Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
August 3, 2012
Fox
Comedy
DVD
B-

Diary of a Wimpy Kid regulars include:

1. Dalila Bela as Taylor Pringle
2. Devon Bostick as Rodrick Heffley
3. Karan Brar as Chirag Gupta
4. Robert Capron as Rowley Jefferson
5. Christopher Thorgard De-Schuster as Chris the Bass Player
6. Connor and Owen Fielding as Manny Heffley
7. Zachary Gordon as Greg Heffley
8. Rachael Harris as Susan Heffley
9. Bryce Hodgson as Ben Segal
10. Alf Humphreys as Mr. Jefferson (this time actually with lines!)
11. Terence Kelly as Grandpa Heffley
12. Jeff Kinney as Mr. Hills
13. Peyton List as Holly Hills
14. Laine MacNeil as Patty Farrell
15. Andrew McNee as Coach Malone
16. Melissa Roxburgh as Heather Hills (formerly Rachel in DWK2)
17. Grayson Russell as Fregley
18. John Shaw as Mr. Draybick

As the subtitle suggests, this is set in the summer, which means we get much less of school, and classmates and teachers, than in the previous films.  I don't know if it's this, or that Zachary Gordon has hit puberty (like Harry and Ron in Chamber of Secrets, his voice seems to have dropped several octaves), but I generally didn't find this entry as entertaining as the first two.  And yet I am giving another B-, because it contains what is easily the funniest sequence in the series:  Rodrick's cover version of Justin Bieber's "Baby."  (Yes, each of my 2012 movies has a song or a band called Baby as the highlight.)  Bostick remains the best thing about these movies, and he has the moves like Jagger as well as a very expressive face.  Even the moment between Rowley and the bestie of the girl that Rodrick has spectacularly failed to impress is good.  If only the rest of the movie were on that level.  Still, it's nice that Zahn has more to do, with the central relationship this time being between Greg and his dad.  It's not a bad place to leave the characters onscreen, although of course in the books Greg and company continue to not age.

Dawn Chubai was a newscaster in the second movie as well.  Nicole Fraissinet, who was a Megastore Girl in Josie and the Pussycats, plays Receptionist Julie here.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
March 25, 2011
Fox
Comedy, Children's
DVD
B-

DWK regulars are (* means new to the series but will be back for #3):

1. Dalila Bela as Taylor Pringle*
2. Owen Best as Bryce Anderson
3. Devon Bostick as Rodrick Heffley
4. Karan Brar as Chirag Gupta
5. Christopher DeSchuster as Chris the Bass Player*
6. Connor and Owen Fielding as Manny Heffley
7. Zachary Gordon as Greg Heffley
8. Rachael Harris as Susan Heffley
9. Bryce Hodgson as Ben Segal
10. Ava Hughes as Marley
11. Alf Humphreys as Rowley's Dad, Mr. Jefferson
12. Terence Kelly as Grandpa Heffley*
13. Peyton List as Holly Hills
14. Laine MacNeil as Patty Farrell
15. Andrew McNee as Coach Malone
16. Belita Moreno as Mrs. Norton
17. Samantha Page as Shell(e)y
18. Melissa Roxburgh as Rachel (although she'd be Heather Hills in the next one)*
19. Grayson Russell as Fregley
20. John Shaw as Mr. Draybick*
21. Jake D. Smith as Archie Kelly

Also, author Jeff Kinney makes his first appearance as Holly's Dad, Mr. Hills.  Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs again collaborated on the script, but the director is new: David Bowers, who did Flushed Away. I would say that this movie is a shade better than the first, not quite a B since it's not quite as funny and it does feel a little unbalanced, focusing much more on Greg's home life than on his school life.  That said, everyone, especially the kids, seem to have settled into their characters more, so that much less time is spent on set-up.  Just as DWK1 gave us Greg's friendship with Rowley, #2 tracks the shaky brotherhood of Greg and, as you may've guessed from the subtitle, Rodrick, allowing the whole Heffley family to shine.  There are funny moments (like Susan's "mom dance") but also more heart and realism than in the first movie.  A B- and a half I guess.

Dawn Chubai would return as a newscaster in DWK3.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diary of a Wimpy Kid
March 10, 2010
Fox etc.
Comedy
DVD
B-

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid regulars are:

1. Owen Best as Bryce Anderson
2. Devon Bostick as Rodrick Heffley
3. Karan Brar as Chirag Gupta
4. Robert Capron as Rowley Jefferson
5. Connor and Owen Fielding as Manny Heffley
6. Zachary Gordon as Greg Heffley
7. Rachael Harris as Susan Heffley
8. Ava Hughes as Marley
9. Alf Humphreys as Mr. Jefferson (Rowley's dad)
10. Laine MacNeil as Patty Farrell
11. Andrew McNee as Coach Malone
12. Belita Moreno as Mrs. Norton
13. Samantha Page as Shelley
14. Grayson Russell as Fregley
15. Jake D. Smith as Archie Kelly

Also, Steve Zahn, who was the brother in Object of My Affection, plays Greg's dad.  The movie is surprisingly well-cast, considering it's based on a book with exaggerated characters who look and act like cartoons.  As the book is very episodic, there are some changes in terms of plot and characterization, with self-absorbed Greg learning a few life lessons here, although not changing entirely.  Which is just as well, since there would be two more movie sequels, and the book series is still running.  (Book 10 is due out this Fall.)

Watching this again, I realized that a lot of my favorite moments came in the later movies.  I do have to single out Bostick as giving my favorite performance.  He looks nothing like Rodrick in the book but he puts a lot more into the mean-big-brother role than expected, even in a simple line like, "And then they planted trees!"  Also, as a Gen-Xer I enjoyed the little moments of '80s-ness, like the Awesome to Be Me classroom movie.  DWK itself is designed to not look like it's from a particular time period and, as in Juno, there are no cell phones.

Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs would also co-write the second movie in the series.  Brandon Barton was on the Dancing Elk Track Team in Juno and is the '80s Jock Boy here.

Juno

Juno
December 25, 2007
Fox etc.
Comedy, Romance
DVD
B

It would be fair to say of this movie, as of Clerks, that it's unrealistic for so many of the characters to be that witty and pop-culturally savvy.  Also, like Napoleon Dynamite, the film seems to exist in some present-day time warp, in this case a world where teens don't have cell phones or computers.  And yet, there is an inner core of reality and believability, particularly in the performances by J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney as Juno's tough but loving father and stepmother.  Ellen Page brings just the right balance of cynicism and naivete to the title role, playing a unique but recognizable 16-year-old.  And Michael Cera succeeds with the difficult role of the best friend whom she seduces and becomes pregnant by.  (Admittedly, it is in retrospect a typical Cera part, but at the time it felt fresh.)  Jennifer Garner and Michael Bateman play the Yuppie couple who want to adopt Juno's baby.  The movie does at times get to be a bit much, as with the oh-so indie soundtrack, which is why I can't rate it higher, but overall it's good.

Lucas MacFadden, AKA Cut Chemist, aptly plays the Chemistry Teacher here and was an Ozomatli Band Member in Never Been Kissed.  Brandon Barton, of the Dancing Elk Track Team, would show up as '80s Jock Boy in Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

This is by the way the 300th movie I've reviewed.  I added another D, for two total, but no more D+s.  There are three more C-s and four C's, making 17 and 22 respectively.  C+s have gone from 47 to 59, B-s from 58 to 91.  B's have again more than doubled, this time from 27 to 58.  B+s jumped from 22 to 37.  And A-s went from five to seven, while I actually have two new A's, making three in all.

Kinsey

Kinsey
November 12, 2004
Fox etc.
Drama, Historical
VHS (the last in my movie collection)
B-

While I think  Liam Neeson, as the title character, and Laura Linney, as Clara "Mac" McMillen Kinsey, give great performances here, aging convincingly from their 20s into their 50s or 60s, this movie is too depressing (especially in the second half) for me to give it a higher grade.  Furthermore, while the passage of time (not just the characters aging, but various period details) is well done, there is a feeling that the movie tries to take on too much, tries to condense one complex life, and the lives related to it, into two hours.  Still, I have never seen a Hollywood film address such issues as bisexuality and polyamory somewhat sympathetically.  On the other hand, the film is appropriately clinical in its approach to sex, so even the nudity and simulated sex acts are not particularly arousing.  I actually thought the sexiest moment is when Alfred and Mac try not to let his parents overhear them being silly in bed.

Nearly 30 years after The Big Bus, Lynn Redgrave is almost unrecognizable in the small but pivotal role of Final Interview Subject.  And Don Sparks, the Prince in 1978's Fairy Tales, is somewhat recognizable as the Middle-Aged Businessman.  Kate Jennings Grant, who was Kennedy in The Object of My Affection, is Marjorie Hartford here.  Joe Badalucco, who was Construction Foreman in Two Weeks Notice, is Radio Repairman here.  Heather Goldenhersh was Sheila in School of Rock and is Martha Pomeroy here.

Not the usual triangle

Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite
August 27, 2004
Fox
Comedy
DVD
B

While this movie remains unique in its deadplan blend of Idahoisms and '80sishness, I can in retrospect see it in a line with, for instance, Juno (2007), although that is a higher-budget, bigger-names film.  (If the most recognizable members of your cast are a second-banana from The Drew Carey Show and Hilary Duff's sister, then it's fair to say you're working with unknowns.)  Like other teen comedies of its time (not just indy of course, I'm including Mean Girls in this), its quotability led to many memes then and later.  However, much of the movie can't simply be conveyed in the lines; the line-readings and facial expressions (especially the more stilted ones) also matter.

Watching the movie again, I was struck by how innocent it is.  The swearing is deliberately mild (on a "geez" level), and the violence is not at all graphic.  Even the romances, such as they are, wouldn't be out of place in a pre-teen movie.  I think this reflects Napoleon's own innocence.  The movie generally presents a world that fits Napoleon's perceptions, like his views of friendship and revenge.  One touch I like is that he and his relatives believe that time travel is possible, when it's 2004 and they're all surrounded by the trappings of the '80s, including the soundtrack.  Overall, I don't find the movie hilarious or profound, but its quirkiness is endearing, and I like that the characters finally smile towards the end.

Down with Love

Down with Love
May 16, 2003
Fox
Comedy, Romance, Historical, Musical
DVD
B+

This was a box-office disappointment and there are still people who loathe it, but I find it almost as delightful as I did a dozen years ago.  It is both an over-the-top loving parody of early '60s "sex comedies" and an early 21st-century look at gender roles.  It is a rom-com but it puts surprising spins on the conventions, new and old, as with the moment when it seems like the movie could end but there's another twenty minutes or so.  The dialogue is suggestive and layered in other ways, and there's a lot of physical humor, not just slapstick but things like the stylized ways people walk and smile.

Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor are cast somewhat against both type and archetype.  That is, this is not the usual McGregor role and he's little like Rock Hudson.  Ditto for Zellweger and Doris Day.  The two supporting roles, played by Sarah Paulson and David Hyde Pierce, however, are dead on Paula Prentiss and Tony Randall, although again with little twists and surprises.  (That they're both queer in real life adds yet another layer, as in the Japanese restaurant scene.)  Randall himself, then 83 and a year away from death, has a little gem of a role as the head of the publishing company where the book of the title is ignored and then celebrated.  "Down with Love" is also a song, and music is such an integral part of the movie that I think this deserves the "musical" tag, even if not strictly speaking a musical.

The film is especially notable for the look, as seen in set design and costumes, but also in such touches as a Mad Magazine cover.  It all looks like a slightly hyped-up version of what you would've seen in a 1962 film, from opening credits to closing.  There's also creative (and suggestive) use of split-screen.  If I can't rate the movie higher, it's that it hasn't aged quite as well as I hoped.  I still really enjoy it, but I don't love it as much after multiple viewings.  And it doesn't seem quite so innovative now as it did then.

Just as he had in I Wanna Hold Your Hand, and many other appearances, Will Jordan plays Ed Sullivan.  Sarah Christine Smith was a Go-Go Dancer in Austin Powers #1 and is an Astronette here.  Turtle, who was Cult Member Jeff in Dude, Where's My Car?, plays a Beatnik here.

Dude, Where's My Car?

Dude, Where's My Car?
December 15, 2000
Fox
Comedy, Sci-Fi
DVD
B-

In the sub-sub-genre of bonehead stoners saving the Earth/universe, I'd put this on a level with Spirit of '76 and slightly above Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.  The two dudes in this (the extremely typecast Ashton "Kelso" Kutcher and Sean William "Stifler" Scott) are actually more moronic than any buddies I've seen in any movies.  (Admittedly, I haven't seen Dumb & Dumber among other others.)  There's a scene that is like the most basic version of "Who's on First" you've ever heard, consisting as it does with the guys reading the tattoos on each other's backs, "Dude" and "Sweet," and then asking what their own tattoos say.  And there's a scene where Kutcher's character is enraged by the woman working the drive-through microphone at a Chinese fast-food place.  And then....

Anyway, it's stupid.  There's never really a sense that the film was made by or for anyone much brighter than the protagonists.  But I can't help it, I find the movie funny.  Maybe not as funny as I did almost 15 years ago, but obviously funny enough to get the DVD (with commentary no less).  And, yes, the movie is sci-fi.  Its convoluted and not completely resolved plot-- you never actually see the car tracked down-- involves two sets of aliens and a cult of bubble-wrapped geeks who want to be abducted.  It's tempting to analyze this film as a dream/nightmare of young white men, with their fears and desires about different genders and races all mixed together, with a special section on how instead of hugging each other and then calling each other "fag," as Bill and Ted did more than a decade earlier, Jesse and Chester nonchalantly beat Fabio and his girlfriend in a kissing contest.  But basically it's a stupid, kind of fun movie and I don't feel like spending that much time on it.

Geoffrey Gould, who was an Audience Member in In & Out, is a Cult Member here.  The actor known as Turtle, who plays Cult Member Jeff, would have an uncredited role as a Beatnik in Down With Love.  And Jennifer Garner would have a much serious role in Juno than she does here as one of the dudes' very much not identical twin girlfriends.

The movie that may have the longest title to be frequently dropped.

Never Been Kissed

Never Been Kissed
April 9, 1999
Fox
Comedy, Romance
VHS
D

I liked this movie at the time.  Otherwise I wouldn't have bought it, admittedly for under $1.  But when I last watched it, I was very disappointed.  And this time it seemed even worse.  On the surface, it seems like my kind of movie: it's the '90s but with '80s nostalgia, it's got Drew Barrymore, and it's a rom-com mixed with a teen comedy.  But it is in fact the worst movie in my collection in almost 30 years (since George Hamilton's Togetherness from 1970).

It's hard to know where to start, but let's talk about Barrymore and her character of Josie Geller, and the glaring anachronisms.  Barrymore was 24 at this point, so watching the movie again (I'd blocked out a lot) I was surprised that Josie had flashbacks with an '83ish soundtrack (e.g. Lauper's "She Bop").  This would make her my generation or maybe a bit older.  But then late in the film we find out that Josie is supposed to be 25, in 1999.  This means she graduated in '91 or '92.  I can see fudging things a bit in The Wedding Singer and Romy & Michele, because, let's face it, pop music was better in '83 than in '85 or '87.  (I've maintained, since the time, that "Say Say Say" was the last great pop song until the B-52s made their comeback with "Love Shack" et al.)  But come on!  If the script had made Josie older, or if they had wanted to contrast the early '90s with the late '90s, that would've been interesting.  But it's just one among many signs that the writers have no clue about teens of any generation.

Now, I'm not going to argue that Romy & Michele or 10 Things I Hate have a documentary-like realism about them.  They are pop fluff, but they're intelligent pop fluff that gets at some level of relatable truth.  This film in contrast does not have a moment in it that is believable even within its own poorly constructed world.  This might be OK if there was a surreal campiness about it, like in Grease 2, but the movie just isn't fun.  It's not even occasionally enjoyably unfun, like Different Strokes sometimes was.  I can't even hate it because I feel too sorry for it.

10 Things I Dislike About This Movie

1. Garry Marshall, as the publisher who sends Josie on the assignment to pretend to be a high school student, shows he hasn't exactly grown as an actor in the three decades since How Sweet It Is!
2. There are a lot of other unfunny and unappealing staff at the Chicago Sun-Times.  (Roger Ebert gave the movie three stars, because he thought Barrymore was great.  Well, I guess I did, too, at the time.)
3. Josie is supposed to be a highly intelligent person but she does remarkably stupid things throughout.
4. Her "romance" with the teacher is generic and annoying, especially the big countdown to a public kiss.
5. The only other teacher featured is the subject of an unfunny menopause joke.
6. The popular kids are either forgettable or miscast, especially the interchangeable popular girls and the emo boy pretending to be the BMOC.
7. As in Zapped Again, there is a beautiful "plain" nerd-girl, but instead of getting her soulmate nerd-boy, she pines for the utterly unappealing B-emo-C.  (Lucy wouldn't put up with this shit!)
8. Josie's brother Rob (David Arquette in an almost likable performance) decides mid-movie to attend the same high school, even though he's 23, in order to help make her popular and win himself a baseball scholarship.  (The school has security check-in but anyone can enroll at any age.)
9. Everyone gets mad at Rob for lying to them, but they all forgive Josie when she writes a fawning, un-bitter article about how wonderful high school was this time around.  They even root for her to get with the teacher!
10. The soundtrack, whether oldies or then newbies, is tired and blah.

Molly Shannon as Josie's friend Anita would have better material to work with in Wet Hot American Summer.   Carmen Llywelyn plays Rob's Girlfriend and was Kim (the girl Alyssa kisses at the club) in Chasing Amy.  Pretty Brunette High School Student Priscilla Cory was Pretty Brunette Hostess in The Wedding Singer, although she was in fact 38 by this point.  Allen Covert, Roger in Op-Ed here, was Sammy there.  Derek Morgan was a CIA Agent in Wag the Dog and is Armcast Henson here.  Lucas MacFadden (of the band Ozomatli) plays himself here but would be Chemistry Teacher in the far superior teen comedy Juno.


(Any resemblance to high school is purely imaginary.)

The Object of My Affection

The Object of My Affection
April 17, 1998
Fox
Romance, Comedy, Drama
VHS
B+

Based on a book, this is smarter and more complex than the average rom-com.  Yes, it has a happy ending (for just about everyone), but the journey there is different than you might expect, particularly in a mainstream film (even of the late '90s).

It's tempting to say that straight guys got Chasing Amy, and straight girls got this movie.  That is, in the former an apparent lesbian falls in love with and has sex with a man (only to have their romance threatened by his inability to deal with her bisexual past), while this film has a straight (and pregnant) woman get lots of ballroom dancing, talk, laughs, and cuddling, as well as a potential "mate" to raise her baby with that she gets along with much better than the baby's father.  Their romance is broken by the realization that he will never be sexually and romantically involved with her, although they love each other dearly.

The thing is, George is arguably bi as well, since he does seem aroused when he and Nina make out.  He may well be more oriented towards men, but it's not as if he doesn't have feelings for women, or at least Nina.  The issue is complicated by the undeniable chemistry between 29-year-old Jennifer Aniston  and Paul Rudd (a couple months younger).  The two would pair up again, as a married couple, many years later in the disappointing Wanderlust, but they remain a believable "couple" in this movie.

The script and direction never quite resolve this, but ambiguity is OK.  As for that happy ending, George is (six years later in the epilogue) a sort of uncle figure to Nina's daughter, and George and Nina are still good (maybe best) friends.  He's with the younger man he left Nina for, while she's with the sympathetic black cop she met after what has to be the mildest mugging in film history.  (The one in Clueless is more of a nail-biter to watch!)  True, the young man's sort of lover Rodney seems to be romantically alone, but he's still part of this "family."  (The daughter's father is happy, too, and not really villainized in the movie, which is refreshing.)  Rodney is well played by Nigel Hawthorne, who brings out the poignancy of what it's like when the Object of Your Affection cannot return that affection as you'd like.

Other notable supporting cast members are 38-year-old Allison Janney as Nina's stepsister Constance, the first of at least three does-amazing-stuff-with-this-role characters that Janney plays in my film collection  Her dry delivery is a treasure!  She's paired with Alan Alda, at 62 (and 20 years after Same Time, Next Year) too old for the role (especially since he's playing the father of Nina's six-year-old niece), but still fun in his name-dropping.  And there's a fairly early role for 30-year-old Steve Zahn as George's repeatedly engaged brother Frank.

Todd Stockman was an Audience Member in In & Out and plays a dad here.  Alba Albanese was a New Yorker in As Good as It Gets and is Woman in Central Park here.  School Child George Gearhart King III would be RV Son in Two Weeks Notice, while Iraida Polanco is Carmelita here and would be Rosario there.

The Truth About Cats & Dogs

The Truth About Cats & Dogs
April 26, 1996
Fox
Comedy, Romance
VHS
B

This is a bittersweet, funny, and amiable rom-com but it is not without its issues.  To begin with, our heroine Abby, as played by 31-year-old Janeane Garofalo, is just not plausible as a woman who is so insecure that she would lie about her own identity when she meets a charming, handsome, but down-to-earth Brit (Ben Chaplin).  (After all, it's not like she's got a huge nose, like Steve Martin in Roxanne.)  Without pitting women against each other, I do have to say that I'm not alone in finding Garofalo far more attractive than Uma Thurman, in this or any other movie.  Nothing against Ms. Thurman.  She's cute and quite likable here.  I enjoy the friendship dynamic between Abby and Noelle.  In fact, if this had been the indie movie that Garofalo thought she had signed on for, or for that matter a porn movie, the triangle could be resolved quite plausibly with a threesome.   The chemistry among Garofalo, Chaplin, and Thurman is strong enough, and a ménage à trois might actually work better than what this movie offers, which is a dubious lesson about how when you get to know and like someone, they can become much more attractive.  Even more dubious is that the women deceive Brian for far too long.  Yes, he seems a bit thick to not catch on, but it's an unfair situation to put him in.

That said, there are some great scenes, among them the non-explicit phone sex and the "free radicals in my regime" beauty counter encounter and its follow-up ("If I were a guy, I'd fuck you," "I know you would, Sweetie").  Since I'm a cat-person, I like seeing Abby with her cat, and the dog is cute, even if the roller-skating is a bit much.  Also, it's a very '90s movie, almost modern (especially in its body-image subject matter), but still before the widespread use of the Internet and cell phones, which would've impacted the plot in various ways.  Definitely a must-see for Garofalo fans, since she's very sarcastic yet vulnerable here, in a different way than in her scene-stealing role in the next year's Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion.

One of the Newcast Auditioners, Linda Porter, would be Mrs. Crabbleman in Dude, Where's My Car?

Johnny Dangerously

Johnny Dangerously
Dec. 21, 1984
Fox
Comedy, Historical, Action
VHS
B+

Although I think this was neglected by the critics at the time, thirty years later it has survived as one of the funniest movies of the '80s.  From its Weird Al theme song to its "crime pays a little" twist ending, it's a rollicking parody of '30s gangster movies with several stand-out performances.  Michael Keaton as the adjectively named title character is dead-on Cagney, with charm of his own.  (He's one of the sweetest gangsters in movie history.)  Maureen Stapleton as his mother (playing 29 in the early scenes, with no change in wardrobe or make-up, although she was then 59) is earthy and deadpan, while Griffin Dunne as his brother is noble and horny.  (Compare and contrast this to his Who's That Girl role three years later).  Joe Piscopo and Richard Dimitri are both very quotable as Johnny's rivals Danny Vermin ("Once!") and Roman Troy Moronie ("You fargin corksucker!").  Marilu Henner is of course sexy as Johnny's girl Lil, but she can also sing and do comedy.  She dresses as a nun in one scene, as she did that same year in Cannonball Run II (which I used to own).  Her Taxi costar Danny DeVito (who'd been in the sexy-women-dressing-as-nuns movie Going Ape! with their costar Tony Danza) appears as District Attorney Burr, who's run over by a malt liquor bull after hitting on Johnny, in one of many '80s references.  There are also '30s jokes of course, and even a slam on William Howard Taft.

Not every joke works, but even the ones that don't, like Dom DeLuise as the Pope, are done with such verve that I can't help smiling.  Much of the humor is sexual but the movie is too good-natured to be sleazy, even when it's tasteless.  If nothing else, you'll have a ball spotting all the cameos, like Dick Butkus as Arthur, Alan Hale, Jr. as the Desk Sergeant, and Ray Walston as the newstand vendor.

Cynthia Szigeti, who was a passenger in The Big Bus and Diner Doll Sophie in The Gong Show Movie, is Mrs. Capone here.  T-Shirt Vendor Jeffrey Weissman was Ringo Fan in I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Brainwashed Youth in Sgt. Pepper.  

Taylor Negron, who was Blond-Haired Man Auditioning in The Gong Show Movie, has another uncredited role here, as Delivery Man.  Helen Kelly seems to have had a lot of uncredited roles at that time, among them "Pod" Concert Viewer in Spinal Tap, Wife Visiting Prisoner here, and Woman at the Park in Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

This movie was directed by Amy Heckerling, then best known for Fast Times at Ridgemont High (which I don't own), and she would go on to direct and write Clueless (which I of course own).  Neal Israel, very briefly Hecklering's husband, as well as the director etc. of Americathon, plays Dr. Zillman in the  army-training film/Betty-Boop satire Your Testicles and You.

The Pirate Movie

The Pirate Movie
August 6, 1982
Fox
Comedy, Musical, Romance, Historical
DVD
B

Released the same summer as Grease 2 and resembling it in some ways, this was aimed at teens, but I at 14 was mostly oblivious to both movies at the time, instead discovering them in heavily edited versions on TV a few years later.  I do remember remarking to my then-boyfriend in '86 that this movie was already dated, and no, not just because it's set in the 1800s.

As with G2, the two main themes are time and sex.  Like the Gilbert & Sullivan play which this is very loosely based on, this film is set in 1877, when pirate apprentice Frederic-without-a-K (21-year-old Christopher Atkins) is 21 but as a leap-day baby has had only five birthdays.  Mabel-also-without-a-K (19-year-old Kristy McNichol), however, declares, in what is probably the worst piece of dialogue in the movie "Frederic, these are the 1880s. You can't live your life by the outmoded conventions of a neo-imperialist society. Find your true center!"  To which he replies, "What?  You mean Zen piracy?"  The movie, which turns out to be Mabel's dream, mostly covers two days, although, as in Sgt. Pepper, there are flashbacks and forwards to things that never happen.  (This includes the butler, the only character who's not chewing scenery, emerging from a pond bearing these awesome-looking blue drinks that are in another scene as well.)

There's a series of flashforwards when F & M see each other on a beach and immediately sing a duet about first love.  (The movie is apparently influenced by not only Wizard of Oz and a dozen movies that are referenced throughout, including the then year-old Raiders of the Lost Ark, but also The Tempest.)  They then share a French kiss and we get this sparkling romantic exchange:
M: Do you live around here?
F: I've never really lived till now....Look, I know this is going to sound silly, but I think I love you. I think might even want to marry you.
M:  God, that was a short love scene!

G2 definitely has the more memorable music (more about that later), but PM  definitely has the worse dialogue.  At one point, Mabel's father, the Modern Major-General, demands to know what's going on, since pirates have invaded his lovely Penzance estate.  The Pirate King (executive producer Ted Hamilton) says, "Two words: it's a beach party.  And I'm Frankie Avalon."  His black sidekick Samuel* (Chuck McKinney) holds up his hands as mouse-ears and says, "And I'm Annette Funicello."

This "two-word" explanation sort of explains the movie, in that, just like in the Frankie & Annette Beach Party series, there's a lot of fourth-wall-breaking and there's an obsession with sex, although almost no one gets laid.  (The exception is below.)  The sexual references are mostly in dialogue, rather than song (unlike in G2), although some of the updated lyrics to the G & S songs are surprisingly raunchy and there is one song, well, I'll get to that.

The thing is, I can't believe I'm saying this, but the attitude towards sex in G2 is relatively healthy compared to what we get here.  If Mabel got this dream analyzed, her therapist would discover that she finds rape and castration (or at least threats to male crotches) hilarious.  Starting with the accidental changing of a Chinese pirate captain from "Irish tenor" to "soprano," and continuing on to Mabel kneeing Frederic in the groin when he thinks she's going to kiss him, with her cheerfully telling the audience, "War is hell," there's enough of this sort of humor to please a '90s America's Funniest Home Videos audience.  As for the "rape humor," that starts (in the "real-life" sort of first scene) when the guy-who-may-or-may-not-be-named-Frederic tells the crowd that "less than 100 years ago" pirates used to "rape and pillage," which makes Mabel remark, "God, I'd hate to be pillaged!"  And there are more jokes like that.  Also, there's a lot of "gay" humor, mostly involving the pirates, two of whom Mabel pairs up when she's marrying off her sisters.  (Gay weddings were still mostly unimaginable, although I did go to a lesbian wedding in the '70s.)

There is off-screen sex between the blindfolded Pirate King, who thinks he's with Mabel, and Ruth the Nurse.  Freddy's nurse from his childhood, except she hits on him.  (This happens in the stageplay, too, though.)  It never ceases to amaze me that this movie is fondly remembered by people who were little kids (mostly girls) who used to watch it on cable in the years following its release and failure.

Oh, yes, this was a box office bomb, just like G2.  I think the 1980s soft-rock ballads have aged surprisingly well, but that doesn't make this a good musical.  Not with something like "Pumpin' & Blowin'" in it.  (I can't really do justice to that song quickly, but in a few words: double entendres, badly animated fish with legs.)  The choreography generally doesn't reach Patricia-Birching, although the MMG number and the two bouts of "Happy Ending" are shockingly amateur.  Yes, there are multiple endings, and multiple beginnings.  Hell, the movie starts with an old pirate movie clip playing on a VCR, with the words "The End" appearing on the screen before we cut to present day.

I can't believe I've gotten this far without saying what a terrible actor Christopher Atkins is, but he's dreadful.  My ex and I used to call one scene the "yulg-yug scene," because he conveys his consternation by saying something like, "Yulg!  Yug!  THEY'RE ANCHORING OUTSIDE THE COVE!!!"  Even when he's not overplaying, he never is in the slightest convincing as a pirate or an actor.  (He is OK as a teen idol though, wearing his Blue Lagoon loincloth for several scenes.)  McNichol is far from her Little Darlings level, but she's not bad here, if a bit too smirky at times.  In their matching blond perms, they're cute together, and let's face it, the romance isn't that convincing in the original play, nor meant to be.  Surprisingly, McNichol has a nice daughter-father scene with Bill Kerr, who died just a month ago, at 92, but mostly the movie plays at the level of farce.  I no longer find it as equally entertaining as G2 but they would make a hell of a double feature!  (Or a double feature in Hell.)

Ken Annakin's rambling 2005 DVD commentary adds little information to the movie and in fact was chosen as a "commentary track of the damned": http://www.avclub.com/article/the-pirate-movie-22325.  He had been directing since the '40s and would do The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking six years after this.


*I go back and forth on whether the Samuel character is the best thing about the movie or an embarrassment.  Maybe both.  Anyway, kudos to McKinney for giving his all to lines like "Hang five, honkey!" and "Avon calling."

"You're gonna have to swallow something more than water, it's your pride."

Zorro: The Gay Blade

Zorro: The Gay Blade
July 17, 1981
Fox
Comedy, Romance, Historical
VHS
C

This is a slow-moving, innocuous movie with stereotypes, gay and otherwise, as well as virtually a one-man show for George Hamilton as twin brothers with multiple identities, and costumes.  Like The Pirate Movie the following year, the film has many false starts and almost-endings, but with Pirate M that only adds to the insanity, while here it prevents maintaining momentum.  There are mildly funny moments, like the "Don Jose from San Bernardino" scene, but the movie never really goes anywhere.  Also, it doesn't seem to know if it wants to be a parody, a political satire, a romance, or what.  There are worse ways to kill time, but there are definitely better ones, including other movies from '81.

Whipping master Norman Blankenship was "Man Beating Woman" in The Gong Show Movie.  Paco Morayta, Ramirez here, was Flok in Caveman.  Donovan Scott, who plays Paco, was Castor Oyl in Popeye.  Narrator Frank Welker would provide voices for both Schnoodle and Hootie in Heidi's Song.  Dick Balduzzi, 53 in the role of Old Man here, was a truck driver in Foul Play and would be a prisoner in Johnny Dangerously.

Only George Hamilton could steal scenes from himself.

Nine to Five

Nine to Five
December 19, 1980
Fox
Comedy
DVD
A-

I vaguely remember seeing The Nude Bomb at the time.  I definitely saw Popeye.  And I was among many who saw this movie, which was a smash hit that remains popular.  Changes in the office (technologically and otherwise) aside, this is still a joy to watch, from the sassy title theme by Dolly Parton, where even the metronomes bounce along, to the cheeky Where Are They Nows after the red-white-and-blue garbed heroines toast their success.

It's hard to know where to begin, so let's start with costumes.  When we first see mousy Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda), it's emerging from a crowd, looking not unlike Dustin Hoffman would in a similar scene in Tootsie a couple years later.  Lily Tomlin as no-nonsense Violet Newstead ad-libs a little later that they'll need a special locker for that hat.  The costumes, including hair and make-up, help tell the story, including Judy's dramatic evolution (with a fantasy sequence of her as a big-game hunter), but also, more subtly the ways that Parton, as the based-on-Dolly Doralee Rhodes, also becomes more assertive.  The supporting characters also look just right, like Elizabeth Wilson (Benjamin's mother in The Graduate) with her straight gray hair in the role of the spying Roz Keith, one of the many exaggerated but believable office types.  The best costume of all is of course the Snow-White fantasy dress for Violet (with its Skinny & Sweet/ Rid-o-Rat color-schemed skirt).

Those fantasies (and Doralee's "sexual harassment" revenge) work as humor but also are examples of how carefully crafted the script by director Colin Higgins and 27-year-old Patricia Resnick is.  Details resonate throughout the film.  The scarf that boss Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman in the first of what would become his signature roles as likable assholes) makes Violet buy on her lunch hour, supposedly for his naive wife, is the gift that he gives to Doralee in his long failing attempt to seduce her (while spreading rumors in the office that she's his mistress), and Doralee rejects, only to have it be, well, a running gag that the women use to silence him more than once.  The film is full of Chekhov's guns turned into a shooting gallery, and it definitely works on later viewings.

Another thing to watch if you've seen it before is the reactions of those who aren't speaking.  Tomlin has the least cartoony role (despite her fantasy) so you may miss some of the subtle acting she does in this, one of her earliest big-screen roles.  There are moments when she's dealing with Hart and Roz where you know what she's thinking, but she's able to hide it from them.  Parton, in her very first movie, is just adorable, sweet but tough (the "wranglers" line and of course her infamous "rooster to a hen" line), and whimsical enough to throw in a Groucho impression.  Hart says that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, which in this case is Jane Fonda, but when your weakest link is a two-time Oscar-winner, then you've got a very strong movie.  The three women have wonderful chemistry together (and remain good friends in real life), balancing each other so well.  If I have to pick one moment, it's the way Doralee calmly asks "Judy" and "Violet honey" to come take a look at the "wrong" corpse in the car trunk.

The humor ranges from verbal humor (like Violet's "murderess" line) to, no pun intended, broad physical humor, like Hart swinging from the ceiling not once, but twice.  It's actually funnier the second time, because Judy's helpfully named ex-husband Dick is downstairs, hoping to reconcile with her, until he finds out about the kinky "M & Ms" she practices.  The music plays up the comedy, and I could see that annoying people, but you just have to go with this movie.

You don't have to be a feminist and/or a woman and/or an office worker to enjoy this film.  The theme of taking down The Man is something that almost anyone can relate to.  I like the touch that Hart isn't just a jerk to these three; he's a jerk to everyone, from other employees (including men) to his doting wife to the male doctor who looks at his concussion.  And yet, there's a moment very late in the movie when Violet says she "almost felt sorry for him."  Coleman gets the character just right, so that you like seeing him punished but you do feel a smidgen of sympathy for him.  It's also cool how, although he's not as smart as the trio, he's sneakier and he does come close to outsmarting them.  My favorite moment with him is when he tells Judy, after she's untied him, "I lied," and he picks up the phone to call the police, forgetting that Doralee has unplugged the phone.  The way the cord swings adds to the humor.

Higgins does a fine job of directing here, probably his best work, as the script is also his best.  Sadly, he would die of AIDS in '88, at age 47.  I'm thankful that he lived long enough to make this as well as Harold and Maude  and Foul Play.  I don't know if his being gay helped him relate to women better, but he certainly helped to bring such topics as sexual harassment and equal pay further into the mainstream, in a non-didactic way.  Progressive companies now offer on-site child care, flex time, substance abuse counseling*, and some of the other then utopian innovations that Violet, Judy, and Doralee manage (in six weeks!), but back in 1980, and throughout the decade, this film seemed awfully optimistic.

Helen Heigh gets a special Longevity Award, since she was the Hat Shop Owner in Easter Parade 32 years before playing Charlotte here.  A nice touch in casting is Henry Jones from Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? as Hart's immediate boss.  Extras Elisabeth Fraser and Berniece Janssen were "Second Lady" in The Graduate and "2nd Wife" in The Love God? respectively.  Richard Stahl has a small but recognizable role as Meade.  Man at St. Ambrose Hospital Raymond O'Keefe was Bronco in Rabbit Test.  Ray Vitte was DJ Bobby Speed in Thank God It's Friday and he's Eddie Smith here.

Policeman Terrence McNally would be a Soap Opera Doctor in Earth Girls Are Easy.  Doctor Peter Hobbs was Dr. Dean in Sleeper and would be a veterinarian in Hot to Trot.


*I should talk about the "pot party" scene a bit.  Pot here is presented as benignly, if not more so, as alcohol.  Lulu got Jack stoned in Can't Stop the Music, but it was just for the sake of a sight gag when the Policeman village person showed up.  Here pot fuels the women's fantasies and bonding.  It is a sequence that is integral to the film, and yet it would've been unimaginable three or four years later in a mainstream hit movie, with the "Just Say No" movement, as well as John Belushi's 1982 overdose that shook up Hollywood, including Robin Williams.

Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger Hunt
December 21, 1979
Fox
Comedy
VHS
D+

Wow.  I never considered this a good movie of course-- it has the same director, Michael Schultz, as Sgt. Pepper-- but I had remembered it as at least silly fun.  This time it was painfully unfunny.  Well, there's one sort of funny part, when Richard Mulligan is disguised as a mummy in order to steal a suit of armor, and he's doing his Burt Campbell mannerisms, and he wouldn't scare a mouse, while everyone runs screeching from him, acting like they're refugees from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!  (Which is entirely possible, since both movies were filmed in San Diego.)  There's gratuitous sexism, particularly with the Babbette [sic] character.  The gratuitous racism shows not so much with Cleavon Little's character-- he always carries himself with grace and style (this is after all the man who got away with the line "Where the white women at?" in Blazing Saddles)-- as in the characters of the Japanese gardener (who for some reason doesn't make it onto the servants' team) and of the elderly Indian whose dentures get stolen.

You see, there is, as the title suggests, a scavenger hunt (with what must be the easiest clues ever), the winners of which will inherit a $200 million fortune.  Vincent Price, as Milton Parker (see, he's a game inventor) dies in the first scene, lucky him.  A dizzying cast (why this is a D+ rather than a D) participates in the hunt.  I'd better just list them:

• Team A:  The servants are Cleavon L. as the American chauffeur, Roddy McDowall as the English butler, James Coco as the French chef, and Stephanie Faracy as the French maid.  (Little and Faracy would play a married couple on the early '90s Fox sitcom True Colors, which I've always had a soft spot for.)
• Team B:  Cloris Leachman is Parker's bitchy sister, Richard Masur (of the early days of One Day at a Time) is her overage bratty son, and Richard Benjamin is their shady lawyer.
• Team C: Leachman rejects her stepdaughter Lisa (Maureen Teefy), but Lisa is invited to join the Stevens brothers, Parker's nephews, played by Dirk Benedict and Willie Aames (in his film debut, although he was already on Eight Is Enough).
• Team D:  Tony Randall plays Parker's widowed son-in-law, whose four children include Shane Sinutko (not given much to do, so I can't say if he's improved as an actor since The Shaggy D.A.), shark-jumping David Hollander ("Little Earl" on What's Happening!!), Julie Anne Haddock (tomboy Cindy on the first season of The Facts of Life), and some little girl I don't recognize.
• Team E:  Mulligan, as taxi driver Marvin Dummitz (a Melvin Dummar parody I believe), works alone until he recruits Scatman Crothers, who gets kidnapped by Team B while unconscious in the suit of armor, leading to the happy ending.
• Various cameos, from Carol Wayne as Parker's nurse to go-to fat guys Stuart Pankin and Stephen Furst.  (If you've ever wanted to see a movie where Dirk Benedict and Willie Aames try to abduct Stuart Pankin into their van, this is the one.)  In amazingly creative casting, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a fitness instructor, Meat Loaf the leader of a biker gang, and Ruth Gordon a nutsy, gutsy old lady.  Pat McCormick works at the carnival, while Avery Schreiber is a lisping ostrich-keeper at the zoo.
• The only performer I don't feel sorry for is Robert Morley, because he just does his Robert Morley eccentric-but-reasonable-sounding-English-chap thing and spends most of his scenes sitting in the shade and calmly watching the chaos around him.  He's accompanied by the scorekeeper, Hal Landon, Jr., who would be Ted's father in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Jerado Decordovier (who was Samoan) plays the Indian here and was a waiter in Gidget Goes Hawaiian.  Janine King was a crying baby in Tony Randall's Hello Down There and is a carnival patron here.  Alan Scharf, who's a clerk here, was Roberts in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, while Art Koustik was the FIA director there and is the zoo director here.  Henry Polic II (probably best known for his role on the sitcom Webster) plays the "naked" policeman here (he's stripped down to his underwear when his uniform is on the list), and he was Tito in Rabbit Test.

Adam Anderson, who was Sobbing Sailor in Rabbit Test, is Policeman #2 here and would be a pilot in The Nude Bomb.  Marji Martin, who plays fat lady Kay here, would be "Sister" in Going Ape!

Note that both Aames and Crothers sing on the forgettable soundtrack.  There is no title song.

Some of the subtle humor that has made this the cult classic that it is.

Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World

Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World
May 1974
Walter Shenson Films/Fox
Comedy, Fantasy, Children's
VHS
C+

My review of the book based on the movie (not to be confused with the Ted Key story that inspired the movie) is at the bottom of this review.  I do have to add that the movie's charm seems to have faded.  (As has the videotape unfortunately.)  There really should be more of the title character, not just in the cheesy special effects but interacting with his boy Billy, for the sad false ending to have more impact.  The film is moderately entertaining but the title and title song are better than the movie as a whole.  And the poster (which I have a copy of) is even better.

Since this is a Walter Shenson production, it's not surprising that a couple of faces familiar from A Hard Day's Night show up:  Victor Spinetti as Professor Ribart and Norman Rossington as Tom respectively.  And Victor Maddern, who plays Dog Home Manager, was the junkman in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

See also, http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/08/1973-alan-fennell-digby-biggest-dog-in.html.

John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!

John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!
March 24, 1965
Fox
Comedy
VHS
C-

While I can't recommend this movie, even as a so-bad-it's-goodie, I suppose some might want to see it to just to say they've seen it.  (Or they have seen it, and can't believe what they saw.)  Briefly, Shirley MacLaine (much much shriekier than in The Apartment, including on the title song*) plays a frigid journalist at Strife Magazine (hardy har) whose editor Charles Lane assigns her to write a story on a harem.  Meanwhile, the title character, played by Richard Crenna, is a sort of combination of pilots Douglas Corrigan and Francis Gary Powers, with the nickname "Wrong Way," and he accidentally lands in the Arabian country of Fawzia while trying to reach Russia.  The King of Fawzia, played by Peter Ustinov, starts a football team for his son, who's been kicked off the Notre Dame team for not being Irish.  (Wouldn't they have noticed right off?)  Oh, and there are various government officials who are trying to spin the situation.

That last aspect was what I liked best, particularly since it involves the sitcom vets Jim Backus as Miles Whitepaper, Fred Clark as Heinous Overreach, Richard Deacon as Charles Maginot, and Harry Morgan as Deems Sarajevo.  Morgan gets the most memorable lines, like the one about the Russians having a case of the cutes, and his reply to Dick "Please don't squeeze the Charmin" Wilson's announcement, "Either Fawz U beats Notre Dame or John Goldfarb goes to Moscow": "Is that an ultimatum or a musical comedy title?"  I'm not saying this stuff is Dr. Strangelove level satire, but it did make me chuckle.  And it's much more palatable than the shrew-taming we get of MacLaine's character, including the "ha ha, the king wants to rape her" subplot.

The script (based on his own book), by none other than William Peter Blatty, later of The Exorcist, is remarkably sexist and anti-Arab, even for its time.  This is not just 21st-century political correctness; contemporary critics hated the movie.  Notre Dame even sued over it!  I realize that I may've made you more interested in seeing the film, so I may as well go on to list some more of its unique cast.

The harem girls include Teri Garr (I don't know under what name); Gari Hardy, who would be "Dumb Blonde" in Speedway; Paula Lane, who was in Dear Brigitte, here playing Polly Benson; Irene Tsu, who was Miss Wu in Take Her, She's Mine and would shortly be a native girl in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini; and Jane Wald, of Take Her and Dear Brigitte.  "Specialty dancer" Nai Bonet would have a more prominent role as a king's belly-dancer in the softcore Fairy Tales (1978).  The football players include James Brolin (as a quarterback); Kent McCord (later of Adam-12), who would do Girl Happy; and Red West, who was in Palm Springs Weekend and would soon be in Girl Happy.

Billy Curtis, who was a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz, is "Little Football Player."  Chick Collins, who was a fencer in Singin' in the Rain, plays a Bedouin here.  Fred Catania, who was Wheeler's bodyguard in The Girl Can't Help It and a used car salesman in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, has a minor role here.  Jim Shane, who was Dave in Palm Springs Weekend, is Chiang here.

Jackie Coogan (yes, Uncle Fester, here playing Father Ryan); Bedouin Jim Dawson; Milton Frome, here an Air Force general; and Olan Soule, who plays the second editor, would shortly do Girl Happy.  Telly Savalas (yes, Kojak) is Macmuid, the harem recruiter, and would be El Sleezo Tough in The Muppet Movie.  

Patrick Adiarte, who plays Prince Ammud, isn't in any of my of my other movies, but I have to note that he was both David in the Hawaiian episodes of The Brady Bunch and Ho-Jon on M*A*S*H.


*The theme pops up repeatedly in the movie, especially during the big football game at the end.  John Williams, yes, that John Williams, was the conductor.

Dear Brigitte

Dear Brigitte
January 8, 1965
Fox
Comedy
VHS
C+

Although this has the same director, screenwriter, and studio as Take Her, She's Mine, I think it's a weaker film.  I don't know how much of this can be blamed on the book it's based on, Erasmus with Freckles (1963), but the movie feels as if it was both immediately dated and too early.  Billy Mumy (now 10 but still passing for 8) plays Erasmus, who's a mathematical genius with a huge crush on Brigitte Bardot.  She shows up late in the film (not at all worried about stalkers, although they were a real life problem for her), and is as lovely as ever, but I always got the impression she was more of a '50s star, and of rather racy movies at that, and it seems odd that a boy as young as Erasmus would have a crush on her, as opposed to, say, Sandra Dee.

Speaking of Gidget, Cindy Carol again follows in Dee's footsteps, this time as Jimmy Stewart's teenage daughter.  Carol is just as whiny, and as poor an actress, as she was in Gidget Goes to Rome, and there's an odd moment when she calls her father a "square" because he's not obsessed with money like she is.  Part of the weirdness of this movie is that Stewart is playing a proto-hippie-- a poetry professor who lives on a houseboat, hates math and science, and is worried about the nuclear generator on campus, as well as about what "this campus will be like in five years"-- and it's not only strange casting, but it seems like it would have worked better in a '70s or '80s movie.

Oh, and there's also a gambling subplot, with the usually upright John Williams as the unscrupulous Peregrine Upjohn.  Glynis Johns, as Stewart's wife, is given a bit more depth than she got in Mary Poppins, while Ed Wynn again supplies whimsy, this time talking to the camera, "like in that movie Tom Jones."  (In case you were wondering why Frankie Avalon keeps doing it in the Beach Party movies.)  Fabian plays Cindy Carol's boyfriend, but, no, he doesn't sing.  (The idea of him crooning "Dear Brigitte" as a title song, a la all those James Darren "Gidget" songs, is not without appeal.)

The always versatilely accented Jack Kruschen plays the Austrian (I think) psychiatrist Dr. Volker.  Louise Lane, who plays the saleslady, was "Jazzy Dame" in Auntie Mame.  Harry Carter, who was "Man Departing Plane" in Take Her is a reporter here; James Brolin again plays a college student; Pitt Herbert, who was a police sergeant there, is the bank manager here; Gene O'Donnell, Frank there, is Police Lt. Rink here; and Charles Robinson, who was Stanley, is now George.  As in Pajama Party, Jesse White plays a crook, this time bookie Cliff Argyle.

Paula Lane and Jane Wald would shortly be in John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!  Lyn Edgington would soon do Girl Happy.  Richard Lane, who's the racetrack announcer here, would be the roller rink announcer in The Shaggy D.A.  (As far as I know, none of these Lanes are related.)

"Technology is a great threat!  Oo, nifty instant photo!"

Take Her, She's Mine

Take Her, She's Mine
November 13, 1963
Fox
Comedy, Musical
VHS
B-

Inspired by the play by the Ephrons, who in turn were inspired by daughter Nora's letters home from college, this provides an early look at what would in a few years be known as the generation gap.  Yes, earlier movies showed parents dealing with their high-school and college-age children (including not only Dee's Gidget but Stewart's It's a Wonderful Life).  But this one shows some very '60s-specific issues, particularly in Mollie's (Dee's) freshman year, when she embraces protest and folk music.

But her father, Frank Michaelson, played by Stewart, is more worried about the college men she may be embracing.  Although there are some borderline tasteless moments, overall the film offers a sweet if very dated look at a man dealing with "the awakening of sex in his daughter."  Her dad not only wants Mollie to stay a virgin, but he believes that a woman's ultimate happiness is through marriage.  Mollie, despite her social consciousness and her interest in modern art, ends up marrying a rich, handsome, young Frenchman, and that presumably is enough for her happy ending.  (At 19!  But the average age for women marrying for the first time in '63 was 21.)  How this differs from a '50s film-- other than of course Wilder's Sabrina-- is that it's not clear that Mollie keeps her V-card until the wedding night, and ultimately it doesn't really matter.  And if she has had sex with her French boyfriend, at least she doesn't seem to be pressured into it, after being ogled, hit on, and even harassed by various men, including her high school art teacher!  The variations on this theme of the protective dad's "dish" daughter would play out as the '60s moved on and American cinema tried to cope, particularly in Bob Hope "sex comedies."

We get a bit of Mollie's perspective, although the movie is mostly told in Mr. Michaelson's flashbacks.  I'm using the "musical" tag because Dee shows she can sing and dance in a few different numbers, although she's not showcased in the way she'll be in Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding!  (That's the movie where I most often reinterpret the Grease lyrics, "Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee, lousy with virginity," because she is lousy at dealing with her screen "virtue," particularly in that film.)  Here she sings not only folk but a French song, as well as dancing the can-can.  She's accompanied on the guitar very briefly by everybody's favorite TV beatnik Bob Denver, not yet transitioned to goofy Gilligan.  Equally scene-stealing is the ever quotable Robert Morley.  (While everyone else keeps mistaking Mr. Michaelson for Jimmy Stewart, ha ha, Morley's Mr. Pope-Jones is convinced Frank looks like Henry Fonda.)

Eugene Borden also played a Frenchman in All About Eve, as did Marcel Hillaire in Sabrina (as the professor at the cooking school).  Jack Chefe was in Please Don't Eat the Daisies.  Harry Carter, Pitt Herbert, Gene O'Donnell, and Charles Robinson would be in Dear Brigitte with Stewart.  (Henry Koster would again direct, but Nunnally Johnson would be uncredited for his work on that script.)  Irene Tsu (Miss Wu here) and Jane Wald would do John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!  James Brolin, who's one of the boys greeting Mollie at the airport when she first goes off to college (he was then 23), would be in both movies.  Cynthia Pepper would be in Miss Congeniality 2.