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Saint
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| Joined: | Fri Nov 17th, 2006 |
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Thu Mar 6th, 2008 06:07 pm |
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I just recently special-ordered this movie. I don't know why I love it, other than it's a take on the real life of Errol Flynn and I LOVE "The Flynn!"
CAN a pie-eyed, girl-chasing, very forgetful matinee idol make a successful live television debut? The team behind a ''Your Show of Shows''-like comedy program don't know the answer to that one, but they've certainly got their fingers crossed during the week his appearance is scheduled. That is the premise of ''My Favorite Year,'' a funny and good-natured comedy that marks the directing debut of Richard Benjamin. Mr. Benjamin works in a steady, affable style that is occasionally inspired, always snappy and never less than amusing.
At the start of ''My Favorite Year,'' which opens today at Loews Tower East and other theaters, Peter O'Toole is playing the Errol Flynn-like Alan Swann with a ravaged, sloshed manner that looks all too convincing. When he drops in at a story meeting for King Kaiser's television show, he does it literally, collapsing on the conference table. Swann looks ever the gentleman, but he travels in a special suit that can be unsnapped all at once should he need to be dunked in a shower on short notice. Is there any hope for him? He is put in the care of young Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker), just in case there's any question about his showing up for the program.
Mr. O'Toole soon rises, delightfully, from his stupor. Witty and dapper, he squires Benjy and the audience, too, on a tour through the glamour that may or may not have been New York in 1954, when the film takes place. There is a trip to an impossibly swank Stork Club, where Swann sets all feminine hearts aflutter and woos the prettiest woman in the room away from her jealous companion. There is a Park Avenue apartment building, where Swann winds up hanging imperturbably from the roof while Benjy wonders desperately if he isn't falling down on the Swann-watching job.
There is also, since Swann is much too grand to be a snob, a visit to Brooklyn, where Benjy has a dinner invitation from his Jewish mother. This scene, with Lainie Kazan as Benjy's mother, Belle, is one of the great Jewish mother scenes of screen history, as Belle invites friends and relatives for a peek at the great man, cheerfully humiliates her son and finally presses upon Swann some of the worst and most gratuitous advice he'll ever hear about life, love and family.
''My Favorite Year'' has a slight sentimental streak, as Swann longs for his missing little daughter and as Benjy finally lectures the star about pulling himself together. But these touches are relatively light, and they're far outweighed by the film's period glossiness and its pleasantly cornball humor. Mr. Benjamin's direction, and the screenplay by Norman Steinberg and Dennis Palumbo, are too controlled to bring the film to any madcap, frenetic heights. But they keep it happily on track, and they provide more than enough funny moments.
Mr. Linn-Baker, in what would have been the Richard Dreyfuss role a few years ago, works hard but not too hard, and makes a good foil for the drily soigne Mr. O'Toole. Jessica Harper is a little morose as the pert co-worker on whom Benjy has a crush, but the rest of the cast is well-chosen, with Bill Macy, Anne De Salvo and Adolph Green as part of the production team making sure that Kaiser (Joseph Bologna), who is none too popular off camera, looks great to a nation of admirers. In the days of live television, such things weren't always easily controlled. That's an idea with a lot of comic possiblities, and it's one of the many things that ''My Favorite Year'' makes the best of.
''My Favorite Year'' is rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''). It contains some off-color language. Janet Maslin
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Polymath
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~DaRk-EyE~
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Posted: Wed Mar 12th, 2008 04:54 pm |
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| This is a classic comedy movie that was released in 1982 where I doesn't exist in this planet yet...
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Music CD
Dean Martin
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temyong
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| Joined: | Tue Jul 10th, 2007 |
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Wed Mar 12th, 2008 06:30 pm |
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| The script is full of almost-priceless moments and witty one-liners and otherwise hilarious dialogue.
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DVD
TV on DVDClassic tv show on DVD
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Saint
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Posted: Wed Mar 12th, 2008 08:23 pm |
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| It always brings a tear to my eye when I hear the line, "I'm not an actor, I'm a MOVIE STAR!":D
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Polymath
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skilline.com
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Sun Mar 30th, 2008 10:31 am |
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Best place USA
I live with http://www.skilline.com
    
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Saint
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Posted: Tue Apr 1st, 2008 09:45 pm |
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skilline = spambot
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Polymath
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