Peter has made another old-fashioned screwball comedy, which is a hard thing to do. Rob Lowe is cast in the Grant-O'Neal part, wearing (what looks like) the director's own glasses. Lowe is not in the calibre of the other two, naturally, but makes a decent stab at it, marred slightly by too much falling over and bumping into things (I think screwball is screwball and slapstick is slapstick and the two don't mix). There's also somewhat too much plot and too much voiceover, some of which doesn't need to be there at all. I reckon the voiceover was added later and the film would work perfectly well without it.* Still these are small carps against a perfectly executed, lively, very funny and at times subtle comedy replete with repeated gags (tow truck, 'turn right', the girls who keep picking him up) and great stunt driving.
Great cast as usual: Colleen Camp (They All Laughed) brings her offbeat style to the character of the innocent accused, Kenneth Mars is at the centre of things, abetted by daughter Kim Myers (who hilariously falls for Lowe immediately) and Canadian friend Louise Stratten (who Peter sneaks into the proceedings under 'introducing L.B. Straten' (sic)); Jessica James and Ira Heiden are both great fun as Lowe's mum and brother. With George Morfogen as the judge and Linda MacEwen (both TAL alumni) and Harry Carey Jr as the pickup man who comes to stay.
Thoroughly enjoyable; a class act. Written by Max Dickens and Michael Kaplan (in classic way, you have to listen out carefully for some of the lines), shot by Dante Spinotti.
Also loved the courtroom scene which is pure cinema - all we're doing is watching Rob Lowe observe what's happening around him... And the careful staging of actors so they appear in the same frame (Hawks).
* There's mention of it in 'Who the Hell's in it?' in which he refers to it completely unfairly as 'my worst film' and adds that it was 'mangled on top of everything by the producers' - I take it he's not talking about himself... maybe the DVD is a different cut to the one that screened?
In conclusion then, totally underrated film by everyone including the director! He exhibits a 'bounce' in films like this, like Hitchcock had in the thirties, They All Laughed being the prime example. It's a bounce, I tell you.
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