After seeing a review of this film's best remembered sequence on Channel 5 news back in 1986 I went out to see it. It was fortunate, that I did because BIG TROUBLE did not have a long or successful movie box office run. And with some reason.
In 1979, when Falk and Arkin made THE IN-LAWS, that film was just a tidal wave of fun. It seemed that movies had serendipitously put together two actors who played off each other very well. But no mutual property turned up to put them (hopefully with Richard Libertini again) through their paces. Then came BIG TROUBLE.
It is funny at points, but it is also less amusing for some plot problems that did not occur in THE IN-LAWS. In the earlier film, Korpett (Arkin) was a successful, if timid (or staid), dentist living in suburbia. As such, his inter-involvement with his new in-law Ricardo (Falk) shakes the foundations of his entire world. A similar situation is in BIG TROUBLE, but it is more serious - for some reason - here. Leonard Hoffman (Arkin) is an insurance salesman for a firm owned by Winslow (Robert Stack) and serving under O'Mara (Charles Durning). He has a wife (Valerie Curtin) and three sons who are triplets, musical prodigies, and need to begin expensive education to enhance their musical career potentials. Arkin can't pay for all this. He makes a decent living, but not a really good one to support the triplets and their goals. He is constantly defeated by his bosses or by his timidity from getting the raises or promotions he deserves. He gets a call from a Mrs. Blanche Rickey (Beverly D'Angelo - the name, by the way, is a joke based on Baseball Team manager/owner BRANCH Rickey) to set an appointment to discuss life insurance with her and her husband Steve (Falk). Arkin goes and finds a suspicious set up but one that he has to accept.
Falk's Steve Rickey is all smiles and agreements. He is the direct opposite of the negative Mr. Dietrichson in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, who is the husband slated for murder for profit by his wife Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck) and salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray). Falk is fully willing to sign a life insurance policy with Arkin's company that includes a double indemnity clause. This is unusual, but Arkin needs the commission because of his three sons. So he sells the unusually large policy. Within a week D'Angelo reports that Falk has died in an accident. Arkin rushes to see her at her lawyer's office, and meets the doctor (Libertini) as well as her bald headed, mustached lawyer. But a frightened Arkin realizes the lawyer is Rickey in disguise.
Soon, though plots twists, Arkin finds himself tied to trying to get the policy paid off, despite heavy suspicions by Durning and Stack about it. The resolution of the insurance matter, Arkin's future with his job, and the heavy tuition of the three sons is at the conclusion of the film.
Now, the issue in this film was that Arkin's character's financial and social situation was not firmly settled due to ensuing educational expenses that he could not afford. Hoffman is not as stable in his social role as Kornpett was. Instead the audience is sorry for Arkin's plight with his three sons and his no-where job, but because it is sorry the threat of Falk's plans is not as funny when they explode in Arkin's face.
The resolution of THE IN-LAWS (a last minute rescue) was pretty good, but there was something slap-dash about the way BIG TROUBLE ended. Here the plotting of Falk and D'Angelo gets so out of hand that Durning is tied up and imprisoned for the last half hour of the film. It is by a sheer fluke at the end that things right themselves out. But the rushing through or stitching together of parts wrecked the conclusion.
It is amusing at it's best moments (the Norwegian Sardine Liquor sequence was incredibly funny - and remains so: it was shown in that film review as a clip on Channel 5 by Stewart Klein the film critic). But few other moments were that funny. I would say it is worthy to look at, but THE IN-LAWS is far and away the better film.
In 1979, when Falk and Arkin made THE IN-LAWS, that film was just a tidal wave of fun. It seemed that movies had serendipitously put together two actors who played off each other very well. But no mutual property turned up to put them (hopefully with Richard Libertini again) through their paces. Then came BIG TROUBLE.
It is funny at points, but it is also less amusing for some plot problems that did not occur in THE IN-LAWS. In the earlier film, Korpett (Arkin) was a successful, if timid (or staid), dentist living in suburbia. As such, his inter-involvement with his new in-law Ricardo (Falk) shakes the foundations of his entire world. A similar situation is in BIG TROUBLE, but it is more serious - for some reason - here. Leonard Hoffman (Arkin) is an insurance salesman for a firm owned by Winslow (Robert Stack) and serving under O'Mara (Charles Durning). He has a wife (Valerie Curtin) and three sons who are triplets, musical prodigies, and need to begin expensive education to enhance their musical career potentials. Arkin can't pay for all this. He makes a decent living, but not a really good one to support the triplets and their goals. He is constantly defeated by his bosses or by his timidity from getting the raises or promotions he deserves. He gets a call from a Mrs. Blanche Rickey (Beverly D'Angelo - the name, by the way, is a joke based on Baseball Team manager/owner BRANCH Rickey) to set an appointment to discuss life insurance with her and her husband Steve (Falk). Arkin goes and finds a suspicious set up but one that he has to accept.
Falk's Steve Rickey is all smiles and agreements. He is the direct opposite of the negative Mr. Dietrichson in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, who is the husband slated for murder for profit by his wife Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck) and salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray). Falk is fully willing to sign a life insurance policy with Arkin's company that includes a double indemnity clause. This is unusual, but Arkin needs the commission because of his three sons. So he sells the unusually large policy. Within a week D'Angelo reports that Falk has died in an accident. Arkin rushes to see her at her lawyer's office, and meets the doctor (Libertini) as well as her bald headed, mustached lawyer. But a frightened Arkin realizes the lawyer is Rickey in disguise.
Soon, though plots twists, Arkin finds himself tied to trying to get the policy paid off, despite heavy suspicions by Durning and Stack about it. The resolution of the insurance matter, Arkin's future with his job, and the heavy tuition of the three sons is at the conclusion of the film.
Now, the issue in this film was that Arkin's character's financial and social situation was not firmly settled due to ensuing educational expenses that he could not afford. Hoffman is not as stable in his social role as Kornpett was. Instead the audience is sorry for Arkin's plight with his three sons and his no-where job, but because it is sorry the threat of Falk's plans is not as funny when they explode in Arkin's face.
The resolution of THE IN-LAWS (a last minute rescue) was pretty good, but there was something slap-dash about the way BIG TROUBLE ended. Here the plotting of Falk and D'Angelo gets so out of hand that Durning is tied up and imprisoned for the last half hour of the film. It is by a sheer fluke at the end that things right themselves out. But the rushing through or stitching together of parts wrecked the conclusion.
It is amusing at it's best moments (the Norwegian Sardine Liquor sequence was incredibly funny - and remains so: it was shown in that film review as a clip on Channel 5 by Stewart Klein the film critic). But few other moments were that funny. I would say it is worthy to look at, but THE IN-LAWS is far and away the better film.