Edwards, Jennifer

Days of Wine and Roses

Days of Wine and Roses is one film not to watch if you are melancholic by nature, as this tale of middle-class alcoholism rings very true. Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick are the besotted couple who find that life is not always fun when viewed through rosé-colored glasses. He's the San Francisco business executive who marries Remick and seduces her into a cocktail culture that soon overpowers them both. It is not a pretty picture when their life shatters around them, but this film is extremely compelling for their performances. It is matched only by Billy Wilder's Lost Weekend and the more explicit Leaving Las Vegas. This was nominated for five Academy Awards and won for the title song by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer. Filmed by Blake Edwards in 1962, it is based on a Playhouse 90 television production from 1958, starring Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie. --Rochelle O'Gorman

Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick are unforgetable-and the title tune wins an Oscar(R) in Blake Edwards' searing, bittersweet study of an alcoholic couple on the rocks. Year: 1962 Director: Blake Edwards Starring: Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford

S.O.B.

A satirical sock to Hollywood's kisser about a movie maker's attempts to make a flop into a racy R-rated box-office hit.Running Time: 122 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 012569069923 Manufacturer No: 699

It's been years since Blake Edwards made a funny film, and this 1981 effort may have been one of his last consistent laugh producers. Richard Mulligan plays a Hollywood producer who realizes that his career may be over when the public sees his latest film: a big-budget musical that lands on test audiences with a thud. In a moment of madness, he hits upon the idea of reediting it to include soft-porn reshoots--including a shot of his movie-star wife (Julie Andrews), who has a squeaky clean public image, baring her breasts (which the squeaky clean Andrews actually does). Scathing in its satire of Hollywood numbskullery, the film features terrific performances by Mulligan, Robert Preston, and William Holden (in his last film). --Marshall Fine

Go Ask Alice

Sunset

Blake Edwards directed this homage to both the Old West and the silent era in filmmaking that undeservedly received indifferent reviews and did little business. James Garner is perfectly cast as Wyatt Earp who, his lawman days behind him, is brought to Hollywood in the waning days of silent movies to serve as a consultant on a movie about his life. There, he hooks up with cowboy star Tom Mix (Bruce Willis, in relaxed, low-key mode) and together they solve a murder. Though Edwards includes elements of slapstick, he actually puts together a fairly involving mystery plot and a compelling cast of characters, including Malcolm McDowell, Mariel Hemingway, and Dermot Mulroney. But this is Garner's film, aided by a surprisingly likable Willis performance. --Marshall Fine

Son of the Pink Panther

Blake Edwards, looking for some way to resurrect the Pink Panther series after the death of Peter Sellers, hit upon the idea of creating an illegitimate son for him (with Claudia Cardinale, who starred in the original film in 1963, returning as the mother). Edwards's most useful notion was casting Italian comic Roberto Benigni as the junior Clouseau. Benigni is a walking sight gag, capable of turning dross to gossamer with his sheer physical skill. Unfortunately, he's no Rumpelstiltskin--his powers only go so far--and there's too much straw for him to spin it all into gold; indeed, he gets buried, despite an energetic performance, in a limp plot about the search for a kidnapped princess. --Marshall Fine

Insanity is relative in the final installment of the Pink Panther series, starring "gifted comedian" (Variety) Roberto Benigni along with Panther alumni Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk and Claudia Cardinale. Fueled by Benigni's "wacky charm" (Blockbuster Entertainment Guide) and "splendidly fractured English" (Halliwell's Film and Video Guide), Son of the Pink Panther proves that a family resemblance can sometimes be painfully obvious. An Arabian princess is kidnapped, and it's up to Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Lom) to save her. Fortunately, there's no Clouseau around to plague him this time! But when a klutzy local cop with the unfortunate name of Jacques (Benigni) is assigned to help him, he manages to run Dreyfus over and blow him upall on his first day on the job. Soon Dreyfus begins to fear that if Clouseau has a long-lost son, he would be a lot like this!

The Man Who Loved Women

A Fine Mess

That famous comedy team of Howie Mandel and Ted Danson stink up the joint in this bizarre attempt by Blake Edwards at re-creating the slapstick world of Laurel and Hardy. Initially envisioned as a partial remake of Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box, this degenerates into a witless plot involving racehorse fixing and a gangster's unfaithful wife. The cast, which includes Maria Conchita Alonso, Richard Mulligan, and Stuart Margolin, looks embarrassed at the helter-skelter attempts at slapstick, which barely rises to the level of schtick. Danson and Mandel both had hit TV shows at the time (Cheers and St. Elsewhere, respectively), but this movie misfire did nothing to ignite their cinematic careers. --Marshall Fine

That's Life!

This film was something of a movie stunt: writer-director Blake Edwards cast his friends and family, gave them a structure, then had them improvise the scenes before he put them into a script. The result is so amazingly flat that you'll be astonished that anyone would think they were actually doing something interesting. The plot centers on a writer (Jack Lemmon) who, in his anxiety about the onset of his 60th birthday, doesn't notice that his singer-wife (Julie Andrews) is going through a crisis of her own: a throat ailment that may be cancer. The cast, which includes both Edwards's and Lemmon's kids, flutters around them searching for a way to kick-start the plot, but we're left to watch Lemmon twittering about in the midst of a very late midlife crisis. --Marshall Fine

Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews, two screen legends with eleven Academy Award nominations between them, grace the screen in Blake Edwards' human comedy "That's Life!" Lemmon frantically portrays Harvey Fairchild, a wealthy California architect, father of three successful children, husband to a beautiful wife and neurotic as hell. Confronted with his 60th birthday, Harvey is coming down with a severe case of male menopause. Julie Andrews is Gillian Fairchild, the loving, supportive wife of ranting Harvey. Gillian's got her own problems: she's nervously awaiting the results of her hospital tests. One daughter is going through a breakup, the other is seven months pregnant...and son Josh has brought home another brainless beauty. This chaotic clan has all gathered to welcome Harvey into old age. Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews

Heidi

Vampire Clan