1980 Week: Foolin’ Around

          Your ability to enjoy Foolin’ Around depends entirely upon your willingness to accept a young Gary Busey as a romantic lead. Still in the afterglow of his Oscar nomination for The Buddy Holly Story (1978), he’s at the apex of his affability and talent here, so he delivers punchlines well enough and infuses dramatic scenes with real feeling. Yet he’s still Gary Busey, a massive galoot with possibly the world’s largest teeth and more than a little glint of madness in his eyes. Watching him romance delicately pretty Annette O’Toole, it’s difficult not to fear for her safety, especially when they’re making out in the back of a panel van. Still, it’s only fair to attempt watching this movie with 1980 eyes, before the more extreme aspects of Busey’s public persona took root. Directed with his usual indifferent professionalism by Richard T. Heffron, Foolin’ Around is a slick piece of work, benefiting from fine production values, glossy photography, and terrific supporting players.

          The action begins at a college in Minnesota, where Oklahoma boy Wes (Busey) shows up for his first year of studies. Seeking part-time work, he signs up for an science experiment overseen by fellow student Susan (O’Toole), and he falls for her almost instantly. She declines his advances because she’s engaged to golden-boy businessman Whitley (John Calvin), who works for the company founded by Susan’s grandfather, Daggett (Eddie Albert), and operated by her mother, Samantha (Cloris Leachman). Over the course of the story, Wes draws Susan into an affair that threatens her impending marriage. While Samantha tries to prevent Wes from seeing Susan, he finds an advocate in Daggett, who likes Wes’ heartland gumption.

          Not a single frame of Foolin’ Around will surprise anyone who’s ever seen a romantic comedy, but the movie goes down smoothly. Busey is likeably upbeat, O’Toole is wholesomely sexy, sunny tunes performed by Seals and Crofts enliven the soundtrack, the story moves along at a brisk pace, and colorful vignettes add novelty. A young William H. Macy plays a shifty used-book salesman, Albert and Leachman deliver nuanced work despite playing clichéd roles, and Tony Randall gives a weird performance as Samantha’s vulgarity-spewing butler. (Randall seems like he’s in a totally different movie.) Lest all this praise give the wrong impression, Foolin’ Around disappoints as often as not, thanks to insipid physical comedy on the order of crotch hits, a hang-glider ride, and a sequence spoofing Rocky (1976). About the highest praise possible is that it’s a palatable flick for viewers able to groove with the Busey of it all.

Foolin’ Around: FUNKY

Smile (1975)

          Several unique talents operating at the top of their respective games converged for Smile, a wicked satire of American values viewed through the prism of a second-rate beauty contest. Skewering ambition, competition, consumerism, hypocrisy, vanity, and other unbecoming qualities, the movie achieves a fine balance of humor and pathos while juxtaposing absurd situations with believable characterizations. The project’s key players include screenwriter Jerry Belson (a TV veteran doing some of his best-ever work), director Michael Ritichie (in the middle of a hot streak that included 1972’s The Candidate and 1976’s The Bad News Bears), and actor Bruce Dern. Though normally cast as psychos, Dern plays a normal character here, channeling his natural intensity into the fierce characterization of a small man grasping for social position. His terrific performance sets the pace for an eclectic cast including such veteran character actors as Geoffrey Lewis and Nicholas Pryor, plus newcomers Colleen Camp, Melanie Griffith, and Annette O’Toole. (TV beauty Barbara Feldon, of Get Smart fame, contributes a rich supporting performance as a contestant-turned-coordinator.)

          Ritchie films the story somewhat in the style of a Robert Altman movie, with lots of intermingled storylines revolving around the central event of the American Miss Pageant, so the movie winds through backstage politics, onstage disasters (some of the “talents” the contestants display are anything but), and the funny/sad melodramas of characters’ private lives. At the center of the story is Big Bob (Dern), a used-car salesman with way too much of his identity invested in the role of head judge. He spends the entire movie trying to hold the pieces of his life together even as the various illusions upon which his existence is predicated fall apart; his dissipation is an arch but effective metaphor representing the way some people blindly pursue the American Dream. O’Toole, appearing in her first major film role, personifies the other end of the spectrum—a cynical operator who’s learned the ways of the world at a young age, thanks to years of having men ogle her curves. (O’Toole’s character offers less experienced contestants such advice as using Vaseline to lubricate the mouth during hours of endless smiling.)

          Although Smile isn’t purely a comedy, since many passages of the picture are so pathetic that they’re more sad than funny, the picture works equally well as a romp and as a rumination. The spectacle of coaxing teenagers onto a stage so they can pretend viewers are interested in their ideals and skills—when, really, the name of the game is peddling flesh—is a fine proxy for the filmmakers’ observations about the avarice hidden behind American can-do attitudes. No surprise, then, that Belson’s script was nominated for a WGA Award, or that Smile was revisited for a new medium in 1986, when a musical based upon the film debuted on Broadway.

Smile: GROOVY

One on One (1977)

          A charming underdog drama starring Robby Benson, the ’70s teen heartthrob with boyish features and impossibly blue eyes, One on One depicts the journey of Henry Steele, a small-town hoops star who discovers the complexities of the wider world when he’s recruited to play ball at a Los Angeles college. The story tracks Henry’s conflict with hard-driving Coach Moreland Smith (G.D. Spradlin), who becomes convinced Henry can’t make it in the big time, and Henry’s romance with sexy graduate student Janet Hayes (Annette O’Toole), who slowly realizes Henry is more than just another dumb jock.

          Co-written by Benson and his father, Jerry Segal, One on One is a perfect vehicle for its young leading man, because the story is as unassuming and warm as Benson’s onscreen persona. A brisk prologue establishes that Henry’s been groomed since childhood for basketball greatness, and the minute he pulls into LA, it’s painfully evident that he’s a corn-fed rube because he gets hustled by the first pretty girl he meets, a chipper hitchhiker (Melanie Griffith) who rips off all his cash.

          Once Henry arrives at school, he’s overwhelmed by the scale of everything—the size of the sports arena, even the size of the other players—and then, when he becomes infatuated with his tutor, Janet, he’s totally flummoxed. Henry’s resulting shaky performance on the basketball court alienates Coach Smith, who tries to intimidate Henry into quitting. Enter, as the saying goes, the love of a good woman, and soon Henry’s got the motivation to fight.

          Although there’s nothing groundbreaking in One on One, it’s a thoroughly watchable movie. The script balances Henry’s journey from wide-eyed innocent to toughened-up competitor with sweet romantic interludes and easygoing comic vignettes, like Henry’s close encounters with Coach Smith’s sex-crazed secretary, B.J. Rudolph (Gail Strickland). As directed by reliable journeyman Lamont Johnson, the movie is paced comfortably, and the sports scenes have effective documentary-style realism.

          The cast is filled with several vivid actors who make an impact thanks to well thought-out characterizations; for instance, Hector Morales plays a cranky campus groundskeeper in one amusing scene. The main focus is, of course, the love story, and that works well: O’Toole’s tough-cookie vibe makes a strong counterpoint to Benson’s puppy-dog routine. And while it’s true that Benson’s character makes a couple of abrupt leaps, Henry’s overall arc feels credible, and Benson is, as O’Toole describes him the picture, adorable. Spradlin, probably best known for his small roles in important movies like Apocalypse Now (1979), meshes domineering cruelty and obsessive focus, bringing a militaristic, weakness-will-not-be-tolerated quality to his role.

          The fruity songs by soft-rock duo Seals & Crofts that punctuate the soundtrack might be too precious for some viewers (particularly since the lyrics comment on the action a bit too specifically), but the music adds to the picture’s evocative snapshot of a particular moment in time. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

One on One: GROOVY