Director:
Peter Bogdanovich Year:
1981 Rating: 6.5
There is a tragic history about this film that impacts how you watch it.
It is difficult to just put it aside. Peter Bogdanovich had an up and down
career as a director. He had three critical and popular hits almost right
out of the box with The Last Picture Show, What's Up Doc and Paper Moon.
He became a celebrity and made all the Hollywood rounds and talk shows likely
being a bit of a pompous ass. So when his next few films didn't do as well
Hollywood crowed. And when they bombed some reacted with glee. Billy Wilder
- a jerk himself from all accounts - said nothing unites Hollywood more than
a Bogdanovich bomb. They must have been thrilled with this film. The critics
hated it with Vincent Canby of the New York Times basically shitting on it
and then wrapping it up in a newspaper and throwing it at Bogdanovich. But
over time it has been re-evaluated to a much more positive response. Ebert
wrote that it was Bogdanovich's best film and Tarantino called it a masterpiece.
I find myself in the middle.
It harkens back in some degree to romantic comedies of an earlier age - though
at times it also brings Woody Allen's loving odes to NYC to mind - though
the romances here are age appropriate. It dips into screwball comedy at times
with John Ritter's antics. Much of it though felt forced to me - the rickety
plot, the clumsy comedy, the unlikely romances, the stilted dialogue, Ben
Gazzara as a babe magnet - but it won me over with its big heart and tenderness.
There is not a mean bone in this film. It is beautifully shot and meanders
all over the city I love and the areas I worked. The actors are all very
genial and charming though they are not really called on to do any real emoting.
It is a pleasantly harmless two hours being around likable people. But the
tragedy is always in your mind.
Bogdanovich began an affair with a married Dorothy Stratten - an ex Playboy
centerfold just starting out at 20 years old - Bogdanovich was 42. She is
stunning here with her perfect chiseled looks, sleek physique and shy smile.
Bogdanovich had a bad habit of falling for his blonde actresses - his affair
with Cybill Shepard had broken up his marriage. This ended up worse as the
husband of Stratten found out about it - sat her in a chair and blew out
her brains and then turned the shotgun on himself. The film has eerie echoes
of this as her character has a jealous husband and she falls for Ritter's
character who I expect was a stand-in for Bogdanovich. It gave me the creeps.
This murder-suicide happened right after the film was finished but before
it was released. After her horrible death no studio wanted to touch the film
and so Bogdanovich bought the film back and tried to distribute it and publicize
it going broke in the process. It bombed. He wasn't to make another film
for four years but came back in 1985 with Mask.
The film is an easy going merry-go-round of falling in love that all takes
place in a few days. A detective agency - "We Never Sleep" - has been hired
at the same time by two husbands to follow their wives and see if they are
having an affair. Gazzara tails Audrey Hepburn whose husband is a wealthy
business man who is in town with his wife for a few weeks. Ritter and Blaine
Novak follow Stratten. Over a couple of days they follow them into and out
of restaurants, bars, book stores, Rockefeller Center, clubs, roller skating
rinks and basically nothing happens - other than Gazzara and Ritter fall
in love with their assignments.
I have always avoided the later films of Hepburn. I am such a fan of her
early films and her beauty that I never want to see her look older. She was
the one actress who had no right aging. For the first hour we see her only
in fleeting scenes but in the second half she is still glorious. Ritter in
his horn-rimmed large spectacles provides much of the comedy with his slapstick
antics. He clearly seems a reminder of Ryan O'Neal in What's Up Doc which
was likely a homage to Harold Lloyd. I think Bogdanovich who also wore large
glasses identified with them. In Illegally Yours, Rob Lowe had the glasses
as well. Bogdanovich posits Gazzara as incredibly attractive to women - they
all fall for him like catnip. I kept asking myself, why? Pheromones? What
does he have that I don't? Ok - pretty much everything.
Connecting the characters is an omnipresent female taxi driver played by
Patti Hansen - a lovely strawberry blonde that I guess Bogdanovich did not
fall in love with. If you know her name it is probably because she has been
married to Keith Richards since 1983. I must have taken a thousand cabs in
NYC and not once did any of the drivers look like Hansen. A nice showing
also from Colleen Camp as an aggressive country singer who knows exactly
what she wants and goes after it to funny effect. Glad I finally caught up
with this. Not a masterpiece but certainly charming and disarming.
