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Though the Which Way films enunciate the sentiments of comradely conservatism ("Handouts are what you get from the Government; a hand up is what you get from a friend"), their values are more than a bit askew, even for a no-holds-barred comedy. The viewer is to find the battle of a snake and a mongoose reprehensible, but applaud the climactic spectacle of two brawling men making hamburger out of each other's bodies. It says something about the American body aesthetic that Eastwood's previous picture, the innocently droll Bronco Billy, failed at the box office while Philo and Clyde, the Ape Man and the Ape, have moviegoers queuing and cheering.
SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES
Directed by Jay Sandrich
Screenplay by Neil Simon
Neil Simon likes old times—the screwball comedy of the 1930s, to be precise—enough to revive the tradition, or at least prop up the corpse. In Seems Like Old Times (S.L.O.T. for short), he has updated Leo McCarey's delicious romantic farce The Awful Truth, this time with Chevy Chase in the Cary Grant role, Goldie Hawn as Irene Dunne and Charles Grodin as Ralph Bellamy. If the new cast spells magic to you, rush to S.L.O.T. You'll see Chevy stumble down an entire hillside and get his nose bobbed by a series of vengeful swinging doors. You'll see Goldie giggle and mewl her way through a dozen predictable dilemmas. You will find that you've seen all this before, and better.
Simon has written funny plays and films, and will again. Jay Sandrich directed TV's finest comedy show, Mary Tyler Moore; he may someday learn to shape character and situation to fit the big screen. Goldie Hawn will remain the put-upon pixie into her twilight years. And for Chevy Chase, as for the most miserable sinner, there is always hope of redemption. One wonders, though, about Charles Grodin. Here, as in Heaven Can Wait and It's My Turn, this marvelous comic actor filches attention from the stars with his maddeningly reasonable response to every crisis. But how long can he play second banana, on whose sleek skin the other actors do pratfalls? Perhaps his next film will give him the break, and the shining costar, he needs: Muppet Movie II, with Miss Piggy. Otherwise, Grodin may grow arm-weary trying to get comic capital out of unproductive S.L.O.T. machines.
FIRST FAMILY
Directed and Written by Buck Henry
There were possibilities here. Bob Newhart plays the President of the United States; Madeline Kahn is his dipso wife, Gilda Radner his ditsy daughter. Superb comedians play supporting roles: Harvey Korman, Austin Pendleton, Bob Dishy, many more. And Buck Henry keeps threatening to prove himself a Renaissance man for this dark age of comedy. He has shown his talent in screenplays, magazine writing and, most convincingly, as a frequent guest on the Tonight show, where his deadpan surrealism is most at home. Henry may need collaborators—a Mike Nichols, a Johnny Carson—to spark his wry, reactive humor. On his own, in First Family, he fails utterly.