Errol Flynn is an illustrator who is divorced from Eleanor Parker. They share custody of a 7-year old daughter.
There are a couple of set pieces in this largely unfunny movie: a frantic dinner where Flynn has absent-mindedly invited Park and one of his models to the same restaurant so he has to keep switching tables. I didn't laugh. And at Christmas he and some wet sack of rice wear Santa Claus outfits and recreate the Marx Brothers scenes where Groucho and one of his brothers mirror each other's movements wearing pajamas and caps. By the time Flynn is handing out the gifts while pretending to be the wet sack of rice it was as painful was a Saturday Night Live skit.
This movie also has two MAJOR strikes against it: a kid with too many speaking lines and S. Z. Sakall. With very few exceptions, kids are not funny. They are not charming. They are obnoxious. This particular kid and that stupid accent are unbearable. Obnoxious and unfunny only begins to describe Sakall. I think he holds the record for ''Most Movies Ruined" that not even Oliver Platt will ever break.
By the time F-Troop shows up thinking he's finally meeting Smoochy, the woman he thinks wrote him intimate letters during WWII (it was actually the daughter writing the letters) I was time-checking the movie. Depressed to realize I was barely an hour into this mess. I wonder whether it inspired the movie title, ''Death To Smoochy." I support the notion, anyway.
None of this was Flynn's fault. Or Parker's. But it just didn't work.
There are a couple of set pieces in this largely unfunny movie: a frantic dinner where Flynn has absent-mindedly invited Park and one of his models to the same restaurant so he has to keep switching tables. I didn't laugh. And at Christmas he and some wet sack of rice wear Santa Claus outfits and recreate the Marx Brothers scenes where Groucho and one of his brothers mirror each other's movements wearing pajamas and caps. By the time Flynn is handing out the gifts while pretending to be the wet sack of rice it was as painful was a Saturday Night Live skit.
This movie also has two MAJOR strikes against it: a kid with too many speaking lines and S. Z. Sakall. With very few exceptions, kids are not funny. They are not charming. They are obnoxious. This particular kid and that stupid accent are unbearable. Obnoxious and unfunny only begins to describe Sakall. I think he holds the record for ''Most Movies Ruined" that not even Oliver Platt will ever break.
By the time F-Troop shows up thinking he's finally meeting Smoochy, the woman he thinks wrote him intimate letters during WWII (it was actually the daughter writing the letters) I was time-checking the movie. Depressed to realize I was barely an hour into this mess. I wonder whether it inspired the movie title, ''Death To Smoochy." I support the notion, anyway.
None of this was Flynn's fault. Or Parker's. But it just didn't work.