Movie Movie

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Movie Movie

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Stanley Donen
Produced by Stanley Donen
Written by Larry Gelbart
Sheldon Keller
Starring George C. Scott
Trish Van Devere
Red Buttons
Eli Wallach
Barry Bostwick
Harry Hamlin
Barbara Harris
Music by Ralph Burns
Cinematography Charles Rosher Jr.
Bruce Surtees
Editing by George Hively
Studio ITC Entertainment
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release dates November 1978 (1978-11)
Running time 105 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Movie Movie is a 1978 American double bill directed by Stanley Donen. It consists of two short films, Dynamite Hands, a boxing ring morality play, and Baxter's Beauties of 1933, a musical comedy, both starring the husband-and-wife team of George C. Scott and Trish Van Devere. A fake trailer for a flying-ace movie set in World War I (also starring Scott) is shown between the double feature.

Barry Bostwick, Red Buttons, Art Carney and Eli Wallach also appear in both segments, with Harry Hamlin, Barbara Harris and Ann Reinking featured in one each. The script was written by Larry Gelbart and Sheldon Keller.

Plot summary

At the start of the film, George Burns tells us that we are about to see an old-style double feature. In the old days, he explains, movies were in black-and-white, except sometimes "when they sang it came out in color."

Dynamite Hands

Joey Popchik, a young man from a poor family, dreams of one day becoming a lawyer. His sister is losing her eyesight, so he becomes a boxer to raise the money to have her cured. Along the way, he gets seduced by fame and fortune, and runs afoul of a crooked boxing manager. In the end, his sister is cured and Joey, so that "poetic justice could be served," races through law school to become the prosecutor who puts the villain behind bars, spouting corny courtroom aphorisms such as "a man can move mountains with his bare heart."

Baxter's Beauties of 1933

Legendary theatrical producer Spats Baxter learns he's dying. To support the daughter he's never known after he's gone he plans to create one last Broadway smash. Kitty, a young ingenue with dreams of performing on Broadway arrives to audition. Baxter's accountant is at heart a genius songwriter. Baxter's star, Isobel Stuart, is a spoiled actress who almost destroys the entire production with her drunkenness and reckless spending of the show's money. In the end Kitty must go on in Isobel's place. Kitty becomes a star, and learns that Baxter is her long-lost father. As the curtain falls, a dying Baxter tells her, "One minute you're standing in the wings, the next minute you're wearing 'em."

Cast

Release

In the theatrical release, as George Burns leads us to expect in the film's prologue, Dynamite Hands and the mock film trailer were in black-and-white, while the musical Baxter's Beauties of 1933 was in color. Some home video editions featured a colorized version of Dynamite Hands. (Actually, this part of the feature was filmed in color, but shot and lit with the expectation that it would be printed in black and white, as it was in theaters and in some TV showings, where it reveals a rich palette of monochrome hues.)

Awards

Movie Movie earned three Golden Globes nominations, for Scott, for Hamlin and for Best Picture / Musical or Comedy.

Gelbart and Keller won the 1979 Writers Guild of America award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen.

References

    External links

    Films directed by Stanley Donen
    1940s
    1950s
    1960s
    1970s
    1980s
    1990s
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