Category: Geraldine Fitzgerald

EASY MONEY

By Marc S. Sanders

Monty Capuletti is played by Rodney Dangerfield in the comedy Easy Money. The name of the role is just there for script purposes really. This is basically just Rodney playing Rodney, and had he been in more scenes, this film would have been one of the all-time great comedies. It really would have been legendary. Unfortunately, it suffers from a side story that generates no laughs and bogs the picture down to a screeching halt.

Monty is a baby photographer, and I can’t think of a better or more appropriate occupation for Rodney Dangerfield to play for some easy, gut busting laughs. Let that sink in for a moment. Rodney Dangerfield…as a…baby photographer! I couldn’t contain myself when he was trying to get a plump toddler to sit still and finally unleashes a tirade of inappropriate expletives. Comedy works best when one party is tainted by another.

Monty drinks, smokes, gambles, overeats and often visits the local strip joints with his best pal, Nicky Cerone (a perfect partnership with Joe Pesci). His hoity mother-in-law (Geraldine Fitzgerald) has never approved of her daughter’s (Candice Azzara) marriage to this offensive slob. When mother passes away, she leaves Monty her ten-million-dollar furniture store enterprise to him, but only if he gives up on all of his habits as well as loses some weight. This is a perfect set up for a Rodney Dangerfield movie. Unfortunately, it does not go far enough with the gags.

The first thirty minutes are comedy gold as we see Monty and Nicky going from one moment of debauchery to the next. When they lose big on the horse races, I about died watching Nicky take to the field to punch out the rider. When they pick up the wedding cake for Monty’s daughter’s wedding and wedge it into the back of Nicky’s plumbing van next to the toilet, I had to pause the film to catch my breath and finish laughing. Plus, think for a moment of what’s gonna happen to that cake before the night is done. It’s more hilarious than you could possibly imagine. The first thirty minutes paint a perfect picture of Monty and his terrible ways.

When the turning point happens after Mother dies, the remaining hour only generates a handful of memorable moments. The film diverts to Jennifer Jason Leigh as Monty’s daughter who has now married a greasy gang member eager to take her virginity. She leaves the jerk on her wedding night and the film takes up too much time with the guy trying win her back. Dangerfield is not in much of this storyline, nor is Leigh. It focuses way too much on a boring performance from actor Taylor Negron as the jilted groom who is not funny in any way. As well, his selection of scenes come off unfinished at times. The groom, Julio, climbs to the outside of the second story of the house one night and falls off the pipe he’s holding on to, but you never see his reaction or where he lands. In Tom & Jerry cartoons, you were always treated to the aftermath of the fall or the big bang where little birds flew around poor Tom’s head. Did the editors just fall asleep in post?

The wedding ceremony at church and the reception in the fenced in New Jersey backyard? Now that’s funny. Really funny. Just look at the outfits for one thing. Purple tuxedos for the groomsmen. Lime green dresses for the bridesmaids and the inevitable overly, emotional, tears of joy family member who just won’t shut up. It’s a perfect tempo for laughs. I’m laughing as I recall this moment. The Italian gathering of hundreds of people dancing in a perfect overhead shot of a crammed in backyard is an absolute contrast to the elegance you’ll find in The Godfather.

Monty’s struggle with giving up on his unhealthy lifestyle is not touched upon enough and I can’t understand why. The door was wide open for these moments. Imagine Monty at an AA meeting or an Overeaters Anonymous gathering. Opportunities were missed in Easy Money. A perfect set up with not enough of an execution. I was ready to declare this film as Rodney’s best (better than Caddyshack or Back To School) but then the last hour settled in.

Easy Money is not a terrible movie. Far from it. It just could have been so much more. Watch the first thirty minutes, and then turn on Back To School to feel fulfilled.

ARTHUR

By Marc S. Sanders

I would love to be friends with Arthur Bach. Sure I’d be wined and dined, living a lifestyle where money is no object, toy trains are at my disposal, and drinks on a serving platter are brought to me constantly. Arthur has got it all. Well, not all of it. He’s never been in love. He hates his cold hearted father and he only has one friend, his dependable butler, Hobson.

Dudley Moore’s greatest role is Arthur from 1981. The best protagonists in comedy are the ones who go against the order. Arthur is a spoiled kid in an adult’s body. He lives to smile and laugh and drink and play and drink some more and more. It’s easy when you are sitting on three quarters of a billion-dollar fortune. Imagine though if you could lose all of that money. The only way to hold on to wealth is to marry a woman named Susan (Jill Eikenberry) that you are not in love with, simply to merge two wealthy families together for even more industrial power. Arthur is made to be a pawn by his own unloving father, as well as Susan’s ruthless father (Stephen Elliott) who is proud to share how he killed a man when he was eleven years old. No matter. Arthur will just marry Susan and cheat on her, as his elderly grandmother Martha (Geraldine Fitzgerald) suggests.

All seems easy until Arthur becomes over the moon in love with a woman named Linda (Liza Minnelli) who is caught shoplifting a tie in Bergdorf’s in New York City. Arthur can’t stop thinking about Linda but the family would never approve. Linda is a waitress dreaming to become an actress, but lives a poor life with her unemployed father (Barney Martin).

Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli have one of the best on screen chemistries ever in film. They look like they belong with one another, and their timing is perfectly solid. When they share moments together their on-screen laughter shows up naturally and intermittently. I imagine no matter how many times they rehearsed their scenes together it was never the same way twice.

As an individual performance, Moore works like a great stand up comic having the best show of his life. His drunkenness is hilarious with his slurs and infectious non stop giggles and outrageously loud laughter. He gives The Joker a run for his money in the laughter department.

Early on, he escorts a prostitute to dinner at The Plaza Hotel and his interactions with family members and those of the wealthy social circle are a great contrast in comedy. Throughout the film, Dudley Moore will use every prop he can get his hand on to make his inebriated state all the more funny from simply a telephone to a mounted moose head. Moore is also a helluva piano player.

The most special relationship though is Arthur’s connection to Hobson (beautifully played with blue blood dryness by Sir John Gielgud). A man like Hobson is not one you’d expect to associate with a man as immature and childish as Arthur, but you find a nurturing dimension to Hobson’s character. He’s Arthur’s surrogate father. He teaches Arthur to be practical about his good fortune. At the same time, he doesn’t dismiss Arthur’s happiness. Gielgud is at times surprising and positively touching. He also has some of the best lines in the film. After agreeing to run Arthur’s bath, he retorts with “Perhaps you’d like me to come in there and wash your dick for you, you little shit!” His impression of Linda: “Normally one would have to go to a bowling alley to meet a woman of your stature.”

As Hobson becomes ill, so must Arthur finally learn to grow up. The moment I lost my mother eight years ago, the very first thing that occurred to me was that I am no longer a child. I actually got my first grey hairs immediately after mom unexpectedly passed. No longer was there the protective guidance to make decisions and therefore as Hobson continues to deteriorate, Arthur becomes aware of tough decisions he must make regarding sobriety, wealth and most importantly love. With Hobson by his side, Arthur Bach is a beautiful character arc of comedy and sadness. As a kid growing up in the ‘80s, Arthur Bach was one of the first to demonstrate the change in a character’s arc for me. I really started to recognize depth and dimension; different angles and perspectives that a well written character faces.

The film is over 40 years old, but still has its magic to make you laugh and cry. Arthur is just an enormously touching comedy.