Foul Play, 1978.
Directed by Colin Higgins.
Starring Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, Burgess Meredith, Brian Dennehy, Dudley Moore.
SYNOPSIS:
Kino Lorber continues its series of minor classics on disc with Foul Play, available on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD. The Colin Higgins film launched Chevy Chase’s theatrical career and cemented Goldie Hawn’s place on the silver screen. You get a very nice-looking 4K remaster of the film, along with a brand new commentary track by film critics Bryan Reesman and Max Evry and a look at Higgins’ tragically short career.
This one is notable as the feature film debut of Chevy Chase on the heels of him leaving Saturday Night Live in 1976. It wasn’t co-star Goldie Hawn’s first time in a starring role, but it helped cement her career as an actress who could move between comedy and more serious subject matter with ease.
Of course, Foul Play on the whole is more of a comedy than anything else. Hawn plays Gloria Mundy, a demure, divorced librarian who encounters the fumbling Tony Carlson (Chase) at a party. They seem to hit it off, but she rebuffs him.
Encouraged by a friend to open herself to new opportunities for another relationship, Gloria meets a man named Scotty (Bruce Solomon) who gives her a pack of cigarettes for safekeeping because he wants to quit smoking. Unbeknownst to her, Scotty hid something important in the cigarette pack, and soon Gloria finds herself in the middle of the effort by some nefarious people to retrieve said item.
Meanwhile, she discovers that Tony is actually a police officer, but he and his partner, Inspector “Fergie” Ferguson (Brian Dennehy), don’t believe the tales she tells because the evidence conveniently disappears after every mishap. Eventually, of course, they come to realize she’s telling the truth, and the story culminates in an attempt to assassinate the Pope at an opera.
If that plot sounds very Hitchcockian, well, yes, that was director and screenwriter Colin Higgins’ intention. Foul Play is full of homages to Hitchcock, from the “innocent person pulled into a tangled web of intrigue” trope to the use of a MacGuffin, which was the storied director’s word for the item that everyone wants to get their hands on in a story.
On the whole, the film still holds up well as an enjoyable ride around the San Francisco Bay Area, although Tony’s random bits of bumbling feel very forced in retrospect. I know, Chevy Chase had a lot of notoriety at the time for his “two left feet” impressions of President Gerald Ford, so I understand why those moments were included, but they seem random and don’t really have any relevance to the plot. You could pull them out and the story wouldn’t suffer.
I should add, though, that the scenes with Dudley Moore as an inept wannabe ladies’ man are very funny and also helped launch his Hollywood career too. They’re right out of the “Dudley Moore playbook,” so to speak, but they work very well within the plot, since Gloria is trying to find a decent guy to go out with.
This is another minor classic that Kino Lorber has presented with a new 4K scan that leaves the movie looking as fresh as it did when it first unspooled in theaters in 1978. It may not be a movie that fans were clamoring for on 4K Ultra HD, but if you’re a fan, I’m sure you’ll be happy with how nice it looks. The Blu-ray looks very nice too.
Whether you pick up the 4K Ultra HD or Blu-ray edition (I received the latter for this review), you’ll get just a pair of bonus features. The first is a newly recorded commentary track with film critics Bryan Reesman and Max Evry, who provide the kind of “film class on a disc” discussion that I always enjoy. They clearly came prepared to talk about the movie within the context of its stars’ careers and within the broader tapestry of Hollywood history.
The other extra is the 16-minute Fair Play: Remembering Colin Higgins, which is an interview with Higgins’ friend, Nicholas Eliopoulos, who made a documentary about his buddy. (Sadly, Higgins died in 1988, at the age of just 47 years old.) Eliopoulos was clearly a very close friend of Higgins, and he discusses many aspects of the director’s career, not just the making of Foul Play. For example, his next movie, the major hit 9 to 5, gets plenty of time too.
A TV and a radio ad, along with a pair of trailers, round out the platter.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
