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Reviews
The Tiger Makes Out (1967)
Underrated comedy, dated but so what?
In this era when almost everything makes it on to DVD (I'm expecting to see the My Mother the Car collection any day now) this film has been unfairly neglected. There are innumerable stupid comedies from the 60's as well as many other eras that have received at least a cursory DVD treatment. This one wasn't even released on VHS to my knowledge, despite the talents involved in the making (Arthur Hiller, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Murray Shisgal (notable later for co-writing Tootsie), even Dustin Hoffman in his debut). It's obviously a product of the sixties but so is just about everything else from that era. All films reflect the tastes and customs of the times in which they are made. This was released the same year as The President's Analyst, another absurd masterpiece. That film was finally released on DVD and has developed a cult following. This film has many memorable bizarre, goofy, wacky moments. Sure, it's painted in broad strokes and has silly go-go music throughout but that's part of its charm. It creates its own absurd universe. If whoever is in charge of DVD production for Columbia Pictures releases (I believe Columbia released it) takes polls for new releases this gets my vote.
Balzac (1999)
Tremendous casting blunder mars otherwise decent production
It has been a few years since I saw this film on A&E (I believe). Being a Balzac aficionado and having read a couple of biographies I was quite interested in a biopic treatment of this fascinating individual. The advance advertisement with a naked faced Gerard Depardieu dampened my enthusiasm. When I finally saw it I couldn't believe how a great opportunity could be blown in such a monumental way. The screenplay was actually fairly decent as I recall and stuck fairly close to the facts as I understood them. However, the desire for a major star in the lead role, while in itself not a bad thing, led to a major blot in this production's effectiveness. Gerard Depardieu is about as far from Honore de Balzac as Robert De Niro is from Mark Twain. He is large and tall and there was no attempt to add any facial hair, which Balzac had in every painting as well as the famous daguerreotype. This casting misfire belongs right up there with Hugh O'Brien as Wyatt Earp and John Wayne as Genghis Khan. I'm sure there must be other decent French actors who look, or could look with a little makeup, at least somewhat like Balzac. This is too bad. Who knows when an attempt like this will ever be made again?