It's a little hard going all the way back to 1978 as I had to tonight watching foul play again for about the dozenth time. I've always enjoyed this movie, and felt like it really symbolized that era well. Chevy Chase and Goldi Hawn were both in their prime then, and their little affair had a lot of good chemistry. As a comedy suspense thriller, this movie suits the genre really well. The pacing seemed a little slow to me this time around, and the dialogue weaker than I expected. But there are so many memorable scenes here. This was back when feminism, political correctness and the swinger lifestyle were all sort of new and topical. And so some of the best scenes revolved around those themes. Also, we have a lot of colorful characters to offset goldie's ditsy blandness. In fact, one of the characters was actually devoid of any color at all in a literal sense i.e. he was an albino. This guy's albino eyes really gave him an unusually sinister quality. And then there was Dudley Moore who almost stole the comedy spotlight from Chevy Chase. No small feat there. But the circus like cast of villains was important to the plot, as early on Goldie comes across as a lunatic for mentioning plots to kill her involving unseen dwarfs, albinos, etc. All very funny. Anyway, in retrospect, Goldie is not given much of a script though, while the dwarf and Dudley Moore provide the best comic relief aside from Chevy who plays his usual droll self.
A spoiler would be needed to talk about what happens near the end. There is not much meat to the murder suspense subplot, but thankfully, there are other surprises here and there that will make you smile. Rounding out this blast from the past is Barry Manilows famous song about going for it.
If you've ever seen the classic horror thriller "wait until dark" starring Audrey Hepburn, Foul Play is at times reminiscent of it early on, only not so terrifying. It's a good thing, as Foul Play is really more about comedy than suspense, and the Batmanesque cast of villains encourages you to not take it all too seriously. And with Dudley Moore famous swinger pad scene early on, you're definitely laughing more than you are clutching your chair. I've played a clip of that on YouTube many, many times and never tire of Dudleys performance.
So, two thumbs up. Vintage Chevy and Goldie, while Brian Dennehy also puts in a nice appearance.
