Director: Blake Edwards
Cast: Bruce Willis, James Garner, Malcolm McDowell, Mariel Hemingway
Have I Seen It Before: Never. Until Circle announced a screening of it this month, I hadn’t even heard of it.
…and you think I would have. Hell, you would think I would have written it.
Did I Like It: It’s a nice, cute little movie. Apparently at release it was met with comprehensively hostile reviews. But it’s the kind of movie that would just happen to be on Turner Classic Movies when I get to a hotel*, and I would be ready to watch just after seeing the cast list.
Willis hasn’t yet found his right movie opportunity (that would be held for later that year) and is ad libbing his way through an episode of Moonlighting that no one else was aware they were in. Garner is as watchable as he ever was. Malcolm McDowell is more menacing than amusing, in a role that clearly couldn’t have been called Charlie Chaplin, as he (spoiler) dies at the end of the movie, and even if he had lived and gotten away with it, would have gotten a cease and desist letter from Lady Oona, but is so obviously Chaplin that one can’t think about it in any other terms. All of the pieces are there, but there are certainly times where the casserole is less than the sum of its ingredients.
The film is at its best when it places its tongue fully in cheek and stops pretending as if this is some genuine history of Tom Mix and Wyatt Earp, and acknowledges that, especially where the movies are involved, there’s going to be at least the gleam of a lie involved. It’s an odd movie to watch right in between Digger (2026) and You Can See Everything (2026).
*Because like some idiot, I got rid of my cable, and can only enjoy the relative randomness of TCM in those times when I can look forward to a complimentary continental breakfast in the morning.