By Marc S. Sanders
Max Dugan Returns is one of those delightful films where the smile never leaves your face. It’s a cozy, rainy Saturday afternoon with your favorite pillow and throw blanket. The characters are whimsical, and they simply feel like good, good friends you would love to have in your life.
Nora McPhee (Marsha Mason) is an overworked, underpaid high school English teacher who is drowning in debt with a broken refrigerator and a car that is as ugly as it sounds on the road. Her fifteen-year-old son Michael (Matthew Broderick, in a sensational on-screen debut performance) is a good kid, but she’s worried he’s getting too involved with the drug dealers that roam his school.
After her jalopy of a car gets stolen, the only positive that comes upon her is in the form of Donald Sutherland as a cop named Brian. After he lends her his motorcycle to get around, there’s an immediate attraction, but it could not happen at a worse time.
Nora’s father, Max Dugan (Jason Robards), who abandoned her at age 9 arrives on her doorstep in the middle of a rainy night with a business proposition. Now that his doctors have informed him he has six months to live, he would like to provide Nora and Michael with the six hundred thousand dollars he’s towed with him in an attaché case. In exchange, he only wants to spend time with his grandson. Beyond the animosity she’s held for Max, what alarms Nora is that her father stole this money from a Vegas casino. He claims the mob stole the money from him first. She doesn’t want the money; not with Brian the police officer in her life and she does not want to be affiliated with Max’ criminal past or associations. Not to mention there would no way to explain this sudden windfall based on her minimal teacher’s salary. Max won’t go away so easily, though.
Thus, the theme of Max Dugan Returns is one scene after another where a hoard of luxurious items arrive on the McPhee’s doorstep. New appliances, new jewelry, new furnishings, fresh groceries, electronics for Michael, a Mercedes, and a thoroughbred dog named Pluto – I’m sorry. Plato!
It’s impossible not to love this movie. It is one of the few films that Neil Simon wrote directly for the screen. It is so much fun though, that I think it would work marvelously as a stage play. The story may not be grounded in reality, but Simon’s dialogue is so quick and sharp and a better cast could not be found to deliver Neil Simon’s wit.
Mason, Robards, Broderick and Sutherland have pitch perfect chemistry with one another. These actors are so absorbed in their characters, and it makes sense. Matthew Broderick was personally selected by Neil Simon to do his biographical play, Brighton Beach Memoirs. Marsha Mason did five of Simon’s adapted films while she was married to him. (They divorced shortly after the release of this picture in 1983.) Jason Robards has an affectionate gravel to his voice – one of the best voices in film next to James Earl Jones. Robards is just so appealing as he playfully conflicts with Mason on screen while connecting with Broderick’s character under a different identity. It’s important Max maintains a low profile. Donald Sutherland is the straightest character in the picture. He has a relaxed manner to him that’s found often in Neil Simon’s scripts (unless you’re a Nora McPhee or a Felix Unger). In another actor’s hands, this would be just a walk on role, but with Sutherland on screen, you are satisfied to watch another winning performance from this actor with a relaxed stature and a genteel way about him, as his detective suits and ties hang loose on his shoulders.
Max Dugan Returns is an enchanting fantasy without the overt fantasy. It never needed unicorns or lovable elves to deliver its magic and whimsy. I did notice a collection of rainbows – easter eggs hiding in plain sight, however. Are pots of gold to be uncovered? The film asks what would happen if your long-lost father showed up on your doorstep with a suitcase full of money and a treasure trove of gifts to bestow upon you.
Hey, it could only happen in the movies.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 