Word: mandel
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Although he succeeded the redoubtable Spiro Agnew as Governor, Marvin Mandel achieved notoriety of his own in the annals of Maryland corruption. Ten years ago he was stripped of his office after his conviction on charges of mail fraud, which involved taking $380,000 in bribes from five political associates. Mandel served 19 months of a three-year prison term before President Reagan commuted the sentence in 1981. Throughout the ordeal, he maintained his innocence...
There is not much to be said for the other performances, since the other characters are all types, one-note foils for Mandel to play off of. Besides the aforementioned Evil Brother and Idealistic Scientist, there is the Boozing Wife, the Senile Cat Lady, the Crusty Backwoodsman, the Angry Neighbor, the Venal Lawyer, and the Stuck-up In-laws. Walk is basically Mandel's showpiece, and no one is allowed to upstage...
...brother, Lloyd is a hapless straightman, demonstrating his own talent for physical comedy by being a complete klutz. He is at the mercy of both Bobo and his loopy mother (Cloris Leachman). With her deadpan delivery of some of Walk's funniest lines, Leachman almost steals the limelight from Mandel...
...these clever and original lines are isolated moments in a movie that recycles the same gags for as long as possible. Lloyd's cigarette falling out of its holder, Mandel romping through the neighbor's newly poured driveway, or Lloyd shivering so forcefully that he drops his teacup are all funny the first time and less funny each succeeding time...
...movie realizes its potential only when it breaks away from these tired gags and tries something new. The sequence in which Steel loses Mandel in a shopping mall, for instance, is very funny because of the strangeness of the environment and the newness of the situation. Otherwise, the movie hounds the same meager jokes to death. As a result, Walk Like a Man gradually loses its bite...