayne is amusing as an effeminate reporter who drinks his liquor with a straw and Vincent Gardenia steals every scene he’s in as a hyper nervous Sheriff though in the end it’s probably Austin Pendleton that I liked best if only for the moment where he smiles into the camera as his picture is being taken despite the fact that he’s only hours away from being executed.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 18, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Billy Wilder

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video. YouTube

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in Chicago, Remakes

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The Prize Fighter (1979)

Posted on November 18, 2022 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Boxer wins rigged fights.

Bags (Tim Conway) is a former boxer who lost all 20 matches that he was in and now helps his former trainer Shakes (Don Knotts) train new fighters, but neither of them is having much luck. Bags decides to go back into the ring during an amateur fight night and this gets the attention of local crime boss Mike (Robin Clarke). Mike is trying to build a convention center, but is stymied by Pop Morgan (David Wayne) who owns a gym on the block Mike wans to build on and he’s refusing to sell at any cost. Mike decides to rig the fights that Bags is in, unbeknownst to both Bags and Shakes, to the extent that it looks like Bags is ‘unbeatable’. He then will entice Pop to bet on the fight that Bags has with the The Butcher (Michael LaGuardia). Pops will be under the presumption it’ll be a ‘safe bet’, but this time Mike won’t rig it and presumably Bags will go down and Mike will be able to get his hands on Pop’s gym and tear it down for his new building. 

While Knotts and Conway had success with their pairing in The Apple Dumpling Gang, this foray, an attempted parody of Rocky, goes nowhere. Instead of being filled with a lot of gags and pratfalls, which is what you’d expect, it’s a slow story filled with every cringy cliche from a fight movie out there. Comedy is supposed to make fun of the cliches instead of propping them up, but unfortunately that’s the approach taken and it bombs massively.

Comedy movies should also have all the characters be funny in some way, but here most of them are not. Possibly that was for vanity reasons as Conway, who also wrote the script, didn’t want to be upstaged, but this forces the viewer to go through long periods of trite drama in every scene that he’s not in. The supporting characters are extreme caricatures of the 1930’s which the film is set in. Robin Clarke is particularly annoying (not necessarily his fault as that was just the way the part was written) as he attempts to channel Al Pacino from The Godfather while speaking like a poor man’s Marlon Brando. David Wayne is cast to resemble Burgess Mereridith who was in Rocky (ironically both men played villains in the 60’s ‘Batman’ TV-show with Meredith as the Penguin and Wayne as The Mad Hatter). Here though Wayne speaks, in an effort to sound like Meredith, in a gravely voice that makes him sound like a duck. I also found John Myhers, who co-wrote the script, put-on Irish accent to be equally irritating.  

Even Knotts gets wasted. Some enjoy the moment where he cracks a bunch of raw eggs in a glass and then tries to force Conway to drink it, but other than that he doesn’t elicit too many laughs. Yes, Conway is amusing at times, but his perpetually clueless shtick gets a bit old by the end. The only performer that had me laughing was Mary Ellen O’Neill who plays Mike’s senile old mother and who does some wildly bizarre things while in Conway and Knotts’ presence. She’s a scene stealer and should’ve been in it more and while she’s at the boxing match as she watches the fight with Mike she should’ve continued to do weird things while the fight was going on, which outside of swearing she doesn’t, and it was a missed opportunity.

I will give credit for the climatic bout, which is surprisingly well choreographed and effectively has a large crowd watching, which gives it an electric atmosphere, but everything else falls flat. The irony I suppose is that the film ended up being a money-maker and in fact was one of the most successful films released by New World Pictures, but I think this was mainly because a lot of people went to it based off the reputations of the two stars more than the movie itself being good. I remember I went with my dad and two siblings to see it at the local theater because we were fans of Conway and Knotts, but all of us, our dad included, were quite bored and went home unimpressed and it clearly hasn’t improved with age. 

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: November 16, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Michael Preece

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy, Gangster Movies, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies that take place in the South, Sports Movies

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Finders Keepers (1984)

Posted on August 14, 2020 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stolen loot inside coffin.

Based on the 1974 novel ‘The Next-to-Last Train Ride’ by Charles Dennis, the story centers on Michael Rangeloff (Micheal O’Keefe) who is a con-man on the run from a women’s roller derby team by hiding out as a U.S. Army General. He boards a train that has a coffin on it with millions of stolen dollars hidden inside. Once he becomes aware of this he tries to hatch a plan with a kooky actress (Beverly D’Angelo) that he meets along the way in helping him to get the money out of the coffin and off the train without being detected.

This is the type of film that gives comical farces a bad name. I’m all for comedies with a hyper-frantic pace and mistaken identities, but it still needs to have some grounding in what’s possible. This thing relies way too heavily on coincidences and random events to hold it together. The whole scenario that leads Michael getting onto the train is too much of an overreach. A more sane and less dizzying premise would’ve had Michael working on the train as a conductor from the start and then coming onto the money by chance, which would’ve been far less protracted.

His relationship with D’Angelo is dumb too. The women immediately comes-off as a babbling nutcase, even admits to suffering from mental health issues, and the type of person who usually gets thrown off of trains and planes for their disruptive behavior. Most people would be glad to be away from her the first chance they had and yet here the two end up going to bed together and profess their undying love for each other within 24-hours of first meeting.

The original concept was to use this as a vehicle for Dudley Moore, but that idea got nixed when the studio decided they wanted to make it an ensemble comedy instead, which was a big mistake. O’Keefe plays the role admirable, but he doesn’t have enough finesse that a comic star would. The supporting cast doesn’t help either. David Wayne’s portrayal of the world’s oldest conductor relies too heavily on the stereotype that every person who gets elderly must also be senile and it’ hard to imagine how anyone could hold done a job being as forgetful and out-of-touch as his character is. Ed Lauter, who wears a wig here, does not have the needed comic flair to make his bad-guy role either interesting or amusing. Oh, and Jim Carrey appears briefly too, but it’s a small bit that isn’t anything special.

Richard Lester directed many good comedies in his career, but the stylish quality that made up so much of his films from the 60’s is completely missing here. Everything gets captured in a flat, uninspired way and I didn’t like the Canadian province of Alberta being substituted for Nebraska as its flat wheat fields look nothing like the rolling prairie of the Midwest and the bleak late autumn topography complete with leafless trees gives off a chilly, depressing feel.

The scene where D’Angelo and Lauter find themselves inside a house while it is being trucked down a highway is kind of cool and outside of the low budget 80’s flick Mind Trap, the only time I’ve seen this done on film. Watching the house then end up losing its roof, after it goes under a low hanging overhead sign, and going down the road with skeletal frame exposed is fun too, but everything else is a bore that tries too hard to be frantic when it wasn’t necessary.

I was also confused why the setting of the story had to be in the year 1973 as it doesn’t play-up the 70’s era enough to make it worth it. My only guess was that with the Vietnam War still raging that it fit into the storyline of having dead soldiers returning home in coffins. However, since the US continually gets involved in foreign conflicts all the time this same scenario could easily work in any time period and sadly wasn’t unique just to that decade.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: May 18, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Lester

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Farce, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a train setting, Obscure Movies

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