The In-Laws (1979)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Arthur Hiller

Writer:

Andrew Bergman (writer)

Release Date:

12 September 1979 (France)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy | Crime | Thriller | Action

Tagline:

The FIRST Certified Crazy Person's Comedy.

Plot:

In preparation for his daughter's wedding, dentist Sheldon Kornpett meets Vince Ricardo, the groom's father...

Plot Keywords:

Dentist | Central America | Chase | Wedding | Island

Cast

Peter Falk	...	Vincent J. Ricardo
Alan Arkin	...	Sheldon S. Kornpett, D.D.S.
Richard Libertini	...	General Garcia
Nancy Dussault	...	Carol Kornpett
Penny Peyser	...	Barbara Kornpett
Arlene Golonka	...	Jean Ricardo
Michael Lembeck	...	Tommy Ricardo
Paul L. Smith	...	Mo (as Paul Lawrence Smith)
Carmine Caridi	...	Angie
Ed Begley Jr.	...	Barry Lutz, CIA Intelligence officer at Embassy in Tijada
Sammy Smith	...	Mr. Hirschorn, Dental Patient
James Hong	...	Bing Wong, owner Wong Airlines
Barbara Dana	...	Theresa the Bank Teller
Rozsika Halmos	...	Mrs. Adelman, 2nd Dental Patient
Álvaro Carcaño	...	Edgardo

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish | Mandarin

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | France:U | UK:PG | USA:PG | Singapore:PG | Canada:PG

Filming Locations:

Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

In the 2003 DVD commentary, Alan Arkin relates that Marlon Brando once told him he had seen The In-Laws 20 times, and even imitated Arkin's delivery of certain lines from the film. Writer Andrew Bergman concurs that Brando's appreciation of his script was integral to getting Brando to star in The Freshman (1990).

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Sheldon is being chased around the cab and shot at, uniformed police officers are visible in the crowd across the street.

Quotes:

General Garcia: I am a pacifist by nature with a deep Quaker belief in the sanctity of human life. I wish I had a choice but to kill you.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Land of the Lost (2009)

Screwball comedy is loaded with options

Peter Falk and Alan Arkin are an absolutely killer combination in this over-the-top comedy. The writer who helped pen "Blazing Saddles," Andrew Bergman, is back in a solo effort this time that downplays the profanity and adult situations of that earlier classic for a family-friendly outing that loses none of its bite or wit.

For me, this film carries the same buttoned-down lunacy of a great Bob and Ray routine, only sustained for 90 minutes, with hardly a sagging line or note. Get through the first five minutes, a fairly routine armored car robbery and a protracted stairwell run, and you will not be sorry, because the rest of "The In-Laws" is so funny, it will take you three or four eager viewings before you appreciate just how brilliant beyond belief it is. At least that's what happened with me.

It's a strangely genial film, its approach personified in Peter Falk's "friend of the world" interpretation of Vince Ricardo. There's nothing that phases him, or is too minute to warrant some breezily cheery comment, like "Is this coffee freeze-dried? It's very good." Or "The benefits [for belonging to the CIA] are terrific. The trick is not to get killed. That's the whole key to the benefits package."

Ricardo's approach is exemplified in an apron he is seen wearing at a barbeque: "I'm loaded with options." That he is, and screenwriter Bergman, too. In a somewhat desultory but still necessary DVD commentary for "In-Laws" fanatics like me, it is revealed by Bergman and director Arthur Hiller reveal the key moment for the screenplay is a fairly straight and jokeless scene between Alan Arkin's Dr. Kornpett and his daughter, where she urges him not to reject Ricardo because of his subliminated sexual jealousy about losing his daughter to Ricardo's son in marriage. Okay, maybe that does read funny, but it doesn't come across as funny.

The way the scene works, once the hapless dentist hears this, he is screwed. He has to help out Ricardo, in an inane flight from the government into the arms of the only Latin American dictator who's national flag features a topless woman, and whose apparent deputy is a Senor Wences hand puppet. You just follow along the same way Dr. Kornpett does, never knowing what to expect next, and, unlike him, enjoying it all the way through.

This film isn't laughs for everyone. Senator Jesus Braunsweiger's next-of-kin and BMW enthusiasts will find plenty to mourn. But for everyone else seeing it for the first time, it will be a joy forever, and a bit of a puzzlement: Why isn't this comedy better-known? Why don't people quote it as readily as "Caddyshack," "The Blues Brothers" or other lesser, contemporary fare?

One last thing: Alan Arkin's performance is maybe the best thing in the movie. I only realized this after repeat viewings. He's not the funniest comic actor around, frankly I never found his stuff that good in the other films of his I've seen, but here he makes the thing work. I wanted to say something about this containing the best straight-man work since Bud Abbott, but the more I see it, the less I'm sure who's the straight man. So many of the great lines are his: "There are flames on my car." "Flies with beaks?" "A Zee? A Zee?" "What flow? There isn't any flow." And to think his first line in the movie is a complaint about the viscosity of his dental bibs.

Just shut me up and go see it already. Or see it again. There's worse things you could do with your time, and not much better.