CRAZY PEOPLE

Dudley Moore in CRAZY PEOPLE Year: 1990 Rating: ***1/2

What's basically Dudley Moore's final leading role in a mainstream (live-action) comedy, CRAZY PEOPLE is better than its reputation, which is hardly anything at all...

A shame since this parody of not just the advertising industry but of one man who decided to be brutally forthright with his ads (basically parodying his own job), including taglines about fat people, scary movies, plane crashes, boxy cars, sexy cars and having sex at luxury resorts...

Dudley Moore in CRAZY PEOPLE with Daryl Hannah

Mostly taking place in a mental institution with an endearingly semi-humorous ensemble of troubled patients liken to THE DREAM TEAM, the biggest problem is that CRAZY PEOPLE takes too many detours away from the ads (that his loony friends help him with) and into Moore's romance with older-man's-fantasy Daryl Hannah, always a good actress but their relationship is contrived and horribly unrealistic... 

From classics 10 to ARTHUR a decade earlier, Dudley Moore passed as an anti-sex-symbol sex-symbol... however, at this point he could be her uncle or father and yet, when CRAZY works it works pretty well, overall an enjoyable time-passing flick you can watch again and again... if only the director (Moore's buddy Tony Bill) stuck closer to the actual theme linking borderline insanity with complete and total honesty.

Title for CRAZY PEOPLE

Dudley Moore in CRAZY PEOPLE

Dudley Moore in CRAZY PEOPLE with Daryl Hannah and Bill Smitrovich

Dudley Moore in CRAZY PEOPLE with Daryl Hannah and Bill Smitrovich

John Terlesky in CRAZY PEOPLE with Daryl Hannah

David Paymer in CRAZY PEOPLE with Danton Stone and Bill Smitrovich

WHOLLY MOSES

year: 1982

cast: Dudley Moore, Laraine Newman, James Coco, Richard Pryor, Paul Sand, John Ritter

rating: ***

I like this much better than "History of the World Part 1", the Mel Brooks spoof about the Old Testament. While not entirely hilarious the characters are interesting enough to carry things along. Dudley Moore is a guy on an Israel bus tour which then takes a lunch break. He and new found friend Laraine Newman find a cave and some ancient scrolls, and Moore reads about an infant who, while floating down stream in a tiny ark, is pushed aside by another infant in another tiny ark... this luckier more wily infant reaches destiny first, and he's Moses... while the other baby floats further downstream, is raised by a poor family, and as an adult (Dudley Moore) chisels pagan idols with his father (James Coco) who's posing as his slave (guilty for having gotten rid of him). As the story continues Moore is thrust into various situations following the Bible including Sodom and Gomorrah, the Burning Bush, etc., and Newman is his love interest. The lightly amusing, flowing storyline and the bevy of "special guests" (Richard Pryor, John Ritter, Dom Deluise, and many others) make for a watchable, time-passing parody.

ROMANTIC COMEDY

title: ROMANTIC COMEDY

year: 1984

cast: Dudley Moore, Mary Steamburgen

rating: *1/2

I like Dudley Moore but how did he become a sex symbol? It seems in most of his movies in the early eighties he's playing a character who every woman on earth is dying for. I see a short funny guy with a penguin nose. And not only does he play characters who woman love, but the woman mention how "cute" he is. But when Burt Reynolds or Cary Grant are in their romantic comedies, no one really HAS TO say they're good looking. Anyway, this movie again centers on Moore as a forty-something guy going through a mid-life crisis who woman all adore. He's a playwright who's lost his touch and his partner, and gets a new partner in young budding Mary Steamburgen. They write a few plays, some hit, some miss. Mary ends up in love with Dudley, things get weird, and... oh it's just a lot of dialog and really no point at all.

10

year: 1979

cast: Dudley Moore, Julie Andrews, Bo Derek, Dee Wallace, Brian Dennehy, Sam Jones

writer/director: Blake Edwards

rating: ***

Bo Derek is to this movie what the shark was to JAWS. You see her a few times in the build up and then a lot at the end. A few differences: when Bo's part of the story, the beautiful woman who "completes" the fantasies of songwriting middle aged "George" played by a somewhat buried lead Dudley Moore, things go downhill. Most of this Blake Edwards iconic film belongs to Moore and his subtle physical humor, and is a laidback mesh of clever lines and mellow wit, and the usual apt direction by Blake Edwards, the Hal Ashby of humor: who seems to let things happen on their own accord. If expectations are for Bo running on the beach (like the famous poster): you don't see her much: but there's a lot more to this movie than a perfect "10", it's more about the number "42", the age of the protagonist, and what he goes through to survive it.

UNFAITHFULLY YOURS

title: UNFAITHFULLY YOURS

year: 1984

cast: Dudley Moore, Natassja Kinski, Armand Assante, Albert Brooks

rating: *1/2

The three lead love-triangle driven characters (Dudley Moore, Natassja Kinski and Armand Assante) are running around like chickens with heads cut off, trying to update Preston Sturges (who wrote films in an era when actors always ran around like headless chickens, yet it worked) but to no avail. Hemingway wrote "Never mistake motion for action". I didn't. There was so much going on, I was bored silly. Even Albert Brooks, as Moore's "voice of reason", was completely wasted.

LOVESICK

title: LOVESICK
year: 1983
cast: Dudley Moore, Elizebeth McGovern, Ron Silver
writer/director: Marshall Brickman
rating: **

After "10" Dudley Moore appeared in a string of romantic comedies, and this outing is one of them. Written by "Annie Hall" collaborater Marshall Brickman, this is another "nervous romance" but has little to no charm or purpose. It's hard to believe gorgeous Elizebeth McGovern would be smitten with the dwarfish Moore, as a New York shrink, or Ron Silver, who plays her actor boyfriend. The acting is decent but you'll find yourself sleeping on the couch halfway through. Camoes by Alec Guinness (as the ghost of Freud), John Huston and Wallace Shawn add little to nothing overall.