1982 - DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID, spoof of 40's film noir is more silly than funny.

 The second of four silly comedies that Steve Martin and Carl Reiner teamed up on.  Martin usually has a writing credit on these films and Reiner directed.  Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is a spoof of 1940's detective films with the gimmick being that excerpts from these old films which feature actors such as Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Fred MacMurry, Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster to name a few are blended with footage shot by Reiner featuring Steve Martin as private detective Rigby Reardon.

Reardon is trying to solve some confusing series of murders in a takeoff of one of those complicated plots that always seemed part of those old film noir stories.  Rachel Ward is the sexy female lead who Reardon falls in love with.  With her Australian accent and the glamorous film lighting she looks very good.  Ward is essentially the "straight man" for Steve Martin's silly character which she plays very well.

The real stars of this film are the group of old timers that Carl Reiner assembled as part of his production team.  Legendary costume designer Edith Head dressed Ward and Martin in 40's outfits.  John DeCuir was the production designer.  DeCuir had been in the business a long time and had done sets for films as diverse as Cleopatra and The Naked City.  Another veteran was composer Miklos Rosza who wrote the score, this was Rosza's final film before he passed away.  Mention should also be made of editor Bud Molin and especially cinematographer Michael Chapman who had to blend Reiner's footage with black and white film scenes shot in the 1940's, an impressive achievement.

 

Frankly, the film isn't all that funny.  Martin works hard to find the silliness behind the supposed tough guy private character but a lot of the humor is pretty dumb.  Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is probably more interesting for movie buffs than the general public.

Written by Carl Reiner, Steve Martin and George Gipe, the running time is 88 minutes.

1987 - SUMMER SCHOOL, a very mild comedy

The director Carl Reiner a fairly funny writer and director somehow got mixed up with this very mild comedy.

 The plot is about a bunch of low performing high school students stuck in summer school after flunking out during the school year.  The teacher is pretty boy Mark Harmon playing a gym teacher tricked into teaching them for the summer.

 

There are a few amusing moments with a couple of obsessive high schooldorks who are completely into the film Texas Chainsaw Massacre and for the most part the cast is decent enough to make a lot of the underdeveloped comedy work.

This is one of those films where the kids and teacher learn lessons about life on the way to being better citizens etc.  An OK time killer but don't expect to much from this film.

97 minutes, written by Jeff Franklin.

1993 - FATAL INSTINCT, this parody of erotic crime thrillers is pretty silly stuff.

I'm not so sure Carl Reiner (who is a funny guy) was the right person to direct this spoof of sex/crime thrillers, a genre that was probably in need of being parodied.  Reiner was kind of an old school comedian coming out of the 1950's and 60's school of humor (Dick Van Dyke Show, Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, etc).  

Still, with all of the bad jokes there is some funny stuff in this film and a lot of clever ideas that really aren't developed because of the tendency to go for the cheap Airplane type of laughs.  The whole idea of a bunch of oversexed women running around committing murder probably reached it's pinnacle with Basic Instinct and the sexed crazed killers in that film.  Thinking about it, Basic Instinct seems mighty silly today. 

The film features some pretty good looking women, who all appear to be pretty good sports about the whole thing.  However the real reason to watch Fatal Instinct, is the actor Armond Assante who usually plays a lot of these kinds of hard boiled characters.  In this film Assante really seems to be having a good time making fun of his screen image.  His goofiness reaches some sort of silly high when he prances around in bright red high heels.

Carl Reiner is a funny guy and he is well aware how silly films like, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct and Body Heat to name a few are. But playing the Zucker Brothers game was a mistake. Packing in as many gags and jokes as possible finally wears down the viewer and makes the film seem pretty stupid.  Reiner would have been better taking a somewhat more restrained approach.  However you can smell the influence of MGM studios who were looking for a hit and probably forced a lot of this stupid humor into the film.

91 minutes.