The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 05, 1980, Page Page 11, Image 11
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By David Baker
Gamecock Film Critic
When an actor or an actress has
appeared in a series of successful
motion pictures, he or she is
referred to as being bankable.
Specifically, the term "bankable"
means that one has reached a level
of popularity so high that banks
are willing to put up the money to
4 - ?- 1
Midivc mmuM any nun in wmcn one
wants to participate.
; CURRENTLY, THERE exist
about a dozen bankable stars in
Hollywood (Burt Reynolds, Robert
Redford, Clint Eastwood, Warren
Beatty, Barbra Streisand and Jane
Fonda come immediately to mind,
with Dustin Hoffman, A1 Pacino,
Robert Deniro, Jack Nicholson,
Sally Field and Diane Keaton
rounding out the field), but the
single writer to earn the distinction
of bankability is Neil Simon.
It doesn't seem to matter that
the quality of Simon's scripts over
the past few years has been
erratic, to say the least. Even his
atrocities, like 1978's The Cheap
Detective, invariably end up in the
black.
Given this illustrious record,
there's no reason to believe
Simon's latest, Chapter Two, will
not end up making a pile of money,
even though it's hardly one of his
Detter efforts. The picture strikes
me as being a tired, pointless and
uninspired rehash of The Goodbye
Girl, with a heaping tablespoon of
pathos (in the form of a dead wife)
thrown in for good measure. I must
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Recently widowed James
divorcee Marsha Mason durin,
Neil Simon's 'Chapter Two'4
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concede, however, that the three
people who saw the film with me
enjoyed it and I didn't hear a
disparaging word from anyone
else in the audience, either.
Chapter Two is basically a two
character movie which tells the
story of a recent widower (James
Caan) and a recent divorcee
(Marsha Mason), who meet, fall in
love, and marry in the space of 14 J
days. *
ON THE COUPLE'S"
honeymoon, however, the Caan
cnaracter finds himself obsessed
with the memory of his first wife.
That, of course, comes close to
destroying his relationship with
spouse number two.
Both Caan and Mason (who has
received an undeserved Oscar
nomination) try to keep this '
somewhat somber story afloat j
with humor by spending the
majority of their screen time
spewing forth the usual Simon oneliners
(actually, Caan mumbles
forth most of his quips), but after
about 20 minutes, the company of
two such founts-of-witticism
became too much for me to take.
THE SUB-PLOT, involving an
illicit affair between the people
(Valerie Harper and Joe Bologna)
who introduced Caan and Mason,
doesn't add a great deal of interest |
to the interest to the goings-on,
either.
Robert Moore has directed the
Cann introduces himself to
g a late night phone call in
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picture in a stuffy, stagey manner,
which may account for the movie's
total lack of urgency. All the actors
seem to be searching for some sort
of guidance, but Moore never helps
them out. Many scenes, especially
those taking place in Caan's
reconverted brownstone, looks as
if the action in them was
deliberately being compressed into
a small area in order to ac;
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5 6 Cluster Court
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comodate the camera and where it
happened to be sitting when the
actors arrived on the set.
MARVIN HAMLISCH'S syrupy
score, along with the song "I'm On
Your Side," co-written by
Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager
and performed by Marilyn McCoo,
only add to the movie's contrived
tone.
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Chapter Two is one of the most
disappointing films of the year,
though it's hardly in a class with
true garbage like The Godsend,
Nosferatu and The Visitor. The
problem is that we've already
heard everything the movie has to
say and it's messages are beginning
to wear thin.
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