Joseph_Gillis
Picked this up in my local charity shop recently, although my decades- old memory of it was somewhat underwhelming. But I'm nothing if not fair. Maybe it's just that my critical faculties have improved with age, because in damn near every respect - and I'm even prepared to cut Rachel Ward some slack here - it's a cracker.Another reviewer has compared it to 'Zelig', and in its case I'm not even going to go there because the latter's concept alone is tedious. This film always had far greater potential, because of how classic film noir conventions and dialogue now lend themselves so easily to lampooning.Steve Martin was at the top of his game when he made this one - hopefully, my local charity shop receives a copy of 'The Man with Two Brains' anytime soon - and his timing and mugging is rotflmao flawless here. The film noir insertions are well-chosen, too, and integrated beautifully, cinematically. The hysterics of Babs Stanwyck and Joan Crawford; Bette Davis' toasted day-old bread scene; the follow-on from Edward Arnolds' 'Pick It Up!' are hilarious, of course, but as regards which gag is the best of the bunch, for me it's a toss-up between the sidekick Bogie sartorial tickings-off, and the climactic scene where Martin and Reiner look to assert their plot 'reveal rights', but ultimately settle for a seamless, breakneck-pace, collaborative effort .Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams might just have the edge on Martin in drag, though.Watch it and weep...with laughter!
John Brooks
So before Roger Rabbit introduced cartoon characters into live filmed footage, or mind you, Steve Oedekerk inserted himself into an old Chinese kungfu flick in Kung Pow...there was this film.It's really well made for its time, and not to be precious or anything but it does get a bit obvious after a while and the plot will sort of fade at times and the film seems a bit too happy with the new movie overlaid over old movie scheme and plays too self-indulgingly with that.But Martin's recognizable humor is good as always here and he'll really give life to the film from time to time. "I want to kiss you with every lip on my face !..."Rachel Ward, sublimely beautiful here, holds her role perfectly well too.Not bad. But too obvious after a while.6/10.
kenjha
Detective investigates the disappearance of a cheese scientist. It's a gimmick but this is perhaps the most stellar cast ever assembled: Bogart, Bergman, Cagney, Crawford, Davis, Douglas, Grant, Gardner, Ladd, Lancaster, MacMurray, Stanwyck, etc. It's an amusing gimmick, but unfortunately there is little else here to hold one's interest. The writers labored so hard to cleverly incorporate the vintage clips that they forgot to write a story that has any kind of sustained narrative or wit. The jokes are so lame that most of them are not even worthy of groans. Mostly, one is left longing to watch the films from which clips are teasingly utilized here.
Magenta_Bob
Carl Reiner's collage film homage and/or parody to 1940s film noirs and thrillers is unusually funny and a clever example of placing movie scenes in a new context as a means for comedy. I'm not sure if you actually need to be familiar with the noirs that the film borrows from, but having only seen one (the excellent Notorious) of the nineteen films from which scenes are lifted, I didn't get much enjoyment through recognition.I used to think that the film would have been successful even without the recycling of old material, but it struck me this time that that would wipe out the entire movie. Nevertheless, the funniest part is Steve Martin's deadpan narration that helps framing the clips. The only thing that I don't think is very funny is the recurring cleaning woman gag, but that still makes for a very high success rate.
AD
