Quote of the day:

I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.
—Jack Benny

I don’t recall hearing about the movie Foul Play when it came out in 1978.

Perhaps I did, but when I heard that Goldie Hawn was in it, I may have lost interest. I always associated Goldie with Laugh-In, a show that I had very negative feelings about, and as she was one of its stars, the negative feelings drifted onto her. That show came on when I was at Penn State, so I don’t recall that I ever actually watched an episode, so I’m not sure why I had such negative feelings about it. I know that I didn’t care for Rowan and Martin, though again, that might simply be because they were stars of that show. Perhaps I saw part of it on an off night, or  perhaps I associated it with Hee-Haw. I really don’t know.

Whatever the reason, I never thought of Goldie Hawn as a serious actress.

Until I saw her recently. And then I wondered why I dismissed her all those long years ago.

Anyway, recently the movie Foul Play was brought to my attention, and when I found out it was a comedic homage to Hitchcock, I decided to buy the Blu-ray.

And it turned out to be pretty good.

I’d trim perhaps ten minutes from it, and the climactic car chase (it’s actually just a series of vehicles heading toward the opera house, so it’s not really a chase) goes on a bit too long, but overall I enjoyed it. It’s a genuine Hitchcock style suspense thriller, complete with a MacGuffin, and lots of comedy as well. A Hitchcock fan will find lots of references to the master’s films throughout. There are some genuine laugh out loud moments. Plus, the Blu-ray includes a very informative commentary track by Bryan Reesman and Max Evry who are described as entertainment journalists.

I must say that I found the villains’ motivations to be entirely sympathetic, and had it not been for their violent tactics, I would have been on their side.

Here’s brief scene from the movie where Goldie is trying to escape from her kidnappers but she can’t seem to get the attention of a couple of elderly women playing a friendly game of Scrabble. Goldie gets to show off her acting chops, as this must have been an extremely difficult scene for her to film. I wonder how much Hasbro paid for the product placement.

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