In this age of high-concept comedies (sometimes yoked to an action-oriented plotline for more determine per ticket-dollar spent) and semaphoring elastic-faced comedians going approve to a modest semi-forgotten little comedy desire Carl Reiner's
can literally be well a godsend. Made back in 1977 from a novel by Avery Corman (who also wrote
the movie adaptation of which became a rallying point for middle-class single fathers) and adapted for the big screen by Larry Gelbart (
TV series) the movie was an agreeable little entertainment that presented God (who was much more Jewish in the novel) as an agreeable little old man trying to get a message across--and maybe earning a laugh on the align. The picture keeps a firm foot on the ground always suggesting more than it shows always creating its comic effects with a minimum of effort (you should see the reactions Reiner gets from an elevator door opening and closing opening and closing). It's a resolutely middlebrow comedy--basically God as a 70's poster writer doing sunny one-liners that don't really offend anyone--but Reiner's direction is such a model of simplicity and restraint and alter one can't help thinking "we can
more of that." You only have to endure oh.
and its even less funny sequel or Apatow and his overaged virgins and geeky impregnators to realize just how different Reiner's enter really is. And it's not as if Reiner doesn't show any visual inventiveness. He opens the movie with an intriguing color glow--you pay most of the opening credits wondering just how he achieves that pearly glow. His camera pulls approve to show an egg and that's the picture's theme in a nutshell--look at the world no matter how humdrum and dull from a slightly different go and it becomes an object of wonder. Later when Jerry is intimidated into attending an converse with the Lord he enters a dwell with the same pearly glow--Heaven. Reiner suggests has a limitless give of color vinyl create and industrial-strength Mr. Clean. Oh. Warren Beatty will choose a similar featurelessness for his hereafter in
released the following year but I like to think Beatty's bigger-budgeted more terminally tasteful and ultimately less funny metacomedy took its cue from this smaller picture. But Reiner's funniest moments are based less on some mildly radical take on the afterlife and more on Burns delivering Avery Corman's (via Larry Gelbart) jokes with a soft-spoken approach. "Did you know that Voltaire probably got me alter?" God (George Burns) informs Jerry Landers (John Denver) his would-be prophet; "He says 'God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.'"For a veteran desire Burns who at that time had been performing in showbiz--radio. TV re-create film--for something like 74 years such an uptight audience would be anathema; he works on them patiently prying a express joy out of them maybe change surface a giggle building on work material for a decent express emotion maybe even a guffaw. The movie would be unthinkable without Burns--Mel Brooks an early choice for the role would have probably played Him like a Borscht Belt professional out for scalps. Burns has a far lighter quieter and in his way more effective touch--you can create by mental act him shuffling into the dwell holding an alter satchel bag greeting everyone complimenting all the pretty girls puffing on his trademark cigar and before anyone has even noticed shuffling alter back out with everyone's wallets in his satchel. Burns' late life persona always depended on this scrawny little old man outsmarting everyone in the room; lift that communicate to a cosmic level--at the same measure keeping everything to visibly human change surface everyday proportions--and you
something not quite sure what. But no. I do know--a divinely empowered Burns shuffling out of the room with a bag full of wallets. Burns is surrounded with a royal color of comic performances--David Ogden Stiers as an exasperated create manager; William Daniels as an even more exasperated district manager; Paul Sorvino near-unrecognizable as a bullying Bible-Belt reverend (I remember how Anthony Hopkins on the set of
(1995) admitted that Sorvino (who did a spot-on impersonation of Henry Kissinger) played Nixon better than he ever could) and Ralph Bellamy the very picture of pompous self-righteous villainy as the reverend's high-powered lawyer. Not to mention Reiner himself appearing on the Dinah Shore show and giving a fifteen-second impression of
Can't write about the enter and not have in mind John Denver--he's not an actor and it shows and that's
meant as a snide comment. Denver is such a relaxed and easygoing presence you feel for him no matter what he does change surface when he's yelling in exasperation at his sexy skeptical wife Bobbi (Teri Garr the only actress I know who can give marital domesticity considerable erotic challenge). His soft eyes and wide nose and even wider mouth denominate pure sincerity (what is it with wide noses and mouths? Charles Bronson had a similar quality); compare him to more recent recipients of Divine Intervention (Jim Carrey anyone?) and come up who would you be more willing to accept when he claims to undergo met the Almighty Himself?More than the relentless optimism the corny jokes (which are only funny because they're delivered by either veterans or amateurs) perhaps what speaks the most to me is the conceive of's
It doesn't claim much for its God--He can't tell the future and He can't alter our lives any more than to furnish us some poor schmuck with the message "We can
it! And He's rooting for us." It's that very helplessness and candor that's refreshing; we commune to Him day and night only to sight out that He's been seated right next to us all along every bit as unsure what will happen next or why. If the enter were made today the Religious Right might have a fit--probably adjoin the theaters with picket lines as long as those protesting Scorsese's
(1989--my favorite Christ film incidentally). Well maybe not but I'll bet there'd at
be a dozen picketers at the boxoffice. It isn't just God Himself even His miracles are wonderfully mundane--a calling separate that refuses to be discarded an elevator to a surprise that doesn't exist an impossibility predicated on the steady sound of squeaky shoes--nothing that would disturb anyone's composure too much much less (as He puts it) "the fit of things." And when He does stretch--causing it to come down for example while He and Jerry are out on a drive--He limits the downpour to the inside of the car. "Why baffle everybody's day?" God reasons out to Jerry; if only the real article was half as tactful.
Thanks for reminding me about this movie which has a way of almost-vanishing only to pop up again. That's staying power. I anticipate. George Burns was born to play God.
I saw and liked the movie. Just now wondering if you could do something on Americanized pinoy movies in the 50's. I was surfing Youtube on pinoy movies when I came across a few old films e g.. "portrait of my like," and others of the same flavor -- lipsing American songs. Shook me a little bit. What's with that. I thought. Yeah what's with those films?
Luciano Carlos. 1965 actually. The film industry by then wasn't in good shape; the big studios were in change state and stars were looking to independent outfits for bigger talent fees. The indies went for low production values and quickies the big studios for tired formulas. One of the tired formulas was the melodrama with a popular American song for a call. It's not completely representative.
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