Word: farceur
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...irate hunter -- he displayed the bravura resilience of a born loser. This master thespian could play an existential hero (Duck Amuck), a base canard (You Ought to Be in Pictures), a hard-breathing hoofer (Show Biz Bugs) or a World War II draft dodger (Draftee Daffy). Wily farceur, dynamite showman, he made 126 pictures before retiring in 1968. For years he could be seen only on kiddie TV shows or -- oh, the ignominy of it all! -- commercials. But now he has returned, pretty much in triumph, to the big screen. Daffy Duck in The Duxorcist...
...Heaven Martin essayed nostalgic surrealism; in The Lonely Guy he was a mensch for all seasons; All of Me provided him a tour de force of physical comedy; his turn in Little Shop of Horrors boasted a wondrously manic concentration of energy. By now he was becoming the snazziest farceur, and maybe the most appealing movie comic, of the '80s. Now he had only to try a romantic lead, as if to say, I can do that. Too. Hence Roxanne...
...collapse of the Hart campaign, there is still no coherent account of that Washington weekend that is not subject to bitter contradiction. Judging from the stories of Hart, Broadhurst and Rice, there were enough comings and goings from the candidate's Capitol Hill town house to satisfy a French farceur. But the Herald's initial story, rushed into print to make the late Sunday editions, contended that Hart and his date were spied entering the house alone late on Friday night and were not seen again until they emerged through the rear door on Saturday evening. Not until...
...phew! As played by Kim Basinger, Nadia lacks what farce needs, irresistible nuttiness. She is simply a whiner. Director Edwards (The Party, S.O.B.) is a great farceur, and he has plenty of classic comic conventions to play with: elegant cars and parties to crash, a decorous wedding to subvert. But glum Nadia defeats him. A film promising knockout knockabout comedy finally seems merely knocked...
...Cagney plus Groucho. Pepe is a Charles Boyer with negative sex appeal. And whether in basic black or in period parts such as Robin Hood, Doorlock Holmes and the Scarlet Pumpernickel, Daffy is Everyman--well, Everyduck--on the worst day of his life. He is also the subtlest farceur in pictures...