1981 - THEY ALL LAUGHED, attempt at a sophisticated romantic comedy.

One of the better efforts from Peter Bogdanovich who had a long dry spell after his early successes.  They All Laughed is about the romantic adventures and love lives of some rather inept private detectives working in New York City.  The film follows the detectives around while they try to determine if some married women may or may not be cheating on their husbands.

Although this film wants to be a rather sophisticated farce somewhat like the films  Max Ophuls directed, what this film really is about is girl watching.  Bogdanovich has loaded the film up with lots of hot women as they say.  Audrey Hepburn is one of the women being followed by Ben Gazzara, unsurprisingly Gazzara falls in love with her.  Model Patti Hanson is a cab driver, Bogdanovich has her imitating Lauren Bacall in To Have And Have Not.  Playboy model Colleen Camp is one of Gazzara's ex girlfriends.  Camp is basically the stand in for the Katherine Hepburn character from Bringing Up Baby.  Bogdanovich could never resist copying his mentor Howard Hawks.

 

John Ritter who was probably a stand in for Bogdanovich in this film is in love with Playboy model Dorothy Stratten in a thinly disguised version of the Bogdanovich/Stratten love affair which ended very tragically.

 

The film always kind of had a black cloud hanging over it.  Dorothy Stratten's death seemed to end the commercial possibilities for a decent release.  No studio would pick up the film when it was completed.  Bogdanovich spent his own money attempting to release the film on his own.  His plan failed and sent him into bankruptcy.

For all that, They All Laughed is a good romantic comedy.  The film was shot on New York locations and as I said before, if you are looking for a film with a lot of good looking women in it, this show is probably for you.

Bogdanovich wrote the screenplay along with Blaine Novak, the running time is 115 minutes.