BEFORE: My watchlist is stuck at 145, due to a sudden influx of new films over the past week. Why now? It's summer vacation time, people are going away and they're not at home to watch movies. I've given up trying to figure out why the cable channels schedules work the way they do. Maybe someone figures people have more time in the summer to watch movies? I'd think people have more time at home during the winter, when they're snowed in, but what do I know?
Suddenly appearing on cable this week are films like "Gone Girl", "Get on Up" and "Whiplash", plus "The Interview", "Big Hero 6" and "Despicable Me 2" - and on top of THAT, some films I've been waiting a long time for, like "Nacho Libre" and "Man of the Year". And if I want to pick up the recent versions of "Robocop" and "Godzilla", it starts to seem like a daunting task. When I'm at a plateau like this, it's all I can do to limit myself to adding only one film for each film I watch - and with my own summer break coming up, I don't expect I'll be able to make any more dents in reducing my list for the next several weeks.
Jack Lemmon carries over from "Under the Yum Yum Tree", and I'm already more than halfway through the Lemmon chain.
THE PLOT: George Kellerman and his wife make a trip to New York, where he is about to take a new job. This journey turns out to be a trip to hell -- what can go wrong will go wrong.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Out-of-Towners" (1999) (Movie #1,690)
AFTER: I re-read my review of the remake of this film, the one with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, which I watched last year. That was a very different film, for several reasons - that couple had a college-age daughter in New York, for example. And Martin's character was coming to town to interview for a job at an ad agency, not a plastics company. That 1999 film also greatly increased the role of the hotel manager, and wisely cast John Cleese in that role.
They both work the same angle on the hapless visitors from Ohio - the city has to break them down before it tries to build them up. Both couples arrive during a subway/bus/sanitation strike (which is extremely unlikely, because those are different unions) and encounters problems with everything they try to do, but this is not the NYC from 1999, this is 1970 New York, and that's key. There were no cell phones, no internet travel sites, no Acela trains, no airport shuttles, plus there was more crime, protests, and Times Square was a cesspool of humanity. (Wait, that last one still applies.) To make matters worse, we hadn't yet erected that giant dome over the city, so heavy rain was still an occasional problem.
I think, symbolically, this is a farce based on the clueless tourists who come to New York and think they're going to see everything in one day. "First, we'll see the Statue of Liberty, then we'll go to the top of the Empire State Building, then we'll have lunch at the Russian Tea Room, then we'll get tickets to a Broadway show, then a late dinner at Elaine's..." Umm, no, maybe if you're lucky you'll get to TWO of those things in the course of a day, but realistically, probably one. Have you seen the lines that develop just to go to the observation deck at the Empire State?
This was meant to be a black comedy - actually, this was originally meant to be part of the Neil Simon play "Plaza Suite", which I'll watch later this week. But this just wouldn't work as a play, because it would have been people talking about their bad travel experiences, and therefore would have broken the "show, don't tell" rule. So Simon spun this story off into becoming its own entity, and since the comedy is much more visual, it became a film rather than a play.
But when you make a black comedy, I think you walk a fine line. The simple trap is to believe that the more things go wrong, the funnier it will be. But somewhere, there's a limit - this is a case where SO many mishaps take place, the couple makes SO many mistakes, I started to wonder how much is enough, when is this going to end? If you told me that the couple died in a plane crash, and they weren't just in a figurative hell, but the actual Hell, I'd be inclined to believe you. And Hell looks just like NYC in 1970 and every city worker is on strike, and every hotel room is booked, and nobody wants to help you, and it just started to rain.
(AND they get mugged...AND he breaks his tooth...AND she breaks a heel)
What if "The Out of Towners" took the same plot turn as "Jacob's Ladder"? No, I realize that's a bit ridiculous, but this film is mean-spirited enough toward the Kellermans for me to believe in NYC as a hellscape. The 1999 film changed the ending, however - is that because NYC improved during the intervening years, or was the choice made for some other reason?
I'm reminded of the ending of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", where many of the people who have been searching for buried treasure end up injured and in the hospital - but not before they're bounced along on electric wires and thrown into buildings. All for the crime of trying to get tax-free money and rise above their stations, which is a subversion of the work-based American Dream. By the same token, what was George Kellerman's crime? Trying to get a promotion, sure, but also yelling at his wife, and being very short with airline personnel and hotel workers. He also committed the sin of pride - he was too proud to call his company and explain the travel delays, because he felt that would reflect poorly on him, and prevent him from getting the promotion.
I'm not sure, but I think I had a unique reaction to this film. When I did turn off the film, I caught the opening credits of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World", plus yesterday I watched Edie Adams in "Under the Yum Yum Tree", and she played Sid Caesar's wife in that film. That, combined with the fact that my annual trip to San Diego is coming up in a week and a half, triggered my recurring Comic-Con nightmare session. I dreamed that I was circling the convention center and I couldn't find the door, then once inside I was wandering the aisles and I couldn't find my way back to my booth. Things got worse from there, and involved a serial killer and some collapsing skyscrapers, but I digress.
The reason is, nearly all of my bad travel experiences have been on the way back from San Diego. (Unless you count an Amtrak back from Boston to NYC where the train hit a guy, and we were stuck on the track in Rhode Island for hours...) There was the recent year I stopped for a bagel, and that made me miss the bus shuttle to the airport, and that made me miss my return flight. There was the other recent year where I went to see "Iron Man 3" in Chula Vista (very close to Tijuana) and almost didn't make it back to my hotel before the trolleys shut down. This was followed by trouble at the UPS Store, trouble checking out of my hotel, a broken wheel on my suitcase AND I split my pants. Then there was the year before I knew where the UPS Store was, and I took a cab five miles north of the city looking for a FedEx office, wandered around a strip mall with three heavy boxes, not knowing where anything was, then walked around a larger shopping mall looking for a taxi stand - finally going to a hotel, looking like complete shit and exhausted beyond belief, asking the nice people at the hotel if they'd call me a taxi to the airport, while I had a drink at the bar.
That was the year that I felt the convention won, it really got the best of me, and I could have - should have - given up on the process. Nope, I'm still doing it, though every year I get a little older and my back hurts a little more, and I keep saying (hoping) it will be my last time. Though it's still fun, I had to learn a LOT about the way it operates, and the best ways to get around town and all of the convention rules and which restaurants close at 11 pm. But unlike the Kellermans, I don't expect that things are going to go my way, and I don't feel like the universe owes me any favors - I just have to believe that with a little planning and a lot of work, plus a willingness to roll with the punches, I can get the job done and survive the trip. But at night, when my defenses are down, that's when the convention/travel nightmares come.
Anyway, back to the film. I've learned over the years to roll with the changes while traveling (and to always eat when I have the chance...), but do the Kellermans learn anything from their experiences? Besides the fact that you can't land at JFK at 7:30 and make an 8 pm reservation at the Four Seasons, or that you shouldn't pack your medication and your extra cash in the checked luggage? It would have been nice if George had learned somewhere along the way to be a little nicer to his wife, or to other people in general, so there would have been a point to these proceedings.
Also starring Sandy Dennis (last seen in "Another Woman"), with cameos from Anne Meara (last seen in "Reality Bites"), Dolph Sweet, Ron Carey, Paul Dooley (last seen in "Slap Shot"), Robert Walden, Richard Libertini, Billy Dee Williams (last seen in "Fanboys"), Robert Nichols, Ann Prentiss.
RATING: 4 out of 10 Saltine crackers
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