A FINE MESS
US, 1986, 90 minutes.
Howie Mandell, Ted Danson, Richard Mulligan, Stuart Margolin, Paul Sorvino, Maria Conchito Alonso, Emma Walton, Jennifer Edwards
Directed by Blake Edwards.
A Fine Mess is an ominous title at the best of times. Critics were not slow to use it on this Blake Edwards-written and directed comedy. For 30 years, Blake Edwards has written and directed many comic farces including The Great Race as well as the many Peter Sellers films, including the Pink Panther series and The Party. He also made such films as 10, S.O.B.
This film is a star vehicle for television comedians, Howie Mandell and Ted Danson. Ted Danson, of Cheers, has had more success on-screen with serious roles in The Onion Field and comic roles in Three Men and a Baby. There is also a cast of Edwards regulars including Stuart Margolin and Richard Mulligan as mugging criminals. It is also a family affair with Blake Edwards' daughter Jennifer and his wife Julie Andrews' daughter Emma Walton also participating. The score, as in so many Edwards films, is by Henry Mancini.
The film pays homage to silent films, to Laurel and Hardy and to Damon Runyon style comedies. It is Edwards in his raucous rather than subtle style - which means that for most audiences the film is funny but something of a mess.
1. An enjoyable comedy? The title? Summarising?
2. The films of Blake Edwards, his skill with farce, gags, wit? His use of television comedians?
3. The Damon Runyon style of the plot, farce? The boisterousness and mugging as the source of laughter?
4. Spence and Dennis: as types, (acting and opportunities, waiting at tables) their relationships with women? Chance and opportunities? overhearing the information about the horse? The money? The bet? Their predicament? The thugs and the chasing? Taking the cars, the chase, hiding out? Bets and wins? Ellen and the piano? Claudia's arrival and the emotional entanglement? The brother-in-law and his truck? The police? Puzzo and his relationship with Claudia? The happy ending? The comedy style of Ted Danson and Howie Mandell?
5. Mulligan and Margolin as mugging thugs, relationship with the gangsters, doctoring the horse, the chases, the ups and downs of their misfortunes?
6. Ellen and the piano? Claudia, relationship with Tony, the piano, naked, romance, the ending - and the film career?
7. Puzzo and the overtones of Italian gangsters, wealth, his relationship with his wife, vengeance? the popular theme of the races, the doctoring of the horses and the fixing of the races, local hoods, betting?
8. The background of film and film-making? Temperament etc?
9. The slapstick comedy, the farces, the chases, timing?
10. The spoof on human nature, on Hollywood film characters and styles? The title?
