Lunch Wagon

Lunch Wagon
September 1981
Seymour Borde & Associates
Comedy, Musical
VHS
B-

Unless you're bothered by fat jokes, this is a surprisingly amiable sex comedy.  Since my copy is off TV, I haven't actually seen any of the nudity, although it's very clear that the four main women are bra-less most of the time.  And yet, I'd sort of describe the movie as feminist.  I mean, it does pass the Bechdel Test, and it does show the power of female friendship, as well as show two young women recovering from being fired by their under-paying sexually harassing boss and starting a successful business with another friend.  Yes, they dress skimpily with their "Love Bites" wagon, which was given to them by Dick Van Patten.  (His character inherits a fortune and disappears from the movie, although sons Nels and particularly James show up to keep the Van-Pattenness flowing.)  But considering the genre, the plot is actually progressive.

That fourth main woman is the cheerful bimbo girlfriend of the main villain, and even her character isn't what you'd normally expect.  Nor is her boyfriend Al Schmeckler (Rick Podell), who talks like a stand-up comic all the time, answering the phone with greetings like "Roy Rogers Home for Unwed Boys."  The actual stand-up comic character, host of a talent week, is named Danny Death and he adds to the offbeat wisecracks.  And then there's Missing Persons as a popular local New Wave band, playing "Mental Hopscotch" three times.  And Chuck McCann as the unaffiliated-with-Schmeckler crook called The Turtle.  His sidekick Ralph is played by Vic Dunlop, who would be Rene in Meatballs Part II.  As in Super Fuzz, the criminals dress like it's still the '30s.  (At least Johnny Dangerously would actually be set in the '30s.)  This movie is very much a time capsule of the early '80s, cocaine jokes and all, but it also feels like a throwback in some ways.

Rose Marie breaks the longevity record of her International House (1933) co-star George Burns by appearing here as Mrs. Schmeckler.  (And since she's still alive at 91, it's not impossible she may show up in another of my movies.)  Michael Tucci (Sonny in Grease) is cast as a "little guy in glasses" that the body-building Wagoneer likes.  George Memmoli, who plays fat, harrassing ex-boss Andy, was Pinky Fun in Americathon.  Missing's Terry Bozzio would perform "Wipe Out" in Back to the Beach.  Peter Marc (Jacobson), who has a small role, is Fran Drescher's ex-husband and still creative partner.

Fun, friendship, and fashion.

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.