Trying for Black Comedy, director Jack Smight, in one of his better outings, barely manages jokey/tasteless. (Duds like I’D RATHER BE RICH/’64, AIRPORT 1975/’74 and DAMNATION ALLEY/’77 set an awfully low bar.) Rod Steiger, coming off DR. ZHIVAGO/’65 and IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT/’67, goes for variety with a different accent & disguise for each of his little old lady victims. His serial killing spree keeping one step ahead of that nice Jewish police detective George Segal, still living at home with Mom Eileen Heckart, embarrassed to have a cop in the family. Though she will take a shine to new shiksa girlfriend Lee Remick when she slathers on the schmaltz. Remick, who saw the killer in passing, now a likely victim if Segal can’t get there in time. William Goldman, no dummy he, put out his crap misogynist novel under a pseudonym (see poster), and scripter John Gay doesn’t really try to fix anything. The last act in particular nonsensical. When Remick’s under attack none of the cops think to call the local police station less than a minute away since George can always jump on the subway. Wha? Then the big climax in the bowels of Steiger’s theater proves too much for Smight to suspensefully work out the logistics. Messy as it is, there’s fun to be had in the period location shooting around Manhattan and even more in Segal’s whippet sharp playing at his leading man peak.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: To see how this should look & play, try THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE/’74. OR: From the same year, Mel Brooks’ THE PRODUCERS, weirdly similar, but with the biddies fleeced rather than strangled. You could swap the leads to good effect both ways! Zero Mostel/Rod Steiger; Gene Wilder/George Segal. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/taking-of-pelham-one-two-three-1974.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/producers-1968.html
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: We don’t particularly think of Segal as ethnic looking now, but in 1968, the year FUNNY GIRL came out, handsomeness set off by a less than perfect nose, made him something of a male Barbra Streisand. They're nose-to-nose in THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT/'70.
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