Clues to Dewitt
Sherlock Holmes: I suppose you know why I am here, Dewitt? Dewitt: No. I don't have a clue.
H: Really? It's that time of year again, where the pseudonym finally faces his fans, the once-derided movie stars, and various and sundry bill collectors. That wasn't you in the sable coat I saw coming out of the Billiard Room?
D: Don't be silly. You know that I have nothing to do with CLUE (Copley Place). I don't play board games, let alone make movies about them, let alone movies with three different endings, depending on the theater. Martin Mull does play a crafty Colonel Mustard, though, and gimmickry aside, even an English Spook like yourself might enjoy it. It's not easy taking a movie inspired by a board game seriously, but then I suppose you might have in your younger days, eh?
I'm not here to talk about my past, Dewitt. It's your past that I'm here to uncover.
My past? You're the one who gets Steven Spielberg to summon up every special effect in the book to turn your youth into another Pop Pipe Dream. Swinging from chandeliers? You look more like the debating team type to me, but I guess that's not enough for our friend Spielberg. But there's no mystery in YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES (Sack Charles) because we've seen it all before. Here we have Goonies with a British accent: into every life, a lot of magic must shine. But there's none of the poignancy of Spielberg's earlier E.T. or Close Encounters. I don't mind the bright lights and special effects. . .
And we can feed you after midnight and throw water on you and you won't burn down our town?
No, you can't change me by throwing water at me--or money. But then TRADING PLACES (Harvard Science Center) might tell a different story. Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd reenact the old Prince and Pauper tale under the guise of a special experiment, the kind without flashing lights. Ackroyd, born with spoon in mouth and (as ever) no expression on face, plays the arrogant Rich Kid who loses it all so [the] thief sans trust fund ends up with his loot. The rich old Social Scientists who set both of them up want to settle the old Nature versus Nurture debate, where Nature means playing the blind beggar to get spending money and Nurture seems to mean stiff suits and wood panelling. It's too predictable to waste time with the ending and too difficult to give Murphy and Ackroyd credit for carrying a tired concept to first-rate comedy.
A tired concept? More tired than your pseudonym?
We'll ignore that. But speaking of tired concepts, how about SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE (Sack Copley)? Dudley Moore plays the Elf who wanted to sell out Santa, and John Lithgow is the evil Toy Manufacturer who wants to get the goods before they hit the sleigh route. Moore and Lithgow put in some agile performances, but the lines just aren't there--not even Moore and Lithgow can improv their way through this debacle.
Not a very chipper way to welcome the Christmas Season. Has the life of a reviewer been all that bad?
No. You might even say IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Harvard Science Center), but then Jimmy Stewart's already said that. But it's worth saying again, and Capra's classic Christmas flick is worth seeing once every year around holiday/exam time. Stewart plays the small town bank manager who is threatened by the local Grinch in a business suit (Lionel Barrymore).
Stewart wishes he had never been born, but then is shown what the town would have been like without him. As an allegory, it lacks the timelessness of something like Dicken's A Christmas Story, but as a film, but it's the kind of thing you could take your mother to see without blushing.
Ah, that old topic: Mother Dewitt, back to haunt us all.
None of that. I'm not into protests but Mother is a saint. If Jean-Luc Godard ever does to Mother what HAIL MARY (Orson Welles) has done to the Virgin Mary, I'll be there at every showing.
So you'd actually picket the movie?
No, don't be silly, I'd buy up all of the tickets for every showing. The Dewitts don't like publicity.
And just who are the Dewitts?
How do you say. . . Elementary, my dear Mr. Holmes.