Stars: Madeline Kahn, Ryan O’Neal, Barbra Streisand
Rated: G
Released: 1972
What I “know”: I know I love Madeline Kahn, so I’m already psyched. And I know it’s only 94 minutes, so double score! In regards to actual plot, nothing.
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “While two researchers are competing for a grant, one must deal with a strange woman who’s devoted her life to confusing and embarrassing him. Meanwhile, a woman’s jewels are stolen and a government whistleblower arrives with top-secret papers. All, of course, have the same style overnight bag. Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal and Madeline Kahn star in this homage to classic screwball comedies from director Peter Bogdanovich.”
Y’all, I can’t even put into words how excited I now am about this movie. Madeline Kahn, screwball, a stalker who confuses someone (guessing that’s Kahn), stolen jewels … This can’t possibly be as good as I now want it to be.
TRAILER!
1:09: Ooooh she’s being “introduced,” so it’s her first movie. I hope it’s a tour de force!!! PS, my favorite Madeline Kahn scene EVER from one of my favorite movies:
And I just fell into a “Clue” wormhole on YouTube. So I’m back after 30 minutes. It happens.
3:31: You should TOTALLY check your “top secret” files when you fly somewhere. No need to keep those with you!
4:34: HAHAH Kahn’s hair is ridiculous. However, I also guess she’s not the stalker as she’s apparently O’Neal’s wife. OK, apparently his girlfriend, since she wants to go to San Fran for their honeymoon.
8:04: Why is Babs following the pizza guy and causing accidents left and right? Though her sassy response of “One of us must be in the wrong hotel” was worth it all.
10:23: Good heavens, Streisand was tiny. And golf-bag stalker boy is REALLY bad at his job. You can’t follow that closely or that obviously. Sheesh.
13:56: Streisand is better at comedic timing than I would have assumed. I wish she didn’t have the same weird half-smile in every scene, though.
18:35: “As the years go by, romance fades and something else takes its place. Do you know what that is?” “Senility.” “Trust!” Madeline Kahn is so good. Though I do wish she had eyebrows of some sort.
26:16: For someone who was so concerned that he get down to the banquet and make a good first impression, Kahn sure did take her sweet time getting ready. And now she lost her seat to Babs. Too little, too late, Eunice.
26:41: So back in the day, anyone could open up those doors between rooms in hotels? That seems patently unsafe.
29:23: I’ve already lost track of what bag is where and who has it and whose it was to begin with.
32:28: And Kahn’s huge entrance into the banquet is my first laugh-out-loud moment of the movie. It’s slapstick, but not funny slapstick (the movie, not Kahn’s entrance).
33:33: And that trip is the second LOL moment. Awesome. He got her at knee level!
33:49: So when the house detective put the bag under the bed in 1714, it was a flowered bedspread. Now it’s solid blue. This is BASIC stuff, Bogdanovich.
34:50: HAHAH the like fourth trip was at waist level. That whole thing is perfection.
46:02: A.) Babs is an A-level bath towel wrapper if she falls off a ledge, grabs on, and the towel doesn’t come off her perky little body. B.) No one is strong enough to just pull themselves up on a ledge like that.
47:02: I like how the room is in blazes, a man just flew through the window into the room, and the room service guy is just nonchalantly setting up dinner.
47:52: Fastest. Fire. Department. Ever.
49:36: So the guy walks into SteveHoward’s room and I paused to go to IMDB to figure out who he was because he looked familiar. And the TRIPPING GUY IS BOSS HOGG? WHAT? Mind. Blown. P.S., I was totally right, the hotel manager is Higgins from “Magnum, P.I.” I don’t know why that triggered so quickly, but I knew it immediately.
56:13: Eunice’s more-and-more rushed wig jobs are killing me.
1:06:10: Why would they just take all four bags and leave? Now they’re thieves, because he KNOWS there’s a crapton of jewels in one of them. Just go into a side room, check them, get your rocks, and get out.
1:09:03: Good buildup to the window breaking. Any longer would have been too long.
1:11:46: How can people drive in San Fran without completely screwing up their cars within six months? I will never understand.
1:31:42: WHY DOES EVERYONE IN THESE MOVIES FALL IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE THEY BARELY KNOW? Stuffy Howard Bannister would never tell a crazy woman he loves her. Gah.
OK, so I was right, this movie wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. Fun, light-hearted, fine. But I didn’t love it. I will say this: Ryan O’Neal was a terrible person by most accounts, but he was a very good-looking guy. I actually liked him better in glasses. Oh well.
Next up: “Private Benjamin!”
1 Comment
John Branch
June 6, 2017 at 1:00 amI like this one more than you did, Jill. It serves up wacky and inexplicable things that are just part of the way the world works, and I like that. Why does Streisand’s character fixate on the dweebish academic type played by O’Neal? It’s hard to figure, just as it’s hard to figure why Katharine Hepburn’s character fixates on the fuddled academic type played by Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby. Speaking of which, have you seen that? I’ll have to check.
Meanwhile, this is fun what you’re doing here!