As an alleged movie fan, to state I have never seen Lawrence of Arabia seems wrong.
It's not that I don't want to. But it is three frickin' hours long! I either have lacked the time and/or the attention span.
I have seen Peter O'Toole with Audrey Hepburn, How to Steal a Million (1966) which I posted about here.
And I have seen Pixar's Ratatouille (2007) where O'Toole voiced the acerbic restaurant critic Anton Ego.
Oh, I just remembered, Peter O'Toole was also in 2005 BBC production of Casanova where he played the aged lothario and David Tennant was the younger version. I have seen one scene from the film. It's on my "would love to see that sometime" list.
But today's edition of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post focuses on another movie, one that Andrea and I watched a few months back.
From 1982, My Favorite Year.
The year is 1954 and we're following Benjy Stone, a junior comedy writer for a variety show called Comedy Cavalcade starring Stan "King" Kaiser that is broadcast live from the NBC studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
The show has booked as a guest star classic film actor Alan Swann (O'Toole), famous for his swashbuckler films during the 1930s and 1940s. Swann is well past his prime and nobody is sure why they're dealing with this has been.
His arrival at 30 Rock drunk doesn't help and Kaiser wants to fire him from the show.
Benjy, a avid devotee of film and a fan of Swann's work leaps to his defense and vows to keep Swann sober and have him ready for show time.
Kaiser relents but it's on Benjy's head. Meanwhile, Kaiser has other problems. His popular and funny recurring sketch character of "Boss Hijack" has drawn the unwanted attention of the character's real life inspiration, gangster Karl Rojeck, a corrupt union boss who ain't too happy being made fun of on national television.
Remember that bit. It will come up again near the end of the film.
Meanwhile...
Benjy Stone has his hands full keeping track of the flighty and mercurial Alan Swann and the many, many places he stores his bottles of booze.
Over the course of their week together, Benjy and Alan bond over their mutual problems with respective families. They get along quite well but not well enough for Benjy to keep Alan sober and out of trouble all the time.
There's an incident where a drunken Alan Swann is naked and riding a horse through Central Park.
Still, Benjy Stone delivers a sober and mostly ready Alan Swann for the night of the big broadcast. He's in costume for a musketeer sketch and ready to go.
Except...
Somehow the concept that Comedy Calvacade airs live across the entire United States on NBC has eluded Mr. Swann and in a state of total anxiety runs off and Benjy runs off to get him back.
Unfortunately Alan has procured another bottle from one of booze stashes.
Meanwhile...
Remember the mob boss with the mad on at Stanley "King" Kaiser? He's decided tonight is the night to teach Kaiser a lesson.
When the "Boss Hijack" sketch gets under way, Rojeck's men attack Kaiser back stage, a fight that spills out on stage. The studio audience thinks this is part of the sketchy.
Just as Benjy is trying to convince Alan Swann to dig down to the man he used to be in those swashbuckler movies he used to do and suck it up and do the show.
From a balcony, Benjy and Alan see the show is falling apart with gangsters beating up on Kaiser. In his musketeer regalia, Alan Swann grabs a rope and swings down over the audience and to the stage where he engages the gangster in battle.
Swann and Kaiser defeat the gangsters and in the narration, Benjy remarks it was probably the best night of Alan Swann's life.
The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department
The role of Benjy Stone was played by Mark Linn-Baker. Mark would later come to prominence opposite Bronson Pinchot in the sitcom Perfect Strangers, a favorite show of my wife Andrea when she was young.
Mark is the epitome of the "That Guy Who Was In That Thing" as a character actor who has appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows. Most recently he was Jessica Walter's dad in She Hulk: Attorney At Law and a recurring role as a rival B&B owner in Ghosts.
The "Does That Remind You Of..." Department
The mobster melee that spills out into a live TV show production was also the ending of the Gene Kelly musical It's Always Fair Weather which I posted about here.
Peter O'Toole was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Alan Swann. And it is a great performance. Swann is self indulgent and self destructive but he also projects a sympathetic charm.
While made in 1982, My Favorite Year captures a certain vibe of a classic comedy like Howard Hawks would've made back in the 1930's. It's a funny and engaging comedy with great performances, especially that of Peter O'Toole.
No comments:
Post a Comment