Happily for the purposes of this blog, Dangerfield was at the peak of his popularity in the '80s and starred in three very good movies, all of them very funny. Today we'll deal with the middle film of the three: 1983's Easy Money.
Great comedic cast! Dangerfield, Joe Pesci (with thick black hair!), Jeffrey Jones, Val Avery, Tom Noonan, Tom Ewell are the biggest ones. Also,a bonus: Jennifer Jason Leigh in one of her first post-Ridgemont roles as Dangerfield's daughter (!).
The plot here is that inveterate smoker, drinker, overeater, and above all gambler Monty Capuletti (Montague + Capulet ... someone was a Shakespeare fan) is getting married. His late mother-in-law, tired of his degenerate ways, writes a will that states (like so many movie wills) that if he cleans up his ways for one year, he will inherit 10 million dollars.
But for Dangerfield, that is a big deal. A really, really big deal. One of the first scenes shows him placing bets on harness racing - where crazy Joe Pesci goes bananas like he will later in so many movies, and attacks a losing jockey. Does Pesci EVER play a calm, normal citizen? It would be a revelation. He's either attacking someone, being attacked, or being mocked or satirized for being so vibrantly Italian.
Anyway, this movie is similar to many "do X to inherit millions" movies like Brewster's Millions or King Ralph or a few others. As always, there is some evil character who stands to inherit the money if our hero fails - in this case it's a department store manager, since the mother-in-law owned the store.
But this movie also surprises you in that it is fairly tender and gentle. For example, an early high point is a crazy, inspired rendition of "Funiculi Funicula" by Dangerfield at his daughter's wedding which could have come right out of a movie like Broadway Danny Rose.
And the advice he gives his family - from the little girl in the opening scene (very funny) to his daughter - is surprisingly wise. Dangerfield shows hints of three-dimensionality, which is kind of unusual for an actor generally played for the broadest of laughs.
There is also a significant plot twist near the end involving the inheritance that I really want to spoil - what are the chances you, reading this, will someday come across this movie and then say, sighing, if ONLY it hadn't been spoiled for me - but I will withhold and say only that the twist (and counter-twist) is fairly clever and betrays a more clever writer than you'd expect.
Which brings us to "Who wrote this, anyway?" Unsurprisingly, Rodney Dangerfield had a heavy hand. But VERY surprisingly, P. J. O'Rourke is listed as a co-writer. A big favorite of an ex-girlfriend of mine, I had no idea he was involved with anything like this. Big props to Mr. O'Rourke. And as far as I can discover, this is the ONLY movie he had a hand in. What are the odds?!?!
This is also fairly unusual fare from longtime SNL director James Signorelli. As far as I can tell, his ONLY other feature film was the Elvira: Mistress of the Dark movie (!!!). What a weird pedigree... Easy Money and Elvira. This movie is filled with strange Hollywood coincidences.
As far as money goes, Wikipedia reports it brought in $30,000,000 - and I guarantee it didn't cost that to make, so it definitely made a lot of money. Good! Soon I'll review Back to School, probably THE classic Rodney Dangerfield '80s movie (yes, more than Caddyshack).
And now, a treat for you:
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