Overrated

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Back when Chevy Chase was credibly a romantic lead, and Goldie Hawn a rising starlet, this was one of the best movies of the time. Hawn plays a librarian who runs afoul of a criminal plot to assassinate someone. She contacts the police when her date is murdered (but the body disappears), and again when she injures an intruder who is shot by *another* intruder (who both disappear when she faints...), and when she is apparently tracked down by the mysterious Dwarf. Sympathetic detective Chase decides to hear her out, with able assistance from his partner, a young Brian Dennehy, and together they start to unravel what's really going on. Dudley Moore has a hilarious bit-part as an oversexed Brit who misinterprets Hawn's plea for help as a request for a liaison, with amusing results. The casting is great, with the late William Frankfather as an eerie and unsettling albino hit-man, and the late Billy Barty as a... well, you'll know when you see him. Burgess Meredith is wonderful as Hawn's fatherly landlord, who lends a hand in solving the mystery.Much of the comedy in this film is based upon mistaken identification and being caught in innocent but seemingly guilty circumstances. It is well done. Much can also be said for Dudley Moore who has a minor role that keeps reappearing throughout the film. He's just a guy that want to get his ashes hauled and circumstances keep throwing him together with Goldie as she tries to evade bad guys. He is hilarious in this role. And finally, in what I consider one of the funniest scenes ever shot in any movie, are the elderly Chinese tourist couple, who have just arrived in San Francisco, armed with their suitcases and two small American flags. Again as Chevy Chase's character seized the limo they are in and charges through San Francisco to get to the Opera House to prevent "the Hit" this couple lets us sit back in uncontrolled hysterical laughter as you can only imagine what the two visitors must be thinking.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

FOLLOWING THE INDIVIDUAL career successes of both co-stars, Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase, the paring of the two in this crime drama send up seemed to be a boffo idea and In$tant Box Office $ucce$$.AS WE RECALL, it did have a certain degree of acceptance; but did not set any record at the turnstiles. Do they have them at movie houses anymore? Critical review also was less than enthusiastic. But then, when we talk of Film Critics, we think of what was said about Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy. That being: "Nobody liked them but the Piublic." OUR MAIN BEEF with this movie is that much of its promotional ads on the TV networks showed Chevy Chase doing some of those falls that made him so well known as a Charter Member of NBC'S Saturday NIGHT.WHICH BRINGS UP the curious coincidental occurrence that both Chevy and Goldie made their names via the network comedy show. In the case of Miss Hawn it was ROWAN & MARTIN'S LAUGH IN, nearly a decade before the debut of Saturday NIGHT.SO, AS SILLY as it sounds, we took our kids to see it with us and were just a trifle surprised to see how many violent situations were so forcefully portrayed. But then, as we didn't understand then, it was both a spoof of and an homage to the films of Alfred Hitchcock.ONE OTHER ASPECT of this movie that we want to make, before signing off, is its use of the Pope, the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church at the center of its plot. This would make Writer/Director Colin Higgins an "ahead of his time" pioneer; for this predated both Francis Ford Coppola's THE GODFATHER: Part III and Ron Howard's THE DA VINCI CODE by some years.

Colin Higgens wrote and directed this comedy/thriller clearly inspired by director Alfred Hitchcock. Goldie Hawn stars as a lonely young woman who gets mixed up in espionage and murder after a man she was seeing dies, and leaves a microfilm with her which some crooks want, and will do anything to obtain. Chevy Chase plays a San Francisco detective who meets her in his investigation, and is immediately attracted, and they must team up to stop a sinister assassination plan involving the Pope. Burgess Meredith costars as a wacky neighbor of Goldie's, as does Dudley Moore as a love interest. Though a hit at the time, this film goes on too long, becoming increasingly ridiculous.

"Kojak, Bang Bang!" "The albino works for the dwarf!" "She was one tough mama!"With lines like that, you know you're not in the San Francisco of Jeanette MacDonald and Clark Gable anymore. This is "Tales of the City" era San Francisco when you may not have worn a flower in your hair, but you could enjoy some great people watching in Golden Gate Park or down near the Embarcadero, and try and stroll down Lombard street without being hit by either Barbara Streisand and Ryan O'Neal on a hot dog cart with a suitcase filled with rocks or Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase on their way to save a world leader from a terrorist organization.The gorgeous Goldie as at her screwball comedy best, a modern day Carole Lombard who works as a librarian and goes home to have dinner with her landlord and his pet snake, Esme, that is until the day police officer Chevy Chase comes into her life. He's assigned to protect her when she inadvertently gets her hands on some microfilm from a man she courageously picked up hitch-hiking. Having met at a party on the other side of the Golden Gate earlier (and not quite hit it off), that all changes now, and when Goldie is thrust into the middle of a federal investigation, she finds herself in dangers she never imagined she could be in.During her adventure, Hawn runs into some of the oddest characters you would ever encounter: a horny orchestra conductor (Dudley Moore) with a gadget filled play-pen in his bachelor pad; the rough-and-tough "secretary" to the Bishop of San Francisco (Rachel Roberts); a sweet bible selling little person (Billy Barty) whom she mistakes for the villain known as the dwarf, and of course, the man with the scar and the albino, both dangerous hit men on the mission of all missions. Burgess Meredith is hysterically funny as the landlord with the snake. There's also a very amusing sequence with Goldie spying on two old ladies playing scrabble.This is all concluded with one of the wackiest car chase sequences ever shot, along with "What's Up Doc?" and of course the more serious "Bullitt" utilizing as much of San Francisco's famous sights as it can. Then, there is the "Man Who Knew Too Much" spoof finale, one of the most bizarre productions of "The Mikado" ever staged with hysterical reactions by the cast and backstage personnel as the plot is wrapped up. Farce and screwball comedy really work when they surround a great plot, and "Foul Play" utilizes these elements very thoroughly. The classic Barry Manilow song "Ready to Take a Chance Again" is unforgettably heard here as Goldie drives back from Marin County into the city, the mountains and the city within distance. There's no chance to take here. Once you watch it, you will want to see it on a fairly regular basis over and over again.