As Good As It Gets

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I'm not usually into these type of films: love triangles, jealousy etc., mainly because each film is basically the same plot but I keep watching them hoping for something different. Is this film different? Yes. Yes, this film is different. Probably because you have a Sexploitation director behind it; and yes, this film has elements of Sexploitation but it's less that and more of a Drama; one that, if it didn't have so much nudity, you could watch it with your mom, unless you have a free-spirited mother who isn't prudish. It does have its flaws. While there are some A-listers in this, the acting is wooden, at times. And while I think some of the actors improvised with their lines, it didn't help in certain scenes. There's a mystery element to the film, and I'm not talking about the supposed murder but the introduction of the characters like Sarah (the housekeeper), Cynthia (the daughter), who's just creepy and a bit incestuous, in my opinion; and though the character of Paul barely breathes in this film, even he has a bit of a mystery to him. Are the mysteries hard to figure out? No.Some of the photography is lame. Like the 'dun dun dun' moments. You know: the freeze frame at the end of certain scenes. The haziness when a scene approaches a 'dun dun dun' moment. Even the paranoia scenes become pretty lame. The 'murder' scene isn't even murder, it was clearly self-defense. Adultery isn't a crime, even with your step-mother. The ultimate problem with that scene is: it seemed to imply or outright state "It was murder!" The father attacked his son, and then tried to shoot him with a pistol. The son fell to the floor and grabbed something nearby and stabbed his father with it, killing him. Self-defense. Yet the next scene Steve tells his step-mother "We're not guilty of anything. We've killed someone who's already dead." That last part eludes to the fact that Steve's father went missing earlier and was presumed dead. Also, "we" is nonsensical. Steve killed his father (in self-defense), it wasn't planned, at least not by Steve. Adultery isn't a crime in the US, it may be immoral but not a crime. The crime they both commited was getting rid of the body and making it appear as murder to anyone who doesn't know it was self-defense. Of course Karen (the step-mother) mentions this later but Steve's an idiot and thinks he knows what he's doing. Of course, to a point: the same could be said of Karen. If one thinks I gave too much away, you're mistaken. The true villain is revealed in the beginning and one is just waiting for s/he's grand entrance. You get it in the last two minutes of the film.The film, as a whole, is cliché, subplots hurried along, main characters (like Paul and Sarah) who are prominent in the beginning and disappear entirely in the last second act, and questions unanswered yet I still enjoyed it. That's something.

This movie begins with a beautiful woman by the name of "Karen" (Judith Brown) marrying an older man named "Walter McCoy" (Keenan Wynn) and subsequently driving home with him to meet his adult daughter "Cynthia" (Patty Bodeen) and his two sons, "Steve" (Andrew Robinson) and "Paul" (Peter Hooten). It then becomes known that Walter is a multi-millionaire who owns a construction company and is extremely selfish and over-bearing to everyone. Karen, as it turns out, was a high-class Las Vegas prostitute who never loved Walter and has married him only because he is rich. Needless to say, both Paul and Cynthia suspect that Karen is nothing but a golddigger and they now feel threatened by her influence with Walter and the probable impact on their inheritance. Steve, on the other hand, becomes attracted to Karen and discovers that Karen is equally attracted to him. They eventually have an affair which threatens everything. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a rather standard film-noir which was greatly enhanced by the presence of Judith Brown and some decent mystery toward the end. It isn't a great movie by any means but I didn't think it was necessarily that bad either and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Drive-in movie director and TV grad Arthur Marks teamed up with a one-time big name screenwriter Robert Blees (some classics in the '50s) to produce A WOMAN FOR ALL MEN, an interesting case study in movie failure.Before the advent of video I used to see a lot of unreleased (and unreleasable) movies: never acquired by a distributor; stuck in a lab due to non-payment of fees, or unfinished in some way. It was fun to analyze what went wrong -here is a similar case (typical of the video era where old films are resurrected rather indiscriminately) of a complete film that just isn't hitting on all cylinders.Blees' overwritten script is the main problem -it has dubious plot twists, especially in the later reels, that would have been blue-penciled at an early stage by some staffer at a major studio. But this was produced by Blees with director Arthur Marks at the tail-end of the life of latter's home base General Film Corp., and emerges intact, warts and all.I never liked the Marks films I saw in cinemas 40 years ago: specifically I went to every Pam Grier and Fred Wlliamson release, even amateurish ones like Fred's "Adios Amigo". Marks directed my two least favorite (out of dozens), both very disappointing when brand-new: Friday FOSTER (Pam's first "clean" and thereby pointless movie, lacking her requisite nudity); and BUCKTOWN, utterly old-fashioned and lame despite teaming the two greats. In both cases production value was substituted for gutsiness.In this completely different movie he makes the same mistakes: no edge, no sleaze (the film seems made for TV with only minor cuts warranted) and a misguided quest for respectability. Casting is awful: on the DVD as bonus, Marks in an interview regrets not having a star, and it really shows, as attractive Judy Brown in the femme fatale leading role is miscast -she's an Eve Arden type (as styled here), not a leading lady. It would be like putting Eve Plumb or the great Amy Madigan in as a sex symbol -they're character actresses.Similarly Andy Robinson, fresh off a career peak as Clint Eastwood's DIRTY HARRY nemesis, is unappealing from the git-go, in a leading role where he's supposed to start off somewhat sympathetic before becoming the baddie. As his dad, Keenan Wynn is embarrassing, overplaying the already domineering (as written) role as the 100% mean patriarch so as to ruin the film early on - I missed him twirling his white mustache as Snidely Whiplash. Peter Hooten as Andy's brother is literally lost in the shuffle as Blees' script has way too many characters.Marks is proud of his repetitious use of a grandfather clock - a hoary and cornball device that sticks out like a sore thumb in later reels -he lectures us in his interview on suspense but doesn't have a clue. The grade-Z resolution of the drama with twist ending is horrendous, as the script's (almost) only sympathetic character (I'm leaving out Wynn's daughter, whose role also gets lost) turns out to be a deranged murderer.It's a case of handing in merely adequate (technically - in-focus, no bloopers) dailies, proper coverage, but forgetting to put some life into a picture, resulting in a dull, stillborn product that no reasonable sub-distributor or regional exchange would want to book back in the day. With the advent of VHS and now DVD (plus streaming soon to take over completely), any old artifact is deemed potentially interesting to viewers with low (or no) standards. That perhaps 95% of what is euphemistically put on a pedestal as new "independent" features is crap doesn't help matters.

Irascible and domineering millionaire Walter McCoy (a marvelously cantankerous Keenan Wynn) marries the beautiful, but shady and duplicitous Karen Petrie (expertly played to the wicked and conniving hilt by the ravishing Judith Brown). Walter's son Steve (the always excellent Andrew Robinson) automatically becomes smitten with Karen while both Walter's daughter Cynthia (adorable Patty Bodeen) and loyal housekeeper Sarah (a fine performance by Lois Hall) suspect that something is up. This provokes a tangled web of deception, infidelity, and even murder.Director Arthur Marks relates the engrossingly sordid story at a steady pace, adroitly crafts a cold and amoral film noir-type mood (Brown makes for a deliciously ruthless, seductive, and manipulative femme fatale), and delivers a generous sprinkling of tasty female nudity courtesy of the delectable Mrs. Brown. Moreover, the sound acting from the able cast keeps this picture humming: Don Porter as Walter's faithful lawyer Barney, Peter Hooten as Walter's angry other son Paul, Ginny Golden as the snippy Rodell, and Alex Rocco as the pesky Lt. Biase. The enjoyably trashy script by Robert Blees offers a few cool twists. Robert Birchall's sharp cinematography provides a pleasing polished look. The funky percolating score by Luchi Dejesus hits the groovy-throbbing spot. A nifty little drive-in flick.