NATIONAL LAMPOON'S MOVIE MADNESS

US, 1983, 89 minutes, Colour.
Peter Reigert, Diane Lane, Candy Clark, Robert Culp, Olympia Dukakis, Mary Woronov, Fred Willard.
Directed by Henry Jaglom, Bob Giraldi.

National Lampoon’s Movie Madness is an oddball film which received very little release. It has three short stories parodying film trends of the '70s and '80s. The first two were directed by Bob Giraldi and the third story by Henry Jaglom (A Safe Place, Can She Bake a Cherry Pie, Always).

The films are in the vein of National Lampooning. The first story concerns personal growth, 'Growing Yourself'. Peter Reigert plays a trendy yuppy who is concerned about growth and orders his wife, Candy Clark, out to find herself. There is satire on his leaving the workplace, opening up a nursery. As wife, however, discovers she is an efficient executive. The children of the family keep disappearing - also out to improve themselves. There-is a moderate amount of humour but, by and large, the theme is laboured.

The second story is a parody of the Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon, Judith Krantz mini-series. An extraordinary amount happens to Dominique Corsair, played well by Ann Dusenbury in about 25 minutes. She moves around the globe extraordinarily and the film uses a time and date technique. Robert Culp enters into the humour as does Titos Vandos and Olympia Dukakis as Dominique takes control of companies, gets revenge on people who hurt her when she was a prostitute, makes international alliances, uses espionage, and finishes up a President of the United States.

The third story, directed by Jaglom, is called The Municipalians and is a satire on the Joseph Wambaugh type of police buddy film with Robby Benson as a naive and excuse-making rookie partnered by a cynical Richard Widmark. Alicia Cook has a short role and Christopher Lloyd is the murdered man. Once again, the treatment is rather too hysterical than humorous but it has the satire on the popular police story.

Apparently there was to be a fourth story with Alan Garfield and Kenneth Mars parodying disaster files but it was omitted.

The idea was much better than the execution.