Foul Play
                       
Director: Colin Higgins
Year: 1978
Rating: 7.0
This was very funny. I have to guess that I saw this years ago, but it felt fresh and clever. Ageless. The film which playfully indulges in Hitchcockian steals manages to be suspenseful, funny and romantic. A trifecta. It depends primarily on situational humor as opposed to character or dialogue to spark the laughs. Very middle America family humor. When Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase were loved by America. Goldie still loved from her days at Laugh-In and Chevy with his first starring role after Saturday Night Live. It made me feel nostalgic for that period when we had comedies like Stripes, Ghost Busters, Caddyshack and Private Benjamin. It feels like those PG comedies don't exist anymore. Besides those two, there is also a great role for Dudley Moore that seems to have inspired his later Arthur character and don't forget the old-timer Burgess Meredith who has a kung-fu scene that ranks up there with Bruce Lee. Ok, not really but it is perfect. This was written (and directed) by Colin Higgins who had already scripted Harold and Maude as well as Silver Streak. 


 
Like Hitchcock's many films of innocents being pulled into a conspiracy, Goldie Hawn is a divorced librarian who finds herself in the middle of an assassination plot. Outside of San Francisco she picks up a man whose car has broken down. They hit it off and agree later to meet at the theater for a double feature of old films, Killer Walks Among Us and This Gun is Mine. Both made up films but the Alan Ladd one is actually Appointment with Danger (1950). Before leaving, he gives Goldie a pack of cigarettes telling her that he wants to give up smoking. Inside is a roll of film - remember when there was film in cameras? This is the MacGuffin. The man shows up at the film a little late, tells her "Beware of the Dwarf" and dies. By the time she gets back with the theater manager, he has disappeared.

 

This is the beginning of a nightmarish scenario in which a group of men - an Albino, a man with a scar and a dwarf try to retrieve the film, including an attempt to kill her in her apartment. She calls in the police - Chevy and Brian Dennehy - and tells them about the missing dead bodies, the Albino, the dwarf, the man with a scar and the cigarette pack. They of course think she is nuts, but a damn cute nut and so Chevy stays on the case. The plot is here mainly to create contained situations that are damn funny. At one point, Goldie walks into a pick-up bar to get away from the Albino and picks up Dudley and has him take her to his apartment. An apartment built for creepy seductions with the Bee Gees playing, blow up dolls in the closet, disco lights and a lounge lizard suaveness from Moore.

 

In another small scene, Goldie is trying to get the attention of two elderly ladies playing scrabble who are scoring points with fuck, fuckery and mutherfucker. A dwarf comes to her door (Billy Barty) who she assumes is The Dwarf - "we prefer little people" and she shoves him out the window. He was a bible salesman. The film itself is holier than the Pope who is the target of the assassination - why on earth would Chevy simply not call the Pope's security and tell them to get him out of the performance of the Mikado (very much a wink at The Man Who Knew Too Much) - but then you would not have had the mad-cap rush across town in a car. This is when the film starts to totter a bit - that felt cliched and the film shifts to Chevy. Up till then this is very much Goldie's film with Chevy puttering around the edges with his straight-faced humor that became his trademark. I liked Goldie's librarian friend who warns her against men, "They are lightbulbs waiting to be screwed" and giving her mace and brass knuckles.