My Favorite Year (1982)

Last seen playing a bad movie director in The Stunt Man, Peter O’Toole continued to bite the hand that feeds by playing, brilliantly, a bad movie actor. He’s bad in the sense of being unreliable, not incompetent.

Alan Swann – the Errol Flynn-like character that O’Toole portrays – frequently crashes to the ground in mid-performance. That’s because he’s almost always smashed – he practically lives on scotch.

The setting is New York in 1954, the favourite year of the title. Action centres around a Saturday night television show called Comedy Cavalcade, more than slightly like the then highly popular Your Show of Shows which originated from New York.

Comedy Cavalcades stars King Kaiser (Joseph Bologna) and Swann is signed for a guest appearance on the show. A young Carl Reiner-like writer named Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) is assigned to keep the swashbuckler – who he has idolised for his film roles – sober through a week of rehearsals and the live telecast.

Each night proves a challenge, save for the one where he and Swann are invited by his stereotypical Jewish mother (Lainie Kazan) for dinner at her stereotypical Brooklyn apartment. Kazan’s lampoon is amusing, although it comes dangerously close to being an ethnic insult – and oi vey, has Lainie got heavy!

That night proves to be an endurance test of horrendous proportions for Benjy, who is embarrassed – almost to death, already – by his fawning mother, tactless Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi) and an assortment of oddballs who live in the same apartment building. Swann, however, loves it.

There’s a secondary plot of Kaiser being hassled by a hard-as-nails labor leader who has taken umbrage at a comedy sketch Kaiser regularly does on his show, depicting a hard-as-nails labor leader. When Kaiser refuses to bow to legal threats to stop the sketches, physical threats are not long in following.

For five days, everything brews nicely, a mixture of lunacy and romance (the love interest is supplied by a most forgettable Jessica Harper). But when airtime arrives, so does pandemonium.

Swann, accustomed to multiple movie re-takes, comes unglued at the realisation that there is no second chance on live television. “I’m not an actor. I’m a movie star!” he bellows in stark fear. So he takes a drink and takes off.

At the same time, some friends of the labor leader – to whom “break a leg” is more than a showbiz salutation – show up.

A memorable live television moment ensues with shades of the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges.

My Favorite Year was the directing debut of Richard Benjamin, until now an actor.

Alan Swann
Peter O’Toole
Benjy Stone
Mark Linn-Baker
KC Downing
Jessica Harper
King Kaiser
Joseph Bologna
Sy Benson
Bill Macy
Belle Steinberg Carroca
Lainie Kazan
Alice Miller
Anne De Salvo
Herb Lee
Basil Hoffman
Uncle Morty Kronsky
Lou Jacobi
Leo Silver
Adolph Green
Alfie Bumbacelli
Tony DiBenedetto
Myron Fein
George Wyner
Lil
Selma Diamond
Karl Rojeck
Cameron Mitchell
Connie
Jenny Neumann
Bonnie
Corinne Bohrer
Lord Drummond
George Marshall Ruge
Lady Eleanor
Amanda Horan Kennedy (as Barbara Horan)
Cubby Brown
John Welsh
Harris
Ted Grossman
Dumpling
Teresa Ganzel
Federal Marshal Holt
Philip Bruns
Vivian
Karen Haber
Priscilla
Priscilla Kovary
Gossip Columnist
Eleanor Heutschy
Maitre D’
Peter Paul Eastman
Curt
Fox Harris
Andrea
Rieneke
Artie
Howard George
Alvin Horn
Bob Windsor
Mrs Anne Horn
Gloria Stuart
Rookie Carroca
Ramon Sison
Aunt Sadie Kronsky
Annette Robyns
Mrs Kessler
Pearl Shear
Mr Berkowitz
Stanley Brock
Mr Cantor
Martin Garner
Scalfoni
John Medici
Tess
Cady McClain
Sandy
Norman Steinberg
Walla Walla (voice)
Vince Brocato

Director
Richard Benjamin

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