5 Movies in 5 Minutes: Saving Steve Martin's reputation

It will be hard to miss Steve Martin this weekend, since his new comedy The Pink Panther is being hyped through the roof. A good moment to look back at Martin's career, and looking at his filmopgraphy at IMDB made me realize that the man has been in a lot of really bad and (even worse) really average movies. Movies like Housesitter, Father of the Bride 2, Bringing Down the House, Sgt. Bilko and Mixed Nuts can all be buried in a deep pit somewhere in the desert (maybe somewhere close to those millions of copies of Atari's ET videogame), and nobody would miss them. Since the reviews of The Pink Panther are also rather negative, it would almost make you forget he actually used to make some really good movies. Time to dig out five of those up, then.

Martin got his breakthrough on the big screen with The Jerk, but a later movie of his that I liked even more is Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982, ****). Some might call this movie nothing more than a gimmick, since the whole thing is composed of scenes where Martin is acting opposite footage from classic black and white movies, but it all works rather well. Martin plays a detective in true noir style, trying to unravel a sinister plot, and the more he gets involved, the hairier the situations become that Martin finds himself in. It's at times very funny, at other times really quite gripping, and technologically you really cannot fault this movie. Director Reiner made good choices in what to steal from classics as well, since you see people like Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant and Joan Crawford restored back to their glory days. When I saw this movie when I was a kid, I wondered who all those old geezers were, but now that I am a bit more up to speed with my movie history, watching this movie again is like seeing old friends. The best thing about the movie is probably the fact that the old material is treated with respect and not just used as a gimmick.

To me, the best movies Martin have made are all from the eighties anyway (that's probably a sentence no actor likes to read). The Man with two Brains, in which Martin plays Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, is hilarious the first time you see it, although it does not hold up that well when viewed again, and All Of Me, which thematically is quite close to Brains, is also a comedy where funny is not something to just consider as a word to put on the poster. At this time, Martin was a real star, which meant it was high time for a star vehicle. This came in the form of Three Amigos (1986, ****), in which Martin stars alongside Chevy Chase and Martin Short, two other actors who haven't made funnier movies than in those days. When it came out, it was clobbered pretty badly in reviews, but it was still quite successful, and I still cannot see what is wrong with it. I'll admit that this is a star vehicle in every sense of the word, meaning that everything else in the movie is consider unimportant in the face of the heroes' frolics, but when you have three people who are so at the top of their game as these gentlemen are in Three Amigos, then you can hardly fault them. You could even call the plot of the movie ironic. It concerns a trio of actors, once famous for their roles as action heroes, who are invited to a small Mexican village. The trio think they are called in to perform and sign a couple of autographs, but the people in the village know the guys only from their movies and imagine that they are real heroes. To use an old cliché: Hilarity Ensues when heroes and townspeople discover the mistake, but by then it is already too late. The heroes were needed to help the town get rid of an evil bandit and his henchmen, and this bandit has already surrounded the town and is ready to start some killing. What follows is predictable, but nevertheless a lot of fun. Even though Chase does not do much more than mug in front of the camera and make wisecracks (then again, has he ever done anything else) and Short is annoying in that 'endearing' way we know of him, Martin is genuinely funny and the closest thing to a real action hero.

Following close on the heels of Three Amigos is Roxanne (1987, ****), a movie both funny and charming, and probably the most romantic thing Martin has done. Sure, movies like Housesitter and LA Story are also more or less considered romantic comedies, but Roxanne feels a lot more genuine, mixing the many jokes with bitter sweet and touching moments. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll wonder how on earth they were able to come up with twenty jokes about big noses that were actually really funny. Roxanne, a modern retelling of the famous Cyrano the Bergerac story, sees Martin as Fire Chief C.D. Bales, whose most distinguishing feature is his huge nose. And even though Bales seems like an outgoing guy with lots of friends, the size of his sniffer does make him reluctant when it comes to women. So when the beautiful Roxanne comes to live in his hometown, he does not know what to do. When one of his firemen, who has also fallen for Roxanne, asks him for his help in wooing her, he agrees. To him, this is the only way he can come close to Roxanne, who surely cannot love him! Since the story is so well known, you know in advance what will happen, but this is done in such a fresh and funny way that you will have a blast for the full running time anyway. Especially since the movie is packed with memorable scenes like the aforementioned one in which somebody from outside the city makes a joke about the size of Bales' nose, after which he verbally pummels the bully into submission by telling twenty more jokes about people with big noses that are funnier than his.

To me, though, the best thing Martin has ever done is Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987, *****), one of the funniest comedies in the history of funny comedies, and a movie that makes tears run down my face every time I see it. For me, it's almost impossible to name the funniest scene in this movie, since it's packed with classics, and I don't think either Martin or co star John Candy has done anything funnier since. Martin is Neal, a man trying to get home for Thanksgiving, who finds all sorts of trouble on his way. The weather is so bad that the plane home does not go, the train that should have taken him home instead breaks down and a car that Neil and his fellow traveller Del (Candy) hire goes up in a burst of flames. On top of that, Neil hates Del's guts, and is not too happy that the curtain ring salesmen, stuck in more or less the same predicament as Neil, has decided to tag along. Neil finds Del obnoxious, Del thinks Neil is stuck up, and their continuous banter, coupled with all the trouble the duo run into, makes this an almost continuous laugh fest. If you cannot laugh at this movie, you have to ask the doctor to remove the botox from your cheeks.

Martin ended the nineties with the highly successful Parenthood, and then entered a period of almost a decade of less successful movies. Sure, Father of the Bride was still pretty fun to watch, and most of the other movies Martin made in the nineties had some good moments, but it wasn't until Bowfinger (1999, ****) that Martin finally made another movie that was genuinely funny. In Bowfinger, Martin is the titular movie producer, a man who has never had any real success, but who thinks that the script he found will finally be his big break. He is convinced that, with the right actor in the lead, the movie can be a smash, but problems arise when the star in question, Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), makes it clear he does not want to be a part of Chubby Rain. To solve this problem, Bowfinger decides to shoot the film around Ramsey, shooting the actor during his regular life while he is not aware he is being filmed, manipulating circumstances so that the things happening will fit with the movie. This makes Ramsey, already highly paranoid, into a bundle of nerves, which leads to some immensely funny scenes. Bowfinger is a breath of fresh air after all the high concept comedies Martin had starred in previously, and was also a good showcase of Eddie Murphy still being able to play a really funny role.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Three Amigos, Roxanne, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Bowfinger are all available on DVD. The Pink Panther will open in cinemas in America this weekend, and across the rest of the world in the coming weeks.

Comments

[Chad Gramling]

I'm wiht ya. Steve Martin is often called one of the most brilliant comedians of all time. But he has done some really bad movies. Cheaper By The Dozen was terrible. CBTD 2 was such a horrendous idea, I refuse to watch it. I couldn't stand the original Pink Panther, and just the fact that Steve Martin is in it, doesn't seen to make me any more likely to have any desire to shell out the cash to see it. I'd love it if Martin would get back to doing innovative comedy instead of trying to cash in on the family genre like Eddie Murphy and others.

[Amy]

Hmmmm, I agree and disagree all at once. My husband and son both love The Jerk. I loved Parenthood and think that Steve Martin is really great in the "comedic fatherly" roles.

Father of the Bride 1 & 2 are some of my favorite movies. All of Me with Lily Tomlin was absolutely great too. And, not a Thanksgiving goes by that my husband doesn't insist on the family watching, "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" John Candy's death was such a huge loss to comedy.

I also genuinely liked him in Cheaper By The Dozen, even though I've only seen the movie once and have very little, if any, desire to watch it again. ;o) I guess I just love Steve Martin.

Three Amigos - AWESOME, loved that movie and laughed my rear end off. "Sweet Little Buttercup..." LOL

[fruey (Let's Have It!)]

Hi,

I think you make a pretty good summary of Steve Martin's best moments on film. I haven't seen The Jerk, but I would have ot say there are parts of L.A. Story which I quite enjoyed.

The all-time laughs for me came from All of Me. The fakir Indian guy in that movie stole the show for me though, suddenly understanding that the soul has to go "bakinbol" just made me laugh so much.

You can only be in so many good movies when you're pretty much typecast as a zany comic. Steve Martin has probably been victim of a lack of serious rôles to prove his worth as a straight actor. Somebody will possibly correct me and tell me he has played straight in some obscure movie now.

-Fruey

[Patrick]

Well, I think Martin has done a thing or two with serious roles (Grand Canyon springs to mind) but most of the things he has done were indeed comedies. I think people could be convinced that Martin should be able to play straight roles (he has made some more or less serious comedies where he was not required to mug in front of the camera all the time), but since he has lately been such a big success in zany comedies (the good opening weekend of Pink Panther proving this) I think we will be seeing him in plenty more of those.

Like Chad says, it would be great to see him in something more innovative though, even if it's an innovative zany comedy (like All of Me and more of his earlier work).