Category: 1970s

It was purely coincidence that I grabbed another Neil Simon work after watching The Odd Couple II. This one has a similar issue that the schtick had really funny parts (it even had me comparing it somewhat to Clue), but when there were attempts at building a story, the whole thing feel apart and was just mind bogglingly confusing. The cast were quite dedicated to the parodies they were portraying with Peter Falk as the namesake detective and Louise Fletcher, Stockard Channing, Eileen Brennan, Ann-Margret, Madelyn Kahn, and Marsha Mason all playing different love interests.

As an attempt to flesh out the story of the classic country song of the same name, this film has some highly questionable messaging on sexual identity. The teen leads’, Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor, performances are very earnest and they play well off of each other. The Mississippi setting and even the accents are fully realized and consistent, though I do question a bit how accurate some of the happenings were to the South in the 1950s.

Thank god for Paul Newman. The plot of these Harper films are so convoluted and would be worthless without him. Of course, I would not be watching them if he weren’t the star. In this one, we have our private eye travelling to Louisiana in order to investigate who is blackmailing an ex-fling of his (played beautifully by Joanne Woodward). While down there, he instead gets drawn into intrigue involving an oil magnate and a missing account book. There is a drawn out climax in a pool of sorts and a young Melanie Griffith overacts with a poor Southern accent.

The Snoop Sisters may technically be considered a television show, but since I’d love for more people to be exposed to their delightfulness, I’m including them here. The series was included as one of the NBC Mystery Movie programs that included a number of mystery series such as Columbo and each ‘episode’ is over an hour long. The Snoop Sisters stars Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick as a pair of elderly sisters, the former a prolific, mystery novelist and the latter a widow who wrote the dictation for the novels. Of course they are drawn into various stories of intrigue because of their mystery connection. The sisters are delightfully amusing and make the five films completely worth their time. The series also features the likes of Bernie Casey, Vincent Price, Alice Cooper, and Paulette Goddard in her last role.