lO characters
in search of a plot
They All Laughed
John Ritter, Audrey Hepburn
Valley River Twin
•'I don’t know if it’s any good,''
said director Peter Bogdan
ovich on the phone last week,
"but I don't know how to make
them any better It came out
exactly as I'd planned it
Bogdanovich's new film,
"They All Laughed.” is a light
hearted game of musical beds
in which bumbling private de
tectives fall in love with their
quarries, secretaries, and just
about anyone else who happens
along
Unfortunately, it just doesn t
work
Bogdanovich, who wrote and
directed the film, is trying to
make a comeback from a series
of flops after a very impressive
start that included successes
like The Last Picture Show,"
What's Up, Doc’" and "Paper
Moon " His current specialty is
the family comedy, and he has a
number of them in the works.
They All Laughed” does a
good job of dealing with a sex
ual theme while maintaining a
PG rating, but that's about the
extent of its success
Hepburn is a wealthy socialite
whose absentee husband has
her followed by Ben Gazzara
With a little doing, Gazzara soon
has Hepburn following him,
along with a number of other
females
Hepburn shouldn't be blamed
for the lack of depth in her
character — all she has to do is
hide behind sunglasses and cry
when she eventually has to re
turn to her hubby. Gazzara. on
the other hand, has a fairly
major part, but his character
remains hidden He has an elu
sive charm with the ladies with
about as much justification as
the guys in the aftershave com
mercials
John Ritter is an unbelievably
clumsy gumshoe in Woody Al
len glasses He falls for Dorothy
'I don't know
if it's any
good ...'
Director
Peter
Bogdanovich
Among the cast of “They All Laughed” are Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, John Ritter, Dorothy
Stratten and half of Manhattan.
Stratten, a young, cutesy, un
happily married sweety (Strat
ten, by the way, was Bogdan
ovich's ex-Playboy Bunny pro
tege who was murdered shortly
after filming by her estranged
husband.)
Surprisingly, these roles
aren't as bad as they sound
Although Stratten's character is
a bit sketchy and cheerleader
ish, the combination of the two
naive sweeties is one of the few
things in the film that actually
works
Onto this basic framework
Bogdanovich heaps extra char
acters (including his secretary,
his kids, his producers and his
assistant), lots of country music
and suggestive little subplots,
evidentally in hope of giving the
audience something more to
look at than two hours of klutzy
detectives following their su
spects around the streets of
Manhattan. It didn't work. In
stead, we still get lots of chase
scenes separated by strands of
a hopelessly tangled plot.
There’s no doubt that Bog
danovich is a talented director,
as is evidenced by his earlier
successes and some of his later
lesser-known works As he says,
"Either you know how to make
movies or you don't. I make
movies the way I like to and
people like them.”
“Critics say I was influenced
by this or that movie, but that’s
all a bunch of crap,” said Bog
danovich. “(One critic) said that
Paper Moon’ was my homage
to Shirley Temple, my homage
to Little Miss Marker.’ I hate
Shirley Temple, and I’ve never
even seen ‘Little Miss Marker.’ ”
.. but I don't
know how to
make them
any better.'
“It’s just that there’s nothing
new under the sun. There’s no
story that hasn't been done a
hundred times before. People
think my movies look like things
from the 30s and 40s because
movies were made better then,
and my movies are made well,”
he said.
Sure, there are some nice
shots in the film, and some cute
situations But "They All
Laughed” lacks two of the basic
necessities for good movies: a
good plot and good character
izations. At one point toward the
end of the movie, all the females
seem to have a secret
conspiracy against the male
detectives. Alas, even this high
ly unbelievable ending is denied
us, and we re left with very little
in the way of an ending at all.
As a result, ‘‘They All
Laughed" can be summed up in
two quotes. Dorothy Stratten
wrote a poem about the movie
for the other cast members,
which ends:
‘‘Now where in this story
Does everything link?
Well, someho. it all makes
sense,
I think. ’
The other quote comes from
Bogdanovich himself: ‘ You
can’t make a good picture every
time.”
Yep
by matt meyer
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