Review: The Out-of-Towners (1999)
Harvey S. Karten
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D.
Paramount Pictures
Director: Sam Weisman
Writer: Marc Lawrence
Cast: Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, Mark McKinney, John
Cleese, Gregory Jbara, Philip E. Johnson, Daniel Parker,
Ernie Sabella
They say that travel is broadening. Taking a journey
outside of your home state exposes you to cultures and life
styles other than your own. This is true. Travel has the
added benefit of allowing you to turn inward as well, affording
new perspectives on your life and home and your
relationships with your loved ones. "The Out-of-Towners"
seeks to prove this premise. This is the story of a marriage
which has fallen into a rut when the last of the children
leaves the nest, and how a journey of just a few hundred
miles bequeaths to its two pilgrims some new perspectives
not so much on cultures outside of their own provincial town
but on their very own connection to each other.
Neil Simon's play was first adapted to the screen some
thirty years ago. That screen version featured Jack Lemmon
and Sandy Dennis as two people married two score and four
years, whose trip from Ohio to New York is charged with so
many blemishes that the very disasters serve to strengthen
their marriage. Full of dated humor even then, the 1970
version directed by Arthur Hiller would not appear a fitting
vehicle for a sequel. Nor can two of our finest comic actors,
Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, breathe life into this tired
concoction of predictable country-mouse-visits-the-big-city
theme. Though Marc Lawrence's version changes some of
the details of the Hiller interpretation, the structure remains
intact and so does the outmoded humor. In fact Steve
Martin, whose talent for portraying what showbiz biographer
Ephraim Katz calls "his likeable, self-mocking split personae,
forever wavering between vulnerability and overconfidence,
between frenzied cheeriness and pathetic heartbreak," fails to
ignite the screen, owing to director Sam Weisman's
incapacity at comic timing. Nor does Martin develop much
chemistry with Ms. Hawn who, despite being almost exactly
the same age as the prematurely gray Martin, could virtually
pass for his daughter.
The story is propelled by a job interview that Ohio resident
Henry Clark (Steve Martin) has with a mid-town Manhattan
advertising agency. As his daughter had left the nest some
time back and his son has just followed suit, Henry and his
wife of 27 years, Nancy (Goldie Hawn), are vaguely
uncomfortable. What will they now have to talk about? The
excursion to the Big Apple gives them enough material to
keep their conversation flowing for years to come.
During the relatively brief duration of the movie, Henry and
Nancy suffer a diversion of their flight to Boston; a missed
train connection; lost luggage; a Manhattan mugging from a
man whom they believe to be Andrew Lloyd Webber; a failure
to get a hotel room given their lack of money; a zany therapy
session into which they have wandered; and stomachs
growling with insatiable hunger. They are chased by police
on horseback; are observed having sex in Central Park by
New York's mayor (played by Rudy as himself); and dangle
dangerously on a hotel veranda twenty-two stories above the
city.
While Neil Simon's show was never one of his better
efforts, the work should have been left interred along with
several other frolics of the world's most economically
successful playwright, along with "The Odd Couple" and
"Barefoot in the Park." John Cleese turns in an encouraging
performance as a cynical clerk in a posh Manhattan hotel--
recreating his role as Basil Fawlty on one of TV's most
rollicking comedies. But his high-kicking dance in drag is as
antiquated today as is Steve Martin's duck-walking romp on
city streets while high on speed, waddling to the soundtrack
beat of "The Age of Aquarius."
A few scenes, nevertheless, begin to catch fire, particularly
one involving the couple's attempted theft of a New York
Times outside an apartment door (reminiscent of Jack
Lemmon's similar aspiration in "The Prisoner of Second
Avenue") and a sex therapy session that could have come
out of the Bob Newhart TV show, featuring Cynthia Nixon as
a nymphomaniac.
"The Out-of-Towners" is the second script adapted by the
pen of Marc Lawrence, whose "Forces of Nature" was
released just weeks ago. While Steve Martin and Goldie
Hawn are immeasurably more charming than Ben Affleck and
Sandra Bullock, "The Out-of-Towners" gives them little more
than recycled pap for their considerable talents.
Rated PG-13. Running Time: 85 minutes. (C) 1999
Harvey Karten
Scott Renshaw
(Paramount)
Starring: Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, John Cleese, Mark McKinney.
Screenplay: Marc Lawrence, based on the original screenplay by Neil
Simon.
Producers: Robert Evans, Robert W. Cort, David Madden and Teri Schwartz.
Director: Sam Weisman.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (profanity, adult themes, sexual situations, drug use)
Running Time: 88 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS is the sort of film I generally greet with a
generous helping of pooh-poohing. It's a remake (of a Neil Simon-penned
1970 original which I have never seen), it's a vehicle to re-unite two
stars of a previous film (Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, from 1992's
HOUSESITTER), and it's a broad farce cloaked in shallow sentimentality.
THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS often feels like it's working awfully hard to extract
its guffaws, yet it still manages to extract its fair share. The comic
energy of the three lead performers -- including the incomparable John
Cleese -- makes this silly trifle something moderately satisfying.
Martin and Hawn star as Henry and Nancy Clark, a Columbus, Ohio
couple facing a very empty nest. With their youngest son finally moved
away, the Clarks are left alone to wonder whether there's any spark left
in their lives together. A spark-igniter emerges unexpectedly when Henry
-- laid off from his advertising job but afraid to tell Nancy -- heads to
New York for a job interview with Nancy as a last-minute companion. One
re-routed plane, mugging and eviction from a hotel by an officious manager
(Cleese) later, the Clarks find themselves hungry, homeless and stranded
in the Big Apple, sharing their grandest adventure ever.
It shouldn't be a surprise that THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS feels derivative,
and not just because it's a remake. Nearly every element in the film is
designed to have the comfort of the familiar, from the pairing of the two
stars, to Martin's fuming in a PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES scenario, to
Hawn's earnest ditziness, to Cleese's resurrection of Basil Fawlty and
Python-esque cross-dressing. While the script by Marc Lawrence (writer of
FORCES OF NATURE, who appears unusually fond of thwarted travel plans as
an aphrodisiac) pauses occasionally so Henry and Nancy can muse about the
nature of their marriage, it's mostly concerned with set-ups for slapstick
situations and tirades.
At times, those situations and tirades feel forced; you can
practically see Hawn and Martin screaming to the audience for whoops and
applause when they go on their respective rants against someone who gets
their goat. At plenty of others, the actors give the old-fashioned farce
a kick it rarely gets on screen. Martin and Hawn share one classic
hide-in-the-bedroom scene with Kids in the Hall vet Mark McKinney (as a
businessman Nancy attempts to seduce for food), and their chemistry even
makes the personal moments feel somewhat genuine. Even more wonderful is
Cleese, a comic treasure too rarely seen. He may be able to do smiling
misanthropes like his character here in his sleep, but he still sends a
charge through THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS every moment he's on screen. Cleese's
scenes are reason alone for comedy fans to spend an hour and a half with
this film.
I do wish THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS had shown more restraint with its
characters, subjecting them to a bit more frustration and a bit less
abject humiliation. It's not a subtle film by any stretch of the
imagination, but there was enough humor to be found in the performers that
we didn't need to see Martin taking a hallucinogenic trip with his pants
around his ankles. You may find a lot of THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS familiar and
foolish; you may also find yourself laughing at it in spite of yourself.
There's something to be said for the way talented professionals can take
predictable material and wring something fresh and funny from it.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 city shtickers: 6.
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Steve Rhodes
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
George and Gwen Kellerman are going through some big lifestyle changes.
The last of their 2 kids just left home, leaving them with only each
other to talk to. In addition, George has just lost his job -- a fact
he's trying to hide from Gwen. "I have absolutely no idea what I'm
going to do with the rest of my life," she confesses sadly over a lonely
dinner with her husband. Although this may sound serious, THE
OUT-OF-TOWNERS, a remake of the 1970 Neil Simon screenplay, is a comedy,
albeit not a particularly funny one.
The Kellermans are played without much chemistry by Steve Martin and
Goldie Hawn, who deliver decidedly subpar performances. George is a
no-nonsense ad executive, and Gwen, who used to be in advertising, is a
hopelessly romantic type. She likes to wear sexy lingerie and light
their bedroom with exotic candles. He likes to blow them out and go to
sleep. Needless to say, their love life isn't.
When they go to New York for his job interview, the trip starts off
inauspiciously with their plane being diverted to Boston. This is
followed by a Cliff's Notes version of PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES that
lands them broke and luggageless in New York.
As directed by Sam Weisman and written by Marc Lawrence, the movie is
full of missteps and bad judgement. Too often in a hurry, few of the
jokes are set up properly. Gwen, for example, plows into the Fulton
Fish market with her car in the type of scene that you've seen a hundred
times before, but it's edited so fast that you're never sure what is
supposed to be funny about it. And when a starving George heads for the
vending machine, you are so sure that it will jam that, when it does,
the result is laugh free.
The story does have a few genuinely humorous moments. Low on blood
sugar, their noses lead the Kellermans to a pile of pastries, but,
before they can partake, they have to join the group hosting the
meeting. It turns out to be a sexaholics group session, full of couples
who confess they can't stop having sex constantly. George and Gwen
accidentally come up with a few revelations themselves at the meeting.
Steve Martin does get to strut his stuff in an energetic sequence set in
Central Park. George is given an hallucinogenic drug, which causes him
to dance and sing to "The Age of Aquarius" as he chases his wife and
other women.
Did I mention John Cleese's performance as the obsequious hotel manager,
who is a secret cross-dresser? He likes to hide in unused hotel rooms
and dance and lip-synch in stiletto heels. He seems to have dropped in
from another movie, which isn't much better than this one. If you've
seen the trailers to THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS, you've already seen most of the
best parts of the story. The rest is just lame padding.
THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS runs 1:31. It is rated PG-13 for sexuality and drug
references and would be fine for kids around 12 and up.
Email: Steve....@InternetReviews.com
Web: www.InternetReviews.com
James Sanford
Like a paper dress or a Bobby Sherman 45, Neil Simon's "The Out of
Towners" is one of those relics of the early 1970s that hasn't
improved with age. Seen today, the Jack Lemmon/Sandy Dennis comedy
about an Ohio couple who suffer almost every conceivable humiliation
during their weekend in New York comes off as a grating one-note bore
that relies entirely on a perceived universal aversion toward NYC and
its residents for its humor.
At least the 1999 version of "The Out-of-Towners" (the original title
was not hypenated, but this one is; go figure) is canny enough to
acknowledgethat attitudes toward the Big Apple have changed
dramatically in the last 30 years. "I only hated New York when it was
hip to hate New York," scoffs advertising exec Henry Clark (Steve
Martin) when his wife Nancy (Goldie Hawn) reminds him how much he
dislikes Gotham.
Lifelong Ohioans Henry and Nancy head east when he's offered an
interview at a prominent Manhattan agency. Their agenda is to fly into
the city, stay overnight, go to the meeting and return home. Of
course, if everything went according to the plan, there wouldn't be
much of a movie.
How much you enjoy this "Out-of-Towners" will have a lot to do with
how many times you can laugh at what amounts to a series of variations
on the same joke. The script by Marc Lawrence (based on Simon's
original) is essentially one minor catastrophe after another - flight
problems, car problems, hotel problems, cab problems, etc. - for Henry
and Nancy to muddle through. Some of these are funny, some are not,
almost all are utterly predictable.
The movie is funniest when it diverges from the woe-is-us concept to
allow Hawn and Martin a little comic breathing room. It's much more
amusing to see Hawn attempt to seduce an L.A. smoothie (Mark McKinney)
or to tell a guy she mistakes for Andrew Lloyd Webber how "Cats" "hit
so home for us" than it is to see her scurrying away from an attack
dog or creating unintentional havoc on a plane. Martin's best moments
come at the beginning and end of the picture, in an airport goodbye
scene with his son and in an amusing homage to Milos Forman's film of
"Hair."
Aside from John Cleese as a wonderfully starchy (at least in public)
hotel manager and a wonderful little joke about a sedan's faulty
navigational system, the rest of "The Out-of-Towners" is uninspired if
not unpleasant. The picture would have had a bit more punch if
director Sam Weisman had any clues about staging slapstick
sequences. The physical comedy here is overblown and clumsy.
Nor does Weisman seem to have had much control over his extras. The
background people in this movie, particularly in the Logan Airport
scenes, often seem to be trying to steal the focus away from Martin
and Hawn. The result is so distracting it's hard to believe nobody
called for a reshoot.
James Sanford
Susan Granger
Susan Granger's review of "THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS" (Paramount Pictures)
Back in 1970, Jack Lemmon and the late Sandy Dennis made this
movie about what went wrong for two midwestern visitors on a business
trip to New York City. Written by Neil Simon and directed by Arthur
Hiller, the misadventure worked because the comedy was firmly rooted
in everyday reality. This new version, far from being a re-make, is a
glossy, flashy star-vehicle for Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin, two
clever sophisticates not even remotely believable as Nancy and Henry
Clark from Ohio. Both Sam Weisman's direction and Marc Lawrence's
script are forced beyond redemption. Looking impossibly young, trim
and beautiful, albeit in soft-focus, Goldie plays Nancy, a middle-aged
woman going through "empty-nest" blues after the departure of her
youngest child (played by Oliver Hudson, her real-life son), while
Steve's Henry is advertising executive who has just been fired. Faced
with an uncertain future in suburbia, they're both edgy, which is why
she decides to tag along when he goes to Manhattan for a job
interview. Immediately, things go wrong. Their plane is diverted to
Boston; their luggage gets lost; they miss the last New York-bound
train; they wreck their rental car in the Fulton Fish Market; they
fall for a street scam and get robbed by a con-man who claims to be
Andrew Lloyd Webber. And that's just the beginning. Reunited for the
first time since "HouseSitter" (1992), bubbly Goldie and resourceful
Steve demonstrate their undeniable talent for physical comedy - and
John Cleese hams it up as a supercilious hotel manager - but no one
can save this painfully strained film from being a great
disappointment. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The
Out-of-Towners" is genial but tiresome 4. It's a feeble downer.
Joe Barlow
THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS
A movie review by Joe Barlow
(c) Copyright 1999
STARRING: Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, John Cleese
DIRECTOR: Sam Weisman
WRITER: Marc Lawrence (based on the screenplay by Neil Simon)
RATED: PG-13
RELEASED: 1999
RATING: *** (out of a possible ****)
Ever have one of those days? I'm not referring to a
mere "bad day"-- we all have those on occasion, and in the
end things usually work out okay. No, I'm talking about the
kind of day where the universe itself seems to be on a personal
vendetta against you; when life flings catastrophe at you like
bread crumbs at a duck pond; when you'd give anything to be
having ONLY a "bad day."
Henry Clark (Steve Martin) isn't merely having one of
those days; he's having one of those *lives*. He no longer
knows how to relate to Nancy (Goldie Hawn), his wife of
twenty-four years. His daughter has dropped out of medical
school to pursue an acting career. He's recently been fired
from his job, although he's afraid to tell Nancy. And his
son Alan (Oliver Hudson, the real-life son of Goldie Hawn)
is about to move to London, which will leave the house empty
except for Henry and his wife... a thought which terrifies
the couple, since they will now be forced to communicate with
each other. So when Henry gets an interview with an advertising
firm in New York City, a land of golden opportunities, he and
Nancy think it may be a sign that their luck is about to change.
They are correct: it's about to get much, much worse.
The trip starts off with a bad omen: their plane is
rerouted to Boston due to heavy fog, an event which will
eventually result in Henry and Nancy arriving in the Big Apple
with no money, no credit, no food, no clothes, no patience, and
no idea how to resolve their predicament. From this moment on,
"The Out-of-Towners" shifts gears into slapstick comedy while a
never-ending string of disasters besets our weary, hungry couple:
Rest assured that anytime Henry or Nancy enter a new locale,
something horrible is about to happen to them. I sighed. Since
the film seemed to be in the process of settling into a rut of
cheap comedic payoff, my expectations plummeted.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the lowest
common denominator: Henry and Nancy came to life on the
screen! I found that against all logic, I was actually
becoming interested in the fate of our two lead characters,
and started cheering for them to triumph over their
circumstances. Credit Martin and Hawn, last seen together in
1992's "Housesitter," for possessing a plethora of screen
chemistry and the ability to rise above a screenplay that has
no sense of restraint. Somehow, their characters find the
time to experience the beauty and pulse of New York, despite
all the wretchedness they're going through. This could be the
reason I liked them so much: I'm dreadfully tired of movies
in which the people do nothing but whine.
Director Sam Weisman ("George of the Jungle") repeatedly
stages the movie's most intimate moments in public places: in
hotel lobbies, on sidewalks, in Central Park, on crowded airplanes,
etc. It's an interesting choice, perhaps intending to reflect an
urban culture in which privacy is a privilege, not a right.
Through Henry and Nancy's public displays of emotion (both good
and bad), we understand and identify with the frustrations of
these two wonderful people. Hawn brings a fiery streak to Nancy,
giving her an impressive dramatic flair (I liked the scene in
which she attempts to seduce a businessman (Mark McKinney) in a
madcap plan to obtain some food), while Martin has imbued the
loveable Henry with the fierce sense of sarcasm he (Martin)
displayed so hilariously in "The Muppet Movie." For example,
during an exchange with an auto-rental clerk:
CLERK: "Our cars are very safe. They practically
drive themselves."
HENRY: "That's great."
CLERK: "Would like you collision insurance?"
HENRY: <trying not to go ballistic> "If the car drives
itself, wouldn't any accident be its fault?"
"Monty Python's" John Cleese is also wonderfully evil in
his extended cameo as Mr. Mersault, a snooty hotel clerk whose
driving passion seems to be making the Clarks' lives miserable.
"The Out-of-Towners" is based on Arthur Miller's 1970
film of the same name, which starred Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis
in the lead roles. I haven't seen the original movie, and have
no idea how faithful this version is to it, but I must admit that
I had a good time. The cast is absolutely wonderful, the dialogue
has teeth, and if the film occasionally borders on absurdity, then
hey, so does life.
"The Out-of-Towners" is marvelous fun, and I laughed both
loudly and often. And how wonderful to see a romantic comedy
that has the guts to cast two middle-age actors in the lead
roles! The way Hollywood seems to make movies, one would think
that all hormones magically evaporate from the human body around
age 35. Kudos to someone for telling it like it is.
****************************************************************
Copyright (c)1999 by Joe Barlow. This review may not be
reproduced without the written consent of the author.
E-Mail: jba...@earthling.net
Joe Barlow on Film: http://www.ipass.net/~jbarlow/film.htm
If you'd like to receive new film reviews by e-mail, please
write to: joefilm-...@listbot.com
Dustin Putman
Directed by Sam Weisman.
Cast: Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, John Cleese, Mark McKinney, Christopher
Durang, Mo Gaffney.
1999 - 90 minutes
Rated PG-13 (for profanity and sex-related humor).
Reviewed April 4, 1999
Based on the 1970 comedy written by Neil Simon and starring Jack Lemmon
and Sandy Dennis, the '90s update of "The Out-of-Towners" contains the
same basic plot, but comparisons pretty much end right there. Although
the film doesn't have what it takes to pull over to the side of comic
brilliance, the movie is fast-paced and enjoyable enough, aided by the
dynamite duo of Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn.
Unhappy Ohio suburbanites Henry (Martin) and Nancy Clark (Hawn) are
suffering through separate mid-life crisises. While Henry is harboring
the secret that he has been laid off from his job and is about to travel
to New York City to be interviewed for a high-profile advertising
position, Nancy is depressed because all of their adult children have
finally left the nest and her relationship with Henry has seriously
dwindled. On the spur of the moment, Nancy decides to accompany Henry on
his trip, and that is the start of a wild, dangerous, and crazy 24-hour
period of hijinx in the city that never sleeps. It's pretty safe to say
that almost every outrageous thing that could happen does happen.
"The Out-of-Towners" has two things going for it and, walking into the
theater, you knew that at least one of them couldn't fail (the
partnering of Martin and Hawn). Martin is one of the great modern-day
comedians (as far as I'm concerned, he is funnier than all of the recent
ones, like Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler), while Hawn is always a bright
and winning presence. Since they both have perfect comic timing, many of
the jokes were bound not to fail, and there are many that are downright
hilarious (on the other hand, a few fall flat). One of the scenes that
gave me the loudest laugh was when Nancy is reading the map to Henry as
they are driving to the city. "You know this upcoming exit?" Nancy asks.
Henry immediately turns off onto the exit. "Well, keep going past that,"
Nancy continues. Very funny. And how about the sequence where they
accidentally walk in on a sexaholics anonymous meeting within a church
and get caught up within the group discussion. These delightful moments
are also thanks to the second reason the film is an overall successful
venture, and that is Marc Lawrence's slight, but constantly snappy
screenplay.
In a memorable supporting role, John Cleese plays the manager of a ritzy
New York hotel who gets involved in the couple's plight and is
discovered later on by Nancy dancing around a hotel room in women's
clothes and stiletto high heels. Cleese has some subtly amusing moments,
particularly one in which, while in the hotel's lobby, he stops for a
second to admire a customer's outfit. Meanwhile, mayor Rudy Giuliani
appears in a cameo and could have been used to fabulously zany effect in
one of the film's key scenes, but is wasted and thrown to the wayside.
Inevitably, through all of the various mishaps that occur, Henry and
Nancy start to come to terms with their marriage and begin to fall in
love with each other all over again. It may very well be predictable
(and it is), but it is the high energy of Martin and Hawn that keeps
this light-as-a-feather comedy afloat. I hope they work together again
real soon.
- Copyright 1999 by Dustin Putman
Http://hometown.aol.com/FilmFan16/index.html
Jon Popick
I can understand why Hollywood remakes popular films of yesteryear, but
1970’s The Out-of-Towners, starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis, is not
liked by a lot of people. I always thought that it was a good film and
even keep a copy of it in my permanent video library, but even I would
not have picked it to alter.
Since the original film was a precursor to the superior Planes, Trains &
Automobiles, why not get Steve Martin to play the male lead? I’ve got
no problem with that (except they changed his name from “George” to
“Henry”), but Goldie Hawn? At what point did she turn into Carol
Channing? Plus, the best part about the original was Dennis’ repeatedly
whining her husband’s name over and over and over again. Hawn spends
too much time trying to be a sexpot. Goldie, you’re sixty. Give it up.
Martin and Hawn (Housesitter) play Henry and Nancy Clark, two suburban
Ohio parents that have just herded their last child out the door and
find themselves alone, in an empty house, with nothing to do but bicker.
Nancy is unaware of the importance of Henry’s upcoming job interview in
New York City, because he has recently been fired but hasn’t had the
guts to tell his wife. The trip, of course, is a disaster. They end up
in Boston when New York is fogged in, they miss a train, they rent a
car, they get mugged, and so on and so on. They also make the mistake
of skipping the airline meal and then stagger through the rest of the
film hungry. Now that’s humor!
If it weren’t for Martin, The Out-of-Towners would be pretty unbearable,
and John Cleese (Monty Python) adds some laughs as an uptight hotel
manager. When the picture ended (predictably at the 90-minute mark),
this old guy sitting next to me hoped aloud that they would show
outtakes during the credits. I pointed out to him that we been watching
them for the last 90 minutes. (1:33 – PG-13 for some mild language and
Hawn in low-cut lingerie…Oh, my God – I’m blind!)
Eugene Novikov
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/outoftowners.html
Member: Online Film Critics Society
** out of four
Starring Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, John Cleese. Rated PG-13.
A sitcom is neatly defined as a situation comedy, which means that we laugh
at the situations that the characters get themselves into and, perhaps, how
they get themselves out of the situation, but that is all. The
Out-of-Towners, then, is nothing more than a sitcom. This is actually a
remake of a 1970 Neil Simon comedy, and that film, starring Jack Lemmon was
appropriate and entertaining (and even appropriately entertaining).
Unfortunately director Sam Weisman and screenwriter Marc Lawrence decide to
go for less laughs and more sex in their inadvisable retread. Thankfully The
Out-of-Towners stars two people who are very capable of rising above their
screenplays, those being Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. They play a husband
and wife who come to New York from Ohio for said husband's job interview and
have everything go wrong that possibly can. Let's see... their plane gets
diverted, they get on the wrong train, their luxury sedan starts speaking
French, they nearly fall off a hotel marquee (don't stop, just keep reading),
their credit card is maxed out... I won't ruin the experience for you by
mentioning all of the many other things that happen to this poor couple, but
you get the idea.
Not only that, but The Out-of Towners also decides, for motives that remain
unclear to me to this point, to be a study of a marriage in crisis (something
the original wasn't). That certainly provides for more than a few moments of
"Aaaaaaw" sweetness but it intercuts more moments of "Eeeeew" schmaltz.
Either way, whether its filmmakers realize this or not, The Out-of-Towners
was written directly for the small screen. The screenplay screams sitcom
because it gets its characters into a compromising situation (such as being
the unwitting participants of a Sexaholics meeting) and simply says "Funny,
no?" In a half- hour tv show this is ok. From a movie we expect more. Last
year the Farrelly brothers surprised us all by always taking their gags a
step further than we would expect. Doing that in The Out-of-Towners would
have made the film a gem.
I would be lying if I said that I did not find at least some of the film
amusing; in fact I thought that some moments were indeed quite funny. When we
see the hotel manager dancing in drag, even though it's not quite as
"Omigod!" shocking in these '90s, we laugh, mostly thanks to John Cleese whom
we will get to in just a moment. Likewise the scene where Hawn's character
gets the bright idea to seduce a single traveler in order to get into his
hotel room and have dinner is damn near hysterical. But there are many more
moments that feel hopelessly contrived, like the aforementioned scene in
which our ill-fated couple is forced to escape from a hotel by climbing down
the hotel marquee. Hello? We are in the middle of New York and two weirdos
are hanging 100 feet up in the air making a hotel sign hang lopsided. No one
screams? No one points getting the attention of hotel employees? And anyway,
what idiot would climb down a hotel sign when he or she wants to get away
without attracting attention in the first place?
Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn are both experienced comedians, and it is well
within the bounds of their abilities to take these things and make them
funny. For many of them they do just that. But there is only so far two
actors, no matter how good, can take a screenplay that is nearly devoid of
creativity. This rule, of course, excludes performers as divinely good as,
say, John Cleese who literally saves this movie from oblivion. As the hotel
manager with weird tendencies he is a squealing delight, the one highlight in
a dull production.
Rent the original Out-of-Towners instead. Trust me on this. The remake, star-
studded as it may be, is glaringly sub-par, a reminder that nothing but John
Cleese can rescue from embarassment a movie with a screenplay this pathetic.
©1999 Eugene Novikov‰
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Edwin Jahiel
THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS (1999) * Directed by Sam Weisman. Written by Marc
Lawrence, based on the screenplay by Neil Simon. Photography, John Bailey.
Editing, Kent Beyda. Production design, Ken Adam. Music, Marc Shaiman.
Produced by Robert Cort, David Madden, Robert Evans, Teri Schwartz. Cast:
Steve Martin (Henry Clark), Goldie Hawn (Nancy Clark), John Cleese (Mr.
Mersault), Oliver Hudson (Alan Clark),, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (himself),
et al. A Paramount release. 91 minutes. PG-13
There was a time when it was chic and trendy to dismiss the work of Neil
Simon. I hope that this particular snobbery exists no longer. The man's
output is prodigious, his talent is superior, and his duds are minimal. At
their best, movies scripted by Simon have resulted in great comedies or
mixed-genre films. At their non-best, among the least well received -- even
though it does have its partisans--- is The Out-of-Towners (1970) directed
by Arthur Hiller.
Neil Simon's script is his most unpleasant. Ohio executive Jack Lemmon and
wife Sandy Dennis go on a business trip to New York. Everything goes badly
from the start and escalates without respite. Most of these frustrations,
taken singly or in smaller installments, are all too familiar -- but here
they are so mercilessly and artificially piled up that they reach a level
of cruelty. And a major flaw is that the couple is dislikable, with Lemmon
a grating idiot, from the opening scene on. In this black humor however
are some quite entertaining parts which would make me give the picture a
sadomasochistic grade of C.
Still, I see no reason for a remake of this item, especially the way it is
handled by heavy-handed direction and a bad script that's not Simon's but
based on the old Simon scenario. All my comments on the 1970 opus apply to
the 1999 edition, except that now the couple is no longer dislikable. They
are merely indifferent and without personality.
This time, the Ohioans George and Gwen Kellerman have been more WASPishly
rebaptized Henry and Nancy Clark, married for 27 years. Their daughter has
gone East, to school then to miscellaneous problems. The lachrymose parents
are putting son Alan on the plane to Europe. The nest is empty. Henry, an
adman, is about to leave for a job interview in New York City, but what he
hasn't told Nancy is that he's been fired from his present position.
He boards his plane... and guess who comes in minutes later? Yes, Nancy,
who's decided to come along and who makes a most idiotic appearance. (I'll
spare you details). This is the start of an odyssey for the Clarks. The
plane has to land in Boston, their luggage is lost, they miss the train to
NYC, hire a talking car (sic), mess up directions, crash into a fish
market. Next, they get robbed in the Big Apple. The misadventures of the
moneyless and hungry Clarks hit an endless series of strident lows which
include suspicious people, an S & M hooker, a ferocious Rottweiler, a
sex-therapy meeting in a church, a ride in a holdup getaway taxi, a night
spent alfresco in Central Park where Henry gets booked by cops for indecent
exposure, and more and more. And yet more.
There is a sort of anchoring point. It is the hotel where the reservation
were made. It is lorded over by Manager John Cleese, fawning, flattering,
priggish, imperial, bossy, haughty, and unbearably rude once he finds out
that Henry's hidden emergency credit card has been maxed out (by their
daughter). The hotel is revisited later in ways impossible to sum up.
It's not funny. Viewers who travel a lot could identify with some of the
journey's mishaps but their outrageous accumulation here is neither
surreal (as in a Laurel and Hardy movie) nor real. If you got involved in
this film and its protagonists you might factually feel pain -- which, in
any case is a no-no in farces where you have to keep your distance and
laugh in the knowledge that all this couldn't really be. But this movie
loses you on both sides. You don't get involved and you don't get amused.
Just bored by this incessant overkill.
Much of this is tasteless, crude and coarse. When the couple sneaks into
the hotel bar so as to fill up on freebie snacks, and Goldie Hawn is
approached by a horny traveler, the way she plays along is unlikely, tacky
and unpleasant, as it what follows.
But I'll say this much for Goldie. She's still cute. Never a classic
looker, she's wondrously youthful at 54, exactly the same age as Steve
Martin's. Her secret is between her and her doctors, but the result is
amazing. She was, by the way, in Seems Like Old Times, another Simon movie,
while Martin starred in The Lonely Guy, also directed by Hiller, the
original The Out-of-Towners helmer.
The remake is as mechanical as can be. Its continuity is a mess. One
example. After 24 hours of catastrophes, frustrations, and their longest
night ever, the couple should by all rights smell to high heaven, look
unkempt, filthy, dishevelled. Not so, especially Goldie who is still nicely
coifed and in pressed clothes.
For many viewers critical of the picture, the saving grace will be John
Cleese as Mr. Meursault. Not for me. The overkill extends to his character
which is overloaded, including the fact that Cleese is a
crypto-transvestite, another mechanical gimmick to allow Goldie to
blackmail him. Cleese is patterned, with blinding obviousness, after his
Basil Fawlty in the superb British TV series Fawlty Towers. But that was
then (1975-79) and this now. On television he was the spoof of an
irascible hotel owner. Here he too is on automatic drive as he spoofs a
spoof, something that almost never works.
The few onscreen minutes, at the start, of newcomer Oliver Hudson (as Alan
Clark, the son) are nice and show promise.
" Le mauvais gout mene au crime" (Stendhal)
Edwin Jahiel's movie reviews are at http://www.prairienet.org/ejahiel