Proving that ’70s Canadian producers were just as capable as anyone else of jamming multinational casts into mindless schlock, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time is an atrocious comedy with elements of crime and romance, noteworthy only for its familiar actors. Cowriters John Trent (who also directed) and David Main try for the madcap energy of Blake Edwards’s naughty farces, but their endeavor lacks everything from sexual heat to narrative propulsion to likable characters. Worse, it’s excruciating to endure both leading man Anthony Newley’s pompous speechifying and composer William McCauley’s obnoxious music, which at one point implies diarrhea with thundering brass stings. Newley plays Sweeney, a failed artist who enjoys weekly trysts with his ex-wife, Georgina (Stefanie Powers), even though she’s married to a rich jerk named Prince (Harry Ramer). Other characters include Sweeney’s artist friend Moriarty (Isaac Hayes), Georgina’s high-strung mother Julia (Yvonne De Carlo), and a politician named Burton (Lloyd Bochner). They’re all just sideshows, however, because most of the screen time features Sweeney running schemes, the most elaborate of which is a fake kidnapping. This is the kind of brainless burlesque in which a character gets humiliated by landing in the spray of a garden cherub’s penis. Viewers also get deluged with this sort of dialogue: “Was that Hortense?” “She seemed pretty relaxed to me!”
After its theatrical run, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time resurfaced on video once John Candy, who plays a tiny role, achieved Hollywood stardom. Also rescued from oblivion was Find the Lady, a spinoff movie in which Candy and Lawrence Dane reprise minor characters from the earlier film. Dane and Candy play Broom and Kopek, idiotic cops prone to misunderstandings and pratfalls. Find the Lady is a bit slicker than its predecessor, but the comedic efforts of returning filmmakers Trent and Main are just as strained. The narrative involves Broom and Kopek struggling to resolve three separate kidnappings—one accidental, one fake, one real. Mixed into the storyline are drag queens, exotic dancers, and mobsters. One of the mobsters is played by Mickey Rooney, complete with pinstriped suit and Tommy gun, while Peter Cook drifts in and out of the picture as a snobby villain. How exhaustingly dumb is Find the Lady? Consider the scene of Kopek interacting with a known criminal and a known kidnap victim while repeatedly exclaiming “I never forget a face!” Or consider the numerous infantile physical-comedy scenes of Broom and/or Kopek causing domino-effect disasters. Add in some leering topless shots plus countless gay-panic jokes, and you get the idea.
Only those curious to see everything Candy ever made have any compelling reason to watch these pictures, but even they’ll be left wanting; while he’s characteristically amiable and nimble, the material is so lackluster that he’s unable to conjure genuine laughs.
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: LAME
2 comments:
Hey, man,
If you're including Canadian films, have you considered 1974's Bingo? It was popular, I'm led to believe, and it is quite good, sitting comfortably next to stuff like Strawberry Statement, Getting Straight, The Revolutionary and R.P.M. I wrote an article on that grouping, and Bingo is one of the better ones.
It's hard for me to persuasively argue that some clear and overriding logic defines which non-US movies I review, but certainly in the case of these two comedies, the prominence of the actors caught my attention. Having said that, "Bingo" sounds interesting, so it's on my radar now. Perhaps someday...
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