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Reviews
Stop Look and Listen (1967)
Enjoyably Unconventional - Quite Funny and Inventive
This is an inventive film of stop-motion humor that illustrates a few examples of smart, safe driving techniques within the context of an extended, quite humorous street battle between two very different male drivers.
I won't give away any of the visual jokes, but the overall effect is pretty amazing and hilarious.
There is no spoken dialog, just humorous sound effects and original music to accentuate the on screen action. Another incredible aspect of this work is that any southern California streets were ever empty enough to shoot films like this. Watch carefully - there's never even a single automobile in sight!
I was lucky enough to catch this as an interstitial between features on Turner Classic Movies on 6/21/2006. What a rare treat...Thanks TCM!
Annie McGuire (1988)
Another fine example of network shortsightedness...
What I remember most about this series is that MTM's voice-over narration was sometimes scathingly hilarious - the kind of surprising candor that makes you laugh so unexpectedly hard that it takes your breath away momentarily.
(I remember making a mental note not to eat dinner while watching this show, because MTM made me laugh so hard at unexpected times during the narration!)
The feeling I got was that the writers were striving very hard to make sure that the dialog was modern and adult, probably so they could in no way be accused of relying on MTM's earlier, more sentimental, good-girl image for conventional laughs.
The network was incredibly stupid not to give this series more of a chance to catch on. Six episodes - sheesh! By the time you find it, it's already cancelled!!
The clueless broadcast networks are doomed by their own impatience.
Here We Go Again (1973)
A Fairly Fresh & Adult Comedy from the Early 70s
I remember when this series premiered; I was just entering my teens and was interested in all of the mystifying aspects of modern adult life.
Like many other Larry Hagman fans, I was always looking forward to whatever series he chose to do in the wake of "I Dream of Jeannie".
Having enjoyed his previous effort, "The Good Life", I first tuned in to "Here We Go Again" with scant trepidation.
I was not disappointed - this was a smart and funny show dealing with the then-topical subject of newly remarried divorced couples and their interactions with each other and their ex-spouses.
The stars were great in this one: smart, sultry Nita Talbot; upbeat, handsome Dick Gautier; and of course the sometimes flustered but always affable Larry Hagman. The ensuing romances were sweet, and the banter was bright and brittle. I found every episode that I saw to be very funny & entertaining, and I looked forward to seeing this show every week.
This would be a series worth seeking out for those interested in the rapidly changing social climate of the early 1970s U.S.; remember, less than half a decade before this show premiered, the subject of divorce (and life after divorce) was rarely if ever mentioned in network TV comedies.
It is perhaps not surprising that this series was too advanced to live, and it was unceremoniously canceled after just thirteen episodes (as was "The Good Life"). I was very disappointed at the time; I had hoped that this show would play well with the fans of concurrent adult-oriented comedies of the time, such as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Bob Newhart Show", and others, but it was not to be.
This series deserved a better fate, and I would love to see a few episodes again to discern how its view of modern life has held up over the past three decades.
Of course, if this show had been a hit, we would never have had the pleasure of meeting a certain J. R. Ewing, at least not as we all now know and love(to hate) him.
The Lady from Lisbon (1942)
Many good laughs, but some are at the expense of a serious subject
The most striking and memorable aspect of this film is its sharp, witty dialogue, much of which is in the form of sly insults thrown between the many characters of different nationalities. One exasperated guy even goes so far as to say, `She insults you; she insults me; she insults everyone like the big insulter she is!'
I'm glad to report that this ensemble delivers comic acting that is uniformly top-notch, in a wild plot that follows a bunch of folks staying in a Lisbon hotel as they all try to acquire a certain valuable object that is rumored to be in the vicinity.
A few of this film's jokes concern WW II Nazi aggression and their occupation of France. More than once I squirmed a bit upon witnessing such a deadly serious subject being treated so glibly, especially while it was still happening at the time this film was being made: the filmmakers couldn't yet have had any actual knowledge of the future outcome of such unnerving events. I guess they weren't afraid of tempting fate by laughing at it, although the British lady has a funny line that still might make you wince. These jokes are aimed squarely at the Nazi characters in the film; some are visual, as when the two Nazi art thieves are shown to resemble Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum, and some are merely implied, such as in the delivery of dialogue (they sometimes sound like robot-zombies delivering state-scripted speech.) Their rapid-fire tag team conversations are pretty entertaining, though.
The most enjoyable character of this crazy bunch is played by Anthony Holles as Tony Anzoni, an Italian `dealmaker' posing as an Englishman; he has most of the film's funniest lines, often mixing broken old cliches with modern mid-century slang. Nearly everyone here provides genuine laughs, except for the scary hotel porter, who was probably cast for his menacing teeth! (Note that the Ian Fleming that appears in this movie as `Adams' (one of the few characters without any funny dialogue) is not the same man who is famous for writing the James Bond novels. I saw his name in the opening credits, and I wondered about it the whole time until I looked him up in the IMDB. Anyway, his importance to the plot of this film is clear soon after he gets caught up in it.)
Fans of fast-moving, brightly-scripted caper farces will be well served by this entertaining British effort. Be sure and catch it if you get the chance!