Three years earlier, Neil Simon came out with an outrageously funny spoof of fictional detectives. The most consistently amusing dialog was given to Peter Falk's character, Sam Diamond. This film is essentially a continuation of Sam Diamond's story, except that instead of sending up exclusively "The Maltese Falcon," it incorporates gags from a few other Bogart movies, especially "Casablanca."
Sequels rarely are as effective as the originals, and that's the case here. It's funny, and Peter Falk is as good as ever at doing Humphrey Bogart, but it's not THAT funny. Simon obviously put a lot of work into this complicated plot but the laughs just don't come as fast as they did in "Murder by Death." If Mary Astor used three or four different names in "The Maltese Falcon," her character here (Madeleine Kahn) uses sixteen. The gag is repetitive and doesn't build on itself. And there seem to be entire scenes that go by without a solid chuckle, as in the pointless episode with Ann-Margaret and Sid Caesar.
Sometimes the gags DO work. Some of the women that Falk is involved with insist on telling him the bizarre things they've done with their lovers, and it drives Falk crazy. He doesn't want to hear how the love of his life was made to wear rubber suits or that another girl friend had to dance the carioca in the headlights of a car. And, "So dats why you come up here tonight, wit dem bedroom eyes and dem dining room lips."
I saw this in Palo Alto when it was released and saw it just now on TV. Sometimes time lends us a different perspective on an event, but in this case I thought the same about the film now as I did in 1978. It's funny enough to be worth catching. But if I were to buy the DVD of a Neil Simon movie it would be "Murder by Death."
Sequels rarely are as effective as the originals, and that's the case here. It's funny, and Peter Falk is as good as ever at doing Humphrey Bogart, but it's not THAT funny. Simon obviously put a lot of work into this complicated plot but the laughs just don't come as fast as they did in "Murder by Death." If Mary Astor used three or four different names in "The Maltese Falcon," her character here (Madeleine Kahn) uses sixteen. The gag is repetitive and doesn't build on itself. And there seem to be entire scenes that go by without a solid chuckle, as in the pointless episode with Ann-Margaret and Sid Caesar.
Sometimes the gags DO work. Some of the women that Falk is involved with insist on telling him the bizarre things they've done with their lovers, and it drives Falk crazy. He doesn't want to hear how the love of his life was made to wear rubber suits or that another girl friend had to dance the carioca in the headlights of a car. And, "So dats why you come up here tonight, wit dem bedroom eyes and dem dining room lips."
I saw this in Palo Alto when it was released and saw it just now on TV. Sometimes time lends us a different perspective on an event, but in this case I thought the same about the film now as I did in 1978. It's funny enough to be worth catching. But if I were to buy the DVD of a Neil Simon movie it would be "Murder by Death."