Unfortunately the sound is out of synch on these clips, but I loved Elaine May telling off Woody Allen's character, here:
...and making small talk out of the weather report, here.
From the review of Small Time Crooks at Salon.com:
"It's Elaine May as Frenchy's cousin, a chatterbox simpleton, who walks off with "Small Time Crooks" in what is the funniest performance you're likely to see this year or the next. She's simply flabbergasting. Groucho Marx once said that Margaret Dumont was so good because she didn't get the jokes. May, whom Bill Murray once described as having "a major coconut on her shoulders," acts as if she doesn't get the jokes. She seems to be beaming in from some universe of her own devising, so far inside her character's addlebrained confusion that everything she says (often in a slightly slurred accent that suggests George Jessel) is funny."
However much I used to like Woody Allen, that's how much I can't bear him now.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you dislike him?
ReplyDeleteHe's certainly an uneven moviemaker---hasn't made a good movie in forever. And he always had an odious sexual edge. Still, amongst the crap, he's made some of my favorite movies.
This makes me want to see this movie again... I don't remember it well at all, but I know I saw it... I assume it was one of his good ones...?
ReplyDeleteHi, bink:
ReplyDeleteAnything with Tracey Ullman and Elaine May has got to be at least a little bit good! In fact, I don't remember the plot of the movie, just those two women's characters. I'll have to watch it again myself.