Amusing Steve Martin romp from his early golden era (which stopped for me abruptly at the super-schmaltzy "Parenthood") which while it raises a lot of smiles and, yes, a few belly laughs, misses out on the hurt-your-sides invocations of "Roxanne" and especially "The Man With Two Brains" Here Steve surrenders himself to the most ludicrous plot since, well, "The Man With Two Brains" and has a ball particularly with the physical humour of the piece (I'm sure you can imagine). Perhaps the reason it doesn't quite match up to "Brains" is that the verbal humour is less dexterous, possibly attributable to the fact that Martin wasn't the writer of the piece. That said, there are funny scenes a plenty, particularly the courtroom scene where Edwina takes over and the first bedroom scene with Victoria Tennent (again where Edwina takes over!). Lily Tomlin, whilst less funny with the physical humour (not unnaturally given that most of her scenes are played reflected in mirrors of various shapes and sizes) is a fine comic foil for our hero, although you never really doubt that she has a heart of gold underneath her cold heart exterior. After literally, all the horse-play is over, they all end up happily ever after and he gets the girl, as so many of Martin's early comedies do, no doubt deliberately reminiscent of course of the early B & W comedies of Chaplin, Keaton etc. What a shame he got serious in his older age (c.f. Woody Allen). Give me obvious laugh-fests like this any day, especially thinking of some of the turkeys he's served up in the last few years...
