 Capone 1975  R, 101 min.
Genre: Drama
Director: Steve Carver
Cast: Ben Gazzara, Susan Blakely, Harry Guardino, John Cassavetes, Sylvester Stallone, Frank Campanella, Carmen Argenziano, George Chandler, Royal Dano, Dick Miller
This film is a biography of Chicago mobster Al Capone (Ben Gazzara) and the world of Chicago in the 1920s. Poor, despite the pretty good cast.
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The Flamingo Kid 1984  PG-13, 98 min.
Genre: Comedy / Drama / Romance
Director: Garry Marshall
Cast: Matt Dillon, Richard Crenna, Jessica Walter, Hector Elizondo, Molly McCarthy, Martha Gehman, John Turturro, Frank Campanella, Joe Grifasi, Marisa Tomei, Carole Davis, Janet Jones, Brian McNamara, Fisher Stevens, Leon
When a Brooklyn youth, Jeffrey Willis (Matt Dillon), takes a summer job at a New York beach resort, he is confronted with a glamorous world of which he had no knowledge and must make choices that will affect his life. Among the influences is wealthy car salesman Phil Brody (Richard Crenna) who tries to help Jeffrey. Jeffrey is very impressed by Brody's lifestyle and reputation as a gin rummy champion. Meanwhile, Jeffrey's father Arthur (Hector Elizondo) is upset when Jeffrey takes on airs while enjoying his new lifestyle.
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High Noon, Part II: The Return of Will Kane 1980  TV, 96 min.
Genre: Western
aka: The Return of Will Kane
Director: Jerry Jameson
Cast: Lee Majors, Frank Campanella, David Carradine, M. Emmet Walsh, Pernell Roberts, J.A. Preston, Tracey Walter, Katherine Cannon, Michael Pataki, Britt Leach
Will Kane (Lee Majors) returns to town to find out that the low-down marshal (Pernell Roberts) who replaced him needs to be dealt with.
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Overboard 1987   PG, 112 min.
Genre: Comedy
Director: Garry Marshall
Cast: Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Edward Herrmann, Katherine Helmond, Mike Hagerty, Roddy McDowall, Jared Rushton, Frank Campanella, Harvey Miller, Hector Elizondo
The premise for this so-soer is that a wealthy woman falls off her yacht and survives–with amnesia. It does not work as well as it could.
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 The Producers 1968   N/R, 88 min.
Genre: Comedy
Director: Mel Brooks
Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars, Dick Shawn, Lee Meredith, Christopher Hewett, Estelle Winwood, Renee Taylor, Frank Campanella, Andreas Voutsinas, David Patch, William Hickey, Barney Martin, Shimen Ruskin, Josip Elic
Mel Brooks won the Oscar for Best Screenplay in this film about two characters, Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) and Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), who con people into investing in a non-existent Broadway show: "Springtime for Hitler." Wilder received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. 2 User Reviews
| User Reviews |
| | Parts of this are the funniest movie ever made | 1fatts 03/27/2007 | Mel Brooks is a cannon on the loose. It is his strength and his weakness. The 2000-year-old man sketches with Carl Reiner are classic for Brooks' unpredictable leaps from political humor to burlesque inuendo to bizarre non-sequitur. At his best, he can take your breath away. At his worst, he is a runaway train.
Stand-up comedy benefits most from this kind of wildness; movies suffer most. Movies need plot and structure and discipline.
Brooks' best film, as a work of cinema, is probably Young Frankenstein because Gene Wilder shared writing credit and imposed some order which Mel Brooks simply cannot supply -- see all the shotgun "sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't" humor of "Robin Hood - Men in Tights", "Spaceballs", et al.
But even in a movie that is all over the map (they pretty much run out of central joke and plot in The Producers after the play is a hit), there are a half a dozen scenes that are perhaps the funniest stuff every put on film. Brooks' writing is certainly a major factor, and the other is the casting. Only Zero Mostel was Zero Mostel. He was a life force, a stampede, a landslide. He defined this role . . . and Tevye in Fiddler . . . and Pseudolus in "Funny Thing Happened. . . " Other people may have played his roles, but they were never near the standared. His Max Biolystock is incomparable. His teaming with the young, intensely neurotic Leo Bloom (Wilder), the outrageous Hold Me Touch Me (Estelle Winwood), Kenneth Mars' Nazi, Christopher Hewitt's gay director ("Max, he's wearing a dress."), etc. are the best scenes Brooks has every directed, the funniest filmwork he has ever done.
The first twenty minutes of the film are incomparable. I forgive Brooks all the dead ends and ramblings that may go on elsewhere. I take it as the price we have to pay to be allowed into the near-perfection of the scenes that work.
You can't call youself knowledgeable in comic film if you haven't studied The Producers. |
| | Outstanding | Googleeyes 03/01/2007 | | One of Mel Brooks finest achievements, maybe the best of his achievements. |
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Stage Struck 1958  N/R, 95 min.
Genre: Drama
Director: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Henry Fonda, Susan Strasberg, Joan Greenwood, Herbert Marshall, Christopher Plummer, Pat Harrington Jr., Frank Campanella, John Fiedler, Jack Weston, Daniel Ocko
This remake of 1933's "Morning Glory" is good fare. It follows an aspiring actress as she finds success on Broadway.
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| 1. Capone (1975)
2. The Flamingo Kid (1984)
3. High Noon, Part II: The Return of Will Kane (1980)
aka: The Return of Will Kane
4. Overboard (1987)
5. The Producers (1968)
6. Stage Struck (1958)
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