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Unashamedly nostalgic, and almost autobiographical, ‘My Favorite Year’ has a standout performance by Peter O’Toole, who was Oscar nominated. The clips we see of Alan Swann’s great roles come from O’Toole’s earlier films, Lord Jim and Great Catherine.

Produced by Mel Brooks, who wrote for Sid Caesar (Kaiser, geddit?) in the early years of television, the plot is a fictionalisation of Errol Flynn’s appearance on Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows”. In reality Brooks and Flynn never even met, and the show passed off without incident, but the film is a great alternative reality.

While O’Toole is the heart and soul of the film, the supporting cast play very well indeed, particularly Bologna’s “King” Kaiser. He is an insecure, bullying loudmouth, but he is also rather courageous, standing up to Rojeck physically and refusing to be scared off, and essentially decent and kind-hearted. He’s a rather touching character, and Bologna plays him very well.

Equally memorable are Benjy’s Brooklyn family. They are loud and uncouth (Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi) wants to know about Swann’s recent ‘paternity rap’ – “Did you schtup her?”) but fundamentally decent people who, for all their faults, love and support each other. They call Swann ‘Al’ (“Mom,” pleads Benjy, “it’s Alan. If I bring Jolson or Capone, it’s Al.”) before settling down to Benjy’s Filipino stepfather’s speciality, ‘Meatloaf Mindanao’, seasoned with parrot meat. As Benjy, Mark Linn-Baker brings a lot of frenetic energy as he tries to come to terms with Swann’s attitude to life, while keeping him safe in order to keep his job, but does fall into the classic trap of American comedy – assuming that shouting your lines somehow makes them funnier.

‘My Favorite Year’ is a real feelgood comedy, which sends you on your way with a golden glow inside. Life isn’t like this, but wouldn’t it be great if it was?

Watch out for Gloria Stuart – ‘old Rose’ from James Cameron’s Titanic – in a cameo as Swann’s dancing partner in the Stork Club.

Enoch Sneed @ The Spinning Image

my.favorite.year.1982.720p.hdtv.x264-regret.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 32 min
Size: 	2.88 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1272x720 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	4 014 kb/s
BPP: 	0.183
Audio
#1:  	English 5.1ch AC-3 @ 448 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/EE939F48F85E1E5/my.favorite.year.1982.720p.hdtv.x264-regret.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Richard Benjamin – My Favorite Year (1982) first appeared on Cinema of the World.