The 1980s, in my opinion at least, was the last great heyday of the studio “programmer” – modestly budgeted little movies with modest ambitions featuring big stars in roles that didn’t challenge them too much.
Before cable television really took off as a venue for original “movies of the week” and studio budgets ballooned to compete for top box office each week, studios would crank out these things on a regular schedule. In the 80s, it seemed like every studio was coming out with a new project featuring someone like Chuck Norris, Goldie Hawn, Shelley Long, Ted Danson or Tom Selleck every other week.
Funny Farm (George Roy Hill, 1988), featuring Chevy Chase, was like one of those inoffensive little comedies that got lost in the shuffle between projects like Fletch (1985) and Caddyshack II (1988). It was just released on a budget priced blu-ray and is worth a rental, if nothing else, for the last third of the picture.
Chase plays a sports journalist who quits his job and moves to the country with his wife to write a novel. Of course, it’s far from quiet – the little New England village where they settle is filled with eccentrics and they face several obstacles settling in. It’s a combination of elements from The Egg and I (1947), George Washington Slept Here (1942) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) that makes for light entertainment. (Blandings would be remade as part of the 80s B-Movie cycle as The Money Pit in 1986 and more recently as Are We Done Yet? in 2007.)
Where things get interesting, and probably got director Hill interested in the script, is in the last act when the couple, their marriage disintegrating, decide to sell the house. In a brilliant stroke of satire, they round up the people in the town and pass out Norman Rockwell paintings, offering them cash to emulate this nostalgic Americana for potential buyers of the house.
For anyone like me who detests these dreadful vapid paintings or the concocted nostalgia product of someone like Thomas Kinkaid, it’s the perfect comic send up.
It was George Roy Hill‘s last film after a long career with hits like Slap Shot (1977), The Sting (1973), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). A good director can even make an otherwise forgettable programmer a little interesting.
coolcatdaddy 