Freaky Friday

Freaky Friday
January 21, 1977
Disney
Children's, Comedy, Fantasy
DVD
B

Please start with my review of the book, http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/08/freaky-friday.html, because I'm going to build on that....

Back?  OK, I think the film is about equal to the book, but, despite the Rodgers script, it's a very different creature, because, well, it's a movie, not just a filmed book.  This is seen in everything from the hokey green-screen to the cast that is heavy on the sitcom actors (Happy Days contributes both Al Delvecchio and Mickey Malph), but also includes such Hollywood vets as Iris Adrian (this time playing a bus passenger) and Patsy Kelly, not to mention Karen Smith from The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio, Ruth Buzzi, Charlene Tilton, Dick Van Patten, etc., etc.!

Most prominent in that etc. is of course John "Gomez Addams" Astin, here playing the "oink oink" male chauvinist pig father and husband Bill Andrews perfectly, so that you can see why the transformed Annabel thinks he's a great dad and a lousy husband.  I love his slack-jawed reactions to the stunt water-skiing his wife does.

She's played by Barbara Harris, who maybe is a bit too immature when trying to seem 13 (although those were different times of course), but has a warmth and dippiness about her that totally sells her scenes.  Jodie Foster, already an acting veteran at 13, has to act prim and refined, which is in some ways tougher, but less of a show-stopping performance.  Sparky Marcus (9 playing 6) isn't much of a better actor than Shane Sinutko, but Ape-Face has always been one of my favorite kid-brother characters because he's so sweet but he also looks like he's having the time of his life, especially during this movie's version of the Obligatory Disney Chase Scene.

And, to use the vernacular, man!  Wow!  It doesn't get any more '70s than the ODCS in this one!  No less than half a dozen police cars are destroyed as the kids ride to the rescue in a red VW Bug.   It doesn't fit the timeframe of the story (unless Ellen Andrews is floating around a lot longer than it seems), and it doesn't really contribute anything, but it's fun nonetheless, in the way that the Typing class scene is fun.  They don't make them like this anymore.

No, I still haven't seen the '95 TV-movie, but I do want to note some things about the '03 version, on the assumption that I won't get a copy of it.  Ape-Face is much brattier there, and yes, the switching device is actually hokier than the green-screen wish.  Also, it is impossible to imagine in this film an awful line like Jamie Lee Curtis's about looking like The Crypt Keeper.  Annabel thinks her mom looks great, and she's right.

And, yes, the weird sexual subtext of the book is here in the '70s screen version, with Bill liking it when Ellen calls him Daddy, although Boris's crush on Mrs. Andrews is scaled back.  (He doesn't confess his love, like book-Boris does.)  Bill gets a sexy secretary in the movie, whom Ellen is suspicious of.  Mrs. Schmauss's remarks on Annabel's probable drug and alcohol use are kept intact from the book.  It's still G-rated Disney fun, but, as in The Shaggy D.A., things are not as squeaky clean at the Mouse House as they were in Walt's time.

I also must note that, while not a musical, there are three memorable aspects to the music: "I'd Like to Be You for a Day" over the opening credits captures the sweet, wistful side of the movie (under all the slapstick and farce); Annabel in Ellen's body likes to listen to the lamest "rock music" I've heard in a movie since, oh, Palm Springs Weekend; and the ODCS background music of course has a funky beat.

Marie Windsor, who plays Mrs. Murphy, was a nightclub patron about 35 years earlier in Playmates.  Dick Winslow, who's the man in the pool, was a photographer in The Swinger.  Dermott Downs, whose red hair looks even wilder here than it did a year or so earlier in Escape to Witch Mountain, is the guy who teases Annabel about her name.  Robert Karvelas, who's the silent diner customer that Annabel complains to, would resume his TV role as Larrabee for the big-screen version of Get Smart.  Ceil Cabot, who's Miss McGuirk, would also be in The Nude Bomb.  

Escape to Witch Mountain

Escape to Witch Mountain
March 21, 1975
Disney
Children's, Sci-Fi, Mystery
DVD
B+

This is the oldest movie I own that I saw on first release, although I bought the DVD recently.  I hadn't watched the film in over 30 years, but I remembered loving it as a kid and there was something haunting about it (pun not quite intended).  Watching it again, I could see why I was so enthralled.  I don't quite love it now, but it's still very, very appealing.  Some of the appeal then and now:

• Twelve-year-old Ike Eisenmann and ten-year-old Kim Richards, as Tony and Tia "Malone," are convincing both as siblings and as believable kids with unbelievable powers.
• There's what I call the Harry Potter Fantasy, not the magic so much as the myth that the main characters may be unhappy, orphaned, and picked on by bullies, but their specialness will be recognized and they'll find a society where they're not only accepted but warmly welcomed.  
• The magic is pretty cool though, and the sort of thing that kids (especially younger kids, like seven-year-old me) would want to do or at least see, like the dancing marionettes and the communication with animals.
• A different fantasy is the wealthy lifestyle that the brother and sister experience, although there's a sinister side to it.
• While the movie probably wouldn't induce nightmares, there's a well done menace throughout, starting with the credits that use the motifs of dogs and escape and eerie music, some of which continues through the film.  (Tia wins over the attack dogs.)
• The special effects, until we get to the flying vehicles at the end, have held up well after almost forty years.
• While it's not a traditional mystery, there is a puzzle to solve, as Tia remembers more and more of their shipwreck.
• The California coast looks lovely but also menacing, all those cliffs.
• The starcase is awesome!
• Last but not least, Winky the sidekick cat!

I recall the 1978 sequel as not as good but I haven't seen that since the '80s.  I have no interest in the remakes.

The small role of a psychic was towards the end of Dan Seymour's career; he was the slave-buyer in Road to Morocco and Abdul in Casablanca.  Reta Shaw, who runs the orphanage here, was the cook in Mary Poppins.  Tiger Joe Marsh, who plays Lorko, the guard with a convenient allergy to cats, was the Naked Turk in Son of Blob.

Harry Holcombe, who plays Capt. Malone, would be a priest in The Big Bus.  Dermott Downs, who plays the red-haired bully Truck and comes across as a mean version of Johnny Whitaker, would be Harvey in Freaky Friday.  Paul Sorensen would play a policeman again in The Shaggy D.A.  Donald Pleasence would have a completely different villain role from quiet and sinister Deranian, as brash record producer B. D. Hoffler in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

And I was hooked before the dialogue started.