statuskuo Schmaltzy. Good schmaltz, but schmaltz nonetheless.A very thin veiled look at the USO coupling of two diametrically different performers who struggle to work with one another thru war and the bitterness that entwines their lives through the decades.I think both roles were mis-casted. Caan, while giving his best, still seemed...angry. That chip on his shoulder is more off putting than endearing, even during the predictable change of heart. And Bette, which also has a strong performance, seemed to play the young sex kitten as an older person, but as an older person attempt to play the sex kitten. What you end up with is a very uneven movie. You really want it be effective, but it just falls a tiny bit short of it.Would I recommend on a slow night...yeah, it's interesting to watch. Since you get a sense some of these moments are taken straight from relationships as volatile as Ricky and Lucy, or Burns and Allen.

bkoganbing For The Boys is a film that's about two performers and their almost 50 year association of one kind or another through some tumultuous times in America. The filmed earned Bette Midler a nomination for Best Actress in what might be her best screen role. At least it's the favorite of mine.Dixie Leonard where Midler gets to show all her talents is a young club singer who gets a break to accompany famous entertainer Eddie Sparks as played by James Caan on a USO tour in World War II. Midler's husband is an army photographer who's killed in action, but she still has his son who is played at various times in his life by Brandon Call and Christopher Rydell, director Mark Rydell's son. George Segal who is Caan's gag writer also is Midler's uncle and he acts as cupid in this show business marriage. All of Midler and Caan's lives are played out against the background of America in World War II, the Korean War, the McCarthy Era and Vietnam.Caan's character of Eddie Sparks is said to be based on Bob Hope and God only knows what Hope must have thought of this film at the time it was out. By that point his stature as an American icon was secure. Hope was known to have liaisons with a few female performers, most discreetly however. The best known that kind of bubbled to the surface was with Marilyn Maxwell who Midler's character might have been based on. The character of Eddie Sparks however had three daughters and America's most well known father of girls was Eddie Cantor in most of this era. And Cantor's most well known extra-marital affair involved Joan Davis.By the way actress Shannon Wilcox has a brief but really telling part as Caan's ice princess of a wife. Her few scenes tell you exactly why Caan's out roaming.Caan got a lot of criticism for his part and I'm mystified as to why. Eddie Sparks is a complex part and Caan mastered all the subtleties even though he's not my idea of a song and dance man. He's the kind of man who will stop at nothing to climb the ladder of success, but he's also not a totally bad man. Knowing full well that George Segal's pungent political comments in front of gossip columnist Rosemary Murphy, another ice princess, will get him in trouble, he tries in one scene to tell him to just cool it. In that other classic, The Way We Were, Caan is adhering to Robert Redford's philosophy where in ten years time right wing producers will be hiring left wing writers and the blacklist will be forgotten, it's just something to be ridden out if one keeps a cool head. I don't think Caan was totally wrong there, he didn't want to lose his friend and a good writer.What finally breaks Midler and Caan apart is the death of her son, like his father in combat in Vietnam. Caan and the boy bonded genuinely and the young man, probably more to honor his father chose a military career, graduating from the Citadel. Caan has a flip attitude towards education which is something the kid picks up on. But people who have a flip attitude towards education, albeit with a military bent, don't last at the Citadel.Midler sees Caan as a warmonger who built his career on the publicity surrounding the entertainment of troops like Bob Hope. Caan argues quite rightly that he doesn't make policy, he doesn't send kids to war, he's a song and dance man. A good mixture of songs from the various eras make up the score for For The Boys. One song, Bill-A-Dick by Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster was an unpublished number at the time it was written and makes its debut here. It's sung by Midler along with Melissa Manchester and Pattie Darcy as an Andrews Sisters like trio. Remember Midler did revive the Andrews Sisters's Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.The film is an absolute gem, Midler is divine and don't listen to the criticisms that were given to James Caan.

ascalleywagge This was a fantastic movie and the score which I have on CD is one of the best. The chemistry between Midler and Caan is electric. Bette is in her element and the songs are classic. Jimmy Caan was fabulous as Eddie. Caan can hold his own with actresses Midler in this movie and with Kathy Bates in "Misery." I wish the movie would have more airplay on cable especially given the fact that the US troops are in military op currently. Regardless of whether we should be fighting or whether we should not be, the movie has lots of heart and it's for the boys (and girls)who serve. Has anyone seen the movie on cable lately? I am quite surprised that this movie has not scored higher in the ratings. This is a movie I would pay to watch in theatres today! We could use the good wishes for our troops these days.

kmarquis-2 I thought this movie was a 10+! The flashback format is interesting and watching the characters' lives and attitudes progress through the present-day Dixie's reminiscences. This is why it is puzzling to me that another person's comment contained the following criticism in regards to Bette's character Dixie: "She is perhaps nave and oblivious to what war is about and maybe even thinks it's just one big party and nobody really dies or suffers. By the end when she goes to Vietnam she is a vulgar, disgusting, embittered slob who harbors some anger that the GIs no longer swoon over her as they did a quarter of a century or so earlier. The GI's are of a different generation and she can't relate to them or why they have the attitude they do. She is perhaps also angry with herself for not being able to be enthused about performing for the fighting men of this war the way she was years ago. How does she end up like this?"Huh??? Dixie was an angry, embittered woman because Eddie Sparks sold out on her uncle! Her volatile reaction to his betrayal begins the systematic annihilation of her career. She didn't want to go on tour with him and only did so because he talked her into it, "For the Boys"!If anything, it is Eddie Sparks who is oblivious to the changes of the times during the Vietnam war and is unable to make the leap from the USO tours of the previous wars to this strange and confusing part of our history and it is Dixie who takes control of the out-of-hand situation in her inimitable style by getting the rowdy soldiers back in line and then not only sings them the quintessential song of the era, but caps her low-key performance with the peace sign! My god, SHE was the one who was truly in tune with the confusion these soldiers were experiencing!So, I have to ask...did we see the same movie?