Killing Time with The In-Laws

I was startled to learn thatthe great Alan Arkin, a late-in-life Oscar winner for his irascible grandparole in Little Miss Sunshine, once thought he was no good at comedy. Afterall, he‘d burst into the public eye with his wildly funny Oscar-nominated performanceas a Russian submarine officer stranded off the New England coast in 1966’s TheRussians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. (Arkin lost to PaulScofield’s dead-serious performance as Sir Thomas More in A Man for AllSeasons.) A true character actor, Arkin followed up Russians with avariety of roles: as a deaf-mute in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, abereaved Puerto Rican dad in Popi, and a thug who terrorizes poor, blindAudrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark. Eventually it occurred to him that hecould be successfully funny on-screen . . . and that he and Peter Falk would make for an ideal pairing. Hence TheIn-Laws, a 1979 farce that had me in stitches.

 A plot summary doesn’t dojustice to the zaniness of this film. The basic premise is that twoin-laws-to-be (Arkin as a meek dentist, Falk as a shifty con-man type) must goon the lam on the brink of their children’s wedding. I’m still a bit confusedby the theft that sets the plot in motion, and by the true nature of the Falkcharacter’s hush-hush affiliation with good guys and bad. But what’s pure goldis the developing relationship between two opposites who suddenly need to worktogether in the direst of circumstances.

 A few glimmers of this film’shilarity: 

·       A masked thug, fresh from a heist, hands over his lootto Falk on a rooftop, while both matter-of-factly exchange pleasantries aboutfamily doings

·       Falk whisks Arkin out of his Manhattan office to breakinto a safe, leaving behind a matron who obligingly waits in the dental chairfor his return, her mouth stuffed with cotton, while conscientiously obeyinginstructions not to bite down

·       A panicked Arkin, escaping a police raid, zips into adrive-through spray paint establishment, only to find his luxury sedanpermanently adorned with flames.

·       Aboard a rickety private plane bound for SouthAmerica, the ageless James Hong (yes, he was the elderly father inEverything Everywhere All at Once), gives the passenger-safety spiel inCantonese and pantomime, panicking Arkin even more

·       Arkin and Falk end up on a South American island runby a manic general (the priceless Richard Libertini) who has a most unusualsidekick. (It gives new meaning to the phrase, “Talk to the hand.”)

 Farce is not easy, and Isuspect that the examples above, when spelled out in print, might sound dumbrather than amusing. But under the astute direction of veteran Arthur Hiller,Arkin and Falk are so committed to the reality of this insanity that the vieweris rooting for them all the way.  WhenStanley Kramer tried to create the funniest movie ever made, It’s a Mad MadMad Mad World, he loaded it so full of shtick, not to mention famous comicactors, that the audience (me) was not amused. Mad Mad World was awhopping 3 ½ hours long, and there was so much going on, in so many differentscrewball styles, that the film felt exhausting. The In-Laws (half aslong, with an able but much smaller cast) is, for me, laugh-out-loud funny, andI know many in Hollywood  have felt the same.

 Which is why there was a 2003remake, featuring another amusingly odd couple: Michael Douglas and AlbertBrooks. It was a total flop. Don’t be fooled by imitations.