Foul Play (1978)

 

Foul Play is a bit of a cross between a romantic comedy and a thriller/suspense movie featuring repeated references to (much better) Hitchcock movies. It’s also a bit of a mess, frankly. Goldie Hawn plays Gloria Mundy (the pun on “worldly glory” doesn’t get used to full advantage here), a librarian who is recently divorced. Thanks to encouragement from a friend who tells her to take more chances in life, the normally shy Gloria picks up a guy whose car has broken down. Scottie, the guy she picks up, hides a roll of film in a pack of Marlboro cigarettes that he leaves with Gloria, promising to meet her for a date later that night. A group of criminals wants the film, and after killing Scottie, they make Gloria the object of repeated kidnapping attempts and apartment break-ins to retrieve the film. Chevy Chase plays a police lieutenant who helps her (and who falls in love with her, of course – this is a Hollywood film, after all). However, he is initially unable to be much help because the bodies keep disappearing. It takes a while before he and the other police and even Gloria’s friends begin to believe her. The film is set in San Francisco, much like Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and the climax occurs at the San Francisco Opera House, circumstances similar to the climax of The Man Who Knew Too Much. Foul Play never reaches the artistic heights achieved by any of the Hitchcock films it references, though. In fact, Mel Brooks does a better and funnier homage in his High Anxiety from 1977, just one year earlier. Foul Play doesn’t even restrict its allusions to Hitchcock. In another twist, Chase and Hawn have a rough fast drive through the streets of San Francisco that is reminiscent of the centerpiece chase in What’s Up, Doc? from six years earlier (although that film does it better). The plot unfolds a few clues at a time, and aside from the romantic relationship between Hawn’s and Chase’s characters, it winds up being about some weird, convoluted plot by a group called the Tax the Churches League to kill the Pope during a performance of The Mikado. However, the plot is rather beside the point. It’s the performances here that are key to whatever success the film has. In addition to Hawn and Chase (was he really this cute back then?), the cast includes top-notch actors such as Burgess Meredith at Gloria’s landlord with a rather unbelievable past and some amazing martial arts skills for an old guy, Rachel Roberts as one of the leaders of the Tax the Church League who matches Meredith’s martial arts skills pretty well, Brian Dennehy in an early role as Chase’s police partner “Fergie,” the great Billy Barty as a Bible salesman in a very funny sequence, and character actress Marilyn Sokol as Stella, Gloria’s coworker who’s prepared for any male-initiated crisis (mace, brass knuckles, etc.). However, it’s Dudley Moore who almost steals the movie as Stanley Tibbetts. Hawn’s Gloria picks up Stanley in a singles bar, hoping to escape from her potential kidnappers by hiding out at his place. Stanley, though, thinks he’s about to get lucky and starts revealing some ridiculous “modifications” to his apartment, including a Murphy bed with lights and sound effects and a cabinet with a couple of fully inflated sex dolls. He’s almost down to just his heart festooned boxer shorts before Gloria catches on to what’s been happening while she’s been looking for her potential kidnappers through Stanley’s window. Moore gets two more scenes, one of them in a massage parlor, the other at the opera, and he’s hilarious in each one. He would star in 10 the following year and in Arthur three years later, achieving superstar status. It’s hard to forgive the use in Foul Play of language like “dwarf” or “albino” to describe people, and the portrayal of a couple of Japanese tourists is both unnecessary and teeth-grindingly offensive. I know that these terms and depictions were not as heavily criticized in 1978, but they should have been. And I can’t quite forgive the film’s pretending that the famed Nuart Theatre is in San Francisco since any resident of Los Angeles knows better. Foul Play marked Chase’s first leading role after he left Saturday Night Live for movie stardom and Hawn’s first movie in two years. They do have a fun chemistry, but all I could recall from having seen it in the theaters during its initial release was Barry Manilow’s “Ready to Take a Chance Again” playing over the opening credits as Gloria drives her yellow convertible Volkswagen Beetle along the coastal highway. That was fun to revisit. The rest of the film? Aside from Moore’s standout performance, not as much.

Oscar Nomination: Best Original Song (“Ready to Take a Chance Again”)