MIXED COMPANY.
US, 1974, 109 minutes, Colour.
Barbara Harris, Joseph Bologna.
Directed by Melville Shavelson.
Melville Shavelson has written and directed many folksy American comedies which we find amusing, but which American audiences could well find hilarious. The film belongs to this style and is enjoyable. However, it tackles US racial themes (the 'mixed' of the title), blacks, Indian and Vietnamese orphans being adopted by a 'typical' Phoenix, Arizona family. Cute at times, full of sentiment and optimism, the film articulates for the average audience many consequences of racial integration in suburbia. Barbara Harris as the mother is by turn pressurising and charming, Joseph Bologna rightly exasperated and loving ? and the children are nice, nasty and cutely precocious. Nice, topical social comedy.
1. Audience expectations from the title? Its meaning with relation to the children?
2. The quality of the comedy impact of the film? The social impact? The blending of the two?
3. How American was this film? For American audiences, for non-American audiences?
4. The capacity for sentiment, cuteness in such American comedies? The strength in the film's being topical? The credits sequences?
5. For what audience was this film made? For what effect? message, both?
6. How well did the film use the styles of American domestic comedy? The presentation of a family and its ups and downs, the details of the house, life in the suburbs, the American emphasis on sport? The background of Phoenix. Arizona for this racial comedy?
7. How were the Morrisons an ordinary American family? Pete and his explanation of his New York background? His marriage, children, sport, marriage crisis? Kathy and her need for affection, love for children, social work? Their relationship and their children? Kathy's use of blackmail for her own way? Their relative capacities for handling difficult situations? A good family for adopting children?
8. The presentation of the needs of the average American family? American ideas and sense of heritage. pride? The reaction to the race questions? To the Blacks, Vietnamese orphans, Indians? How well were the three situations presented?
9. Comment on the children's reaction to their adopted brothers and sisters. What did this reveal about possible racial attitudes?
10. Fred and the 'chip on the shoulder' negro? How typical of the American negro situation? Being spoilt by the white family? His still being unmanageable? The reaction to violence, the need for affection, the desperate leaving and coming back? How attractive a boy was Fred? The contrast with Quan? The quiet orphan, frightened by violence, noise? Her taking of the jewellery? Joe and the Indian situation in the United States? The satire of his being frightened by television?, westerns?
11. The baseball background of the film? Was it overemphasised? Enjoyably integrated into the film? The children and their reaction to baseball? The baseballers and their American attitudes to race questions?
12. The happy sequences with the family? The mother and the father coping? The Hallowe'en night?
13. How important, dramatically, was the Hallowe'en crisis? For Quan, for Freddie? The mad chase with the car? Pete's explanation of his own background at the Police Station? The possible reconciliation with Freddie?
14. How realistic was the ending? The sentiment, the humour, the right kind of feeling for a popular audience?
15. How much wisdom was there in understanding contemporary race questions? How much insight into human nature and people's character? An optimistic look at racial integration and people's capacity for change?
