Fun with Dick and Jane (1977)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Ted Kotcheff

Writers:

Gerald Gaiser (story)
David Giler (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

18 March 1977 (West Germany)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Bonnie and Clyde they ain't.

Plot:

When an upwardly mobile couple find themselves unemployed and in debt, they turn to armed robbery in desperation.

Plot Keywords:

Unemployment | Robbery | Heist | Satire | Car Theft

Cast

George Segal	...	Dick Harper
Jane Fonda	...	Jane Harper
Ed McMahon	...	Charlie Blanchard
Richard Gautier	...	Dr. Will (as Dick Gautier)
Allan Miller	...	Loan Company Manager
Hank Garcia	...	Raoul Esteban
John Dehner	...	Jane's father
Mary Jackson	...	Jane's mother
Walter Brooke	...	Jim Weeks
Sean Frye	...	Billy Harper
James Jeter	...	Immigration officer
Maxine Stuart	...	Blanchard's secretary
Fred Willard	...	Bob
Selma Archard	...	Beverly Hills woman
John Brandon	...	Pete Winston

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Finland:K-16 (cut) (1977) | Australia:M | Singapore:PG | Iceland:L | South Korea:12 | UK:PG | Finland:K-15 (uncut) (2006) | Sweden:11 | USA:PG

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Faye Dunaway turned down the role of Jane before it was offered to Jane Fonda.

Quotes:

Jane Harper: Interesting that the only two jobs you think I am qualified for are a secretary and a prostitute.
Dick Harper: You're not qualified to be a secretary.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Vlyublyon po sobstvennomu zhelaniyu (1983)

Soundtrack:

Ahead of the Game

Anti-heroes in suburbia

It's a sign of the times (i.e., the 1970s) when Dick and Jane rob the telephone company at gunpoint and all the customers applaud. It's distinctly un-PC now, but very funny back then. As usual, it's a "Jane Fonda movie" that thinly conceals a social message underneath its comic scenario, but I didn't feel it got too preachy until near the finish-line. George Segal works very easily with Fonda, and there are some hugely funny scenes after an arduous opening wherein Segal loses his cushy job. The desperation of unemployment is touched upon briefly (for a comic effect), but there are some stabs at social commentary that do not work (as with two bad caveats involving a transsexual and a man with no voice). But for every foul ball there comes along something fresh and groovy, like the sequence where Fonda tries to cover up why the gardeners are rolling up her lawn and taking her plants away, or when the gentleman from Food Stamps shows up at an inappropriate moment (a ritzy family dinner), confessing he just had a Big Mac and a Coke. **1/2 from ****