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.

Popeye

Popeye
December 12, 1980
Paramount
Comedy, Musical, Action, Romance, Fantasy
DVD
B-

When Robin Williams died last month, one of my first thoughts was of this movie.  Although this was not a full-out critical and commercial flop as some think, it didn't live up to expectations, and yet it's grown a fandom in the intervening three decades.  I find it simultaneously comforting, funny, and symbolic that the "Popeye Village" that was built from scratch on a Maltese island has become a tourist attraction, with all the drab Depression-era houses now brightly colored.

The movie is still an oddity though.  As I mentioned in my review of the behind-the-scenes pre-movie-release tie-in book, http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-popeye-story.html, the film is odd and off-putting.  There are some genuinely heart-warming moments, especially with Popeye and the unquestionably adorable but quirky Swee'Pea, but there is a dark, depressing undertone, as exemplified in the "Sweet Haven Anthem."  Additionally, you've got circus performers and other physical comedians acting like cartoon/comic-strip characters but there's also the Robert-Altman quasi-documentary touch in the look of the film and the way things keep happening in the margins.  Williams adds ad-libs on top of the Jules Feiffer script, from the brilliant reply to Swee'Pea's "I'm a baby" to his muttered line about catching "a venerable disease."  Some of this I got at 12 (not the "you expects a cervix" one though), and some I've figured out later.

It's not just Williams's death that made me appreciate his performance here.  It really is great, mixing humor, wistfulness, and of course toughness.  Duvall, as everyone notes, is perfectly cast as Olive Oyl.  Some of the others, like Paul Dooley as Wimpy, don't seem quite right but they're giving it their best shot anyway.  Ray Walston shows up late in the movie and has to do a quick turn-around from villain to good guy and succeeds less than Gary Oldman would as Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but he has some funny exchanges with his film son.  Mostly though, I'd recommend this movie for Williams, as I'd recommend Little Darlings for Kristy McNichol.

This film doesn't quite come together (it really does fit all those genres I've listed and maybe Western and Sci-Fi for all I know), and I can see why it has gotten such extreme reactions, then and now, but I've enjoyed it every time I've seen it and it certainly hasn't gotten stale.

Williams's then wife, Valerie Velardi, has her only movie role, as Swee'pea's mother, Cindy the Drudge.  MacIntyre Dixon, who's Cole Oyl, was the bartender in Thank God It's Friday.  Donovan Scott, who plays Castor Oyl, would be the Sancho-Panza-like sidekick Paco in Zorro the Gay Blade.  Geoff Hoyle, Scoop the Reporter, would have a more substantial role in The Spirit of '76, as Heinz-57.  Allan Nicholls, who's Rough House here, would be "Cutting Edge Director" in Bob Roberts.

Then and now, my favorite visual gag, Bluto seeing red when his fiancee shows up with a stranger and a baby.

The Apartment

The Apartment
June 15, 1960
United Artists
Comedy, Drama, Romance
DVD
B+

Although this has big stars, won five Oscars-- best picture, director, original screenplay, film editing, and set direction-- and has received critical acclaim, then and now, it feels like an obscure little picture.  I don't mean that as an insult.  It's just that Wilder's use of black & white here, and the feel of a stageplay (much of the film is indeed set in the title location, and the cast is relatively small), as well as the intimate, human tone, suggest a low-budget gem.  Yet there are those big stars, and the workplace is huge, with the floor that C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) works on seeming to stretch into infinity.  There's another contradiction in the way the genres clash with each other, the comedy, drama, and romance not blending so much as fighting.  This works much better than it did in Wilder's Sabrina, in part because the central romantic triangle is so much better cast.

Lemmon's Baxter has some of the sweetness and "getting-tookness" of Jerry in Some Like It Hot.  But there's also an unsavory undertone, with him loaning his apartment to executives in his company.  Rock Hunter at least had some fun pretending to romance a movie star in order to achieve success, including that key to the executive washroom.  (Here there's also an unseen executive dining room.)  All Baxter gets at first is a cold.  Mostly, he's pushed around by those four executives, including such familiar faces as Mame's Mr. Upson (Willard Waterman), Bewitched's Larry Tate (David White), and My Favorite Martian (Ray Walston).  (The other exec, David Lewis, would go on to John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!)  When Baxter gets to sit at home for a change, he can't even enjoy himself, because (despite a then-cutting-edge channel-changer) there's nothing on TV but westerns and commercials.

This was an early yet transitional movie for Shirley MacLaine, as Fran Kubelik.  She is amazing in it, even though she's giving probably the most understated performance.  Fran makes mistakes, and knows it, but keeps making them, until she finally has her epiphany in the end.  Her chemistry with Lemmon is just right, as is her reply to his declaration of love.

Then there's Fred MacMurray as J.D. Sheldrake.  This was right around the time MacMurray was making Disney movies, and he would soon be the father of "his three sons" on TV.  At first it's strange to see him play such a sleazeball, but it works, because he does have that bland, pleasant surface.  You can believe he's fooled everyone.  It's almost a throwaway, but I like how one of his preteen sons wants to put two flies on a toy rocket and see if they'll "propagate."  Sheldrake shows as much discomfort as he does with other matters that shouldn't be talked about, like adultery and suicide.  It's not that he's prim and proper; it's that he doesn't like to take responsibility.

You can see how much the Code had crumbled in the seven years since The Moon Is Blue.  Then it was a big deal that a virgin went to a bachelor's apartment, took money from an older man with "no strings attached," and came out of the experience with two marriage proposals.  Here, when Sheldrake gives Fran $100 for Christmas, he does it because he's too uncaring to take the time to buy her a present.  She sees it as him calling her a whore, although this isn't said aloud, just through MacLaine's performance.

The movie is also interesting to contrast with its contemporary, Please Don't Eat the Daisies.  There, a blonde bimbo tells a married man (played by Moon Is Blue's David Niven) that she's on the make for him, but he doesn't succumb, even when he's living in a hotel.  Here there's lots of adultery, including almost Baxter's with the wife of a jockey imprisoned by Castro for non-political reasons.  (And one blonde bimbo is compared to Marilyn Monroe, a forgivable cruelty on Wilder's part, considering the hell Marilyn put everybody through on Some Like It Hot.)  The cheating men always make sure to make the train from New York City back to the suburbs, while Niven's character missed trains while keeping vows.

In Daisies, there are some black extras at Macy's, presented as equals to Doris Day.  Here I think there's only a "shoeshine boy," whom Sheldrake gives a small tip.  More memorably, there are three significant Jewish characters: Baxter's landlady and his neighbors the Dreyfusses.  They speak stereotypically, but believably, as Jewish New Yorkers of their time and generation (roughly 50s).  They are also the heart and soul of the movie, the most decent people, even when they're scolding Baxter, whom they think is a love-'em-and-leave-'em playboy, because of what they overhear from his apartment.  Jack Kruschen as Dr. Dreyfuss is quite good at going back and forth between the comedy and drama, and he, along with Lemmon and MacLaine, was nominated by the Academy, although none of them won.  (Kruschen played French in Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation.)

Comparing this briefly to my other Billy Wilder movies:

• Fran's suicide attempt is much more realistic and heart-wrenching than Norma Desmond's in Sunset Blvd., because she's a much more sympathetic character, and she's not manipulative, but manipulated. 
• The business world is presented much less sympathetically than in Sabrina, where we're supposed to believe that Linus Larrabee will somehow be able to balance love and success, despite being a workaholic.  (The bowler hat is a very different symbol in that movie.)
• Both Some Like It Hot and this movie have sequences that alternate between two "dates," with Lemmon's dates played entirely for laughs, while Junior & Sugar's rendezvous has heat as well as humor, but Sheldrake & Fran's is dramatic with moments of dark wit.

Joe Palma and Joan Shawlee were in Some Like It Hot, she as Sweet Sue.  One of the office workers, Dorothy Abbott, was a showgirl in There's No Business Like Show Business, and would be a radio operator in Palm Springs Weekend.  Hal Smith, who's a drunk Santa here (he's best known as Otis on The Andy Griffith Show), would be Santa and a ranger in Santa and the Three Bears.