Word: melvin
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...time Melvin receives the inheritance, he owns the audience's heart and absolutely no one suspects (as so many did at the time) that Melvin drew up the will himself. When the inevitable horde of lawyers, agents and other thieves descend to help themselves to Melvin's windfall, this ravioli of a man begins to seem like an embattled hero, staving off a greedy throng...
...their drive together, each takes turns looking at the other as if he were crazy. Goldman, who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, keeps Howard poised on the precipice of sanity. One moment he is bleeding. The next he takes on an odd dignity, refusing to sing Melvin's Christmas carol (Melvin sent in the lyrics to one of those companies that writes music to your words.) Eventually Howard relents; upon threat of eviction from the truck, he sings "Santa's Souped-Up Christmas Sleigh...
After Howard leaves and until his will mysteriously arrives, the movie becomes a series of vignettes about Melvin's life. His two wives, daughter and stepchildren develop as characters, but serve more as foils for Melvin's idiosyncracies. Some of the family adventures work well--the Dummar victory on a game show gives a wonderful picture of the event's manic nonsense as well as the Dummars' genuine exultation. Some do not--Melvin and his wife's service as professional witnesses in a Las Vegas marriage factory falls flat. Michael J. Pollard, the diminutive actor who played the sidekick...
...Melvin and Howard concerns a polyester-age noble savage fighting to survive in an unfriendly world. Melvin battles for the title "Milkman of the Month," not so much for the first prize, a color television, but for the recognition. When confronted with a last-minute obstacle to his victory in the contest, he says in protest, "I'm a darn good driver." The moment has a peculiar poignancy; Melvin's hurt is genuine...
...GOLDMAN AND DEMME didn't make him a hero. They don't try to graft any Hero of the American West symbolism onto this resolutely unheroic man; Dummar is no Gilmore, and Goldman is no Mailer. Melvin never gets a cent because the courts rule his will invalid. He faces his defeat with a curious--yet by this time predictable--ambivalence. Melvin says and actually seems to believe that he never had anything, so he's not losing anything. Despite all the lousy hands he has been dealt, Melvin enjoys his life and doesn't see any reason to change...