In the small town of Morgan's Creek, Trudy Kockenlocker goes to a farewell party
to a bunch of soldiers. While dancing she hits her head on a disco ball and is
knocked silly. The next morning she wakes up at home feeling like Hell, but
that's just the beginning of it: she's pregnant and doesn't even know who the
father is! Remember this is 1944! All she can remember is she
thinks she married some guy named
"Ratzkiwatzki" or something like that. Devastated by this news she doesn't know
what to do so she devises a plan to quickly marry Norval Jones, who's been in
love with her since he was a fetus, but when she sees how
deeply he's in love she can't trick him like that so...well, I've already told
you too much, but take my word for is this movie is hilarious. The first time I
saw it I literally laughed until I was crying and my sides hurt so bad I thought
I was going to puke.
From a filmmaker's standpoint TMOMC is notable for some great long shots,
especially Trudy and Norval's walk when she tell him she's pregnant. It's nearly
4 minutes long and physically covers a lot of ground, but the audience probably
never notices it because their too busy laughing at Norval's constant screaming.
Also notice how those long scenes are only during the first half of the movie,
later on as the excitement grows the shots become shorter and shorter, not to
mention a lot more people show up until you have some great Sturges crowd scenes
where you have five people talking at once and it's all funny.
I love this movie and cannot say enough things about it. Brilliant script and
direction by a true Hollywood master and the acting! How did Eddie Bracken not
get at least nominated for an Oscar for his role here? He was hilarious. And
lets not forget Sturges normal actors...of his 38 frequent actors 22 were here.
Most notable was William Demarest as Trudy's gruff father, Constable Edmund
Kockenlocker.
I would really like to know if it's even possible for Hollywood to make a movie
like this anymore? Made back in 1944 the story talks nonstop about sex and
marriage, but yet it's completely clean language-wise and without any gross-out
humor. Everything was done so subtly and so full of satire that it somehow got
passed the Hays Office! I
love crude humor as much as the next person, but I would be thrilled beyond
belief if somebody started making clean screwball comedies like this today. Some
of the comedies by Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges, Jack Conway, Frank Capra and
Leo McCarey were so rich that I can watch them countless times and never get
bored. Highly recommended.
Funny story: In a interview with Eddie Bracken he said that he came up with the
idea of Norval walking through the screen door and didn't tell Sturges, he just
did it. Preston was on the camera and started laughing so hard he actually
fell out of his seat!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
RAW DEAL (1986)
[Update 04/19/2020: I really need to watch this movie again and fix this
review. It's shit.]
Between COMMANDO and PREDATOR Arnold starred in RAW DEAL. It's not as good as either of those two films, but it's still an enjoyable 106 minutes filled with lots of action, punching, cross-dressing and cake throwing.
Arnold was kicked out of the FBI for beating up a suspect, so for the last few years he's been a small town sheriff. But now he's getting a second chance. All he has to do is infiltrate a mafia gang and take them down from the inside. Sounds easy enough.
RAW DEAL is a good movie thanks to the fast pace and Arnold's screen presence, but I think the reason this film has kinda fallen in the cracks is the direction is lackluster and the script is too confusing. Honestly, after awhile I didn't even care what was happening...I just wanted the next action scene and I was in luck because this movie is pretty much all action scenes. Just not very memorable action scenes.
Worth a rent for sure, but I can't see myself wanting to watch it again for a few years unlike COMMANDO which I've seen dozens of times.
Between COMMANDO and PREDATOR Arnold starred in RAW DEAL. It's not as good as either of those two films, but it's still an enjoyable 106 minutes filled with lots of action, punching, cross-dressing and cake throwing.
Arnold was kicked out of the FBI for beating up a suspect, so for the last few years he's been a small town sheriff. But now he's getting a second chance. All he has to do is infiltrate a mafia gang and take them down from the inside. Sounds easy enough.
RAW DEAL is a good movie thanks to the fast pace and Arnold's screen presence, but I think the reason this film has kinda fallen in the cracks is the direction is lackluster and the script is too confusing. Honestly, after awhile I didn't even care what was happening...I just wanted the next action scene and I was in luck because this movie is pretty much all action scenes. Just not very memorable action scenes.
Worth a rent for sure, but I can't see myself wanting to watch it again for a few years unlike COMMANDO which I've seen dozens of times.
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