That was an excellent one.

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

As Good As It Gets

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Run of the mill comedy where transplanted Texan, Jim Garner, with southern drawl, seems to have the Midas touch in making money despite the fact that his oil wells have dried up, As a result, he goes to New York to try his hand at the stock market and meets female stock analyst Lee Remick.The good theme of the picture is that it deals with women in the work place, especially here at Wall Street. As her boss, Jim Backus wants to get rid of her so he assigns her to a dead end stock which hasn't been viable in years. Wait until you find out what the stock has been lined to. You know of course where this shall all lead to regarding the Garner and Remick characters. There is a fling for him at a restaurant and art gallery.As an art critic, Eliot Reid is wasted here but Garner's pals made up of Phil Harris and Chill Wills are funny here.

Boy, usually we think of very-dated movies being from the decades, perhaps of the 1920s through 1950s, but this 1960s can be the absolute worst in that regard as that decade was undergoing such radical cultural changes. What was "hip" or "cool" back then looks so stupid now, it's embarrassing to watch. This movie is a prime example.This isn't quite the bra-burning days later in the decade, but the feminist message was a big part of this story, that women can wheel and deal on Wall Street, too. Well, that's fine but most of the characters in here acted so arrogant and stupid that the movie is annoying. Yet, to be honest, remember liking this in 1963 at the movie theater. Times - and us - change. Now this just looks like the typically-dated and immature 1960s.One thing that hasn't was my fondness for Lee Remick's face (not her politics). She was pretty to look at in 1963 and just as attractive when I saw this on VHS in the late 1990s. She was a good poster "girl" for the feminist movement.I can't say I was enthralled with the humor of Phil Harris, Jim Backus or Chill Wills in here, although I have laughed at those guys on occasion. Louis Nye, pretending to be an abstract painter riding a bicycle on the canvas, still made me laugh, however. James Garner was the star of the film and it's tough to criticize him, so I won't.

I think that "Send Me No Flowers" is the best of these "Technicolor marvel" comedies from the 60's, but this is one of my favorites. (By "Technicolor marvel" I mean those films that were shot in primary colors even more intense than something like "The Adventures of Robin Hood", with unnaturally uniform lighting and sets and locations, but mostly sets, that are DisneyLand-clean-and-orderly. Doris Day seemed to be in about half of those movies, at least in my recollection.)The movie is about James Garner as an oil-man having a run of bad luck, so he goes to New York to make some quick money. He finds big bucks and romance, and it makes me laugh. The fact that Louis Nye plays a parody of Jackson Pollock, and that Phil Harris, Chill Wills, and Charles Watts act as a sort of Greek chorus to Garner will give you some idea of how inconsequentially silly this movie is. There's even a securities trial at the end (the judge makes a comment at the beginning that is just thrown away -- I missed it the first time I saw the movie -- which I laugh about every time I think of it).

Since accidentally catching this film several years ago on cable, I have counted this as one of my favorite films. It is dated by its 60's chauvinism but sports some of the snappiest dialog and humour since George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart wrote. My favorite movie quote of all time comes from this film. I hope you give this a viewing. I promise if you like subtle and not so subtle dialog driven satire, this is a film for you.