Word: swann
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Favorite Year" is 1954, and the narrator is Benjy (Mark Linn-Baker), a junior scriptwriter-cum-gopher on an NBC comedy show. His job is to keep an eye on the show's upcoming guest star, Alan Swann (O'Toole), a faded but still popular swashbuckler whom Benjy idolizes. His task is not an easy one: a man who keeps flasks of 12-year-old scotch sewn into the lining of his coat. Swann has a propensity for appearing on tabloid covers in morally dubious positions...
...Swan dive but comes up playing nothing less than O'Toole. He still has that slightly pathetic, glassy-eyed stare that refuses to acknowledge the presence of either camera or audience. But this performance has a new focus. Rather than underscoring his decline by clinging to heroic roles (as Swann does). O'Toole confronts his age directly and triumphs over it. He emerges rejuvenated from My Favorite Year--reborn, in fact, as an immensely talented comedian, even a better actor (a process that was already evident in the wonderful, underrated The Stunt...
Spindly, pallid, shrewd, vulnerable and yet rather grand, he appears at his sweetly domineering best in My Favorite Year (1954, by the way). The role is that of an Errol Flynn-like movie star named Alan Swann whose swash has buckled to the point where the IRS is forcing him to choose between deportation and a back-tax-paying appearance on a TV comedy program. This show bears a more than coincidental resemblance to Sid Caesar's old Your Show of Shows. The perils it presents to a man whose joints have been vulcanized by excesses of meaningful booze...
...Dying is easy, comedy is hard," Swann intones at one point, claiming this switch on an ancient show-biz truism is an expiring actor's last words, but My Favorite Year's writers and director are sometimes too determined to make it seem as comfortable as possible. The script occasionally ladles warm chicken soup over situations where a spritz in the face would be more appropriate. There are times when Actor Richard Benjamin, making his debut as a feature-film director, is too content with a scene's obvious values to find a handle to twist...
...awkward natural charm of an ingenue. Donnelly, who ran for the 1976 Olympic team, shines as the insecure, driven Tory. And Scott Glenn does equally well as their hard-assed coach who drams of leading a male team with which he wouldn't have to worry about "Lynn Swann getting pregnant or Rocky Bleier forgetting his tampax." It's only unfortunate that Towne didn't leave just this kind of chauvinist mentality in his fictitous locker room, rather letting it lead to a wimpy ending for an otherwise fine movie...