Little Murders (1971)

Based on jules feiffer's play about a man who marries the girl who saved him from muggers.

Twisted

"Little Murders" is another of the obscure films I saw at base/post theaters during my military days. It was certainly better than average and many of the images (especially the wedding scene with Donald Sutherland) have stayed with me through the years.

While I found it less funny during a recent viewing than I remembered, the message was still disturbing and contemporary. It is certainly satire and black comedy, but you often lose yourself in the story. It is a very individual film, different people will laugh at different times and at different things. During a theater viewing it seemed to isolate audience members from each other.

Jules Feiffer's screenplay is about Alfred (Elliot Gould), a NYC photographer and self-described "apathist", sort of an unengaged existentialist. He is completely disillusioned and has deadened himself to the cries, smells, sights and pains of violent city living; in a Big Apple even more adversarial than that of "The Out-Of-Towners".

Alfred can't feel much anymore but he takes an interest in Patsy (Marcia Rodd), a controlling interior decorator optimist, who wants to change him. Patsy has been able to stay upbeat and involved despite daily encounters with muggers, snippers, obscene callers, and a family that leaves a lot to be desired.

The film seems to be saying that harsh urban life cuts its people off from gentler human emotion. As an interior decorator Patsy's life is largely defined by her ability to control her possessions and the attitudes of those around her.

Patsy's father, mother and younger brother are living a painful parody of "family life," and Alfred's weirdness eventually allows him to fit right in. The dinner scene where he first meets her family is one of the funniest in film history.

The film illustrates that neither apathy nor constructive engagement are successful mechanisms for coping with the modern world. It seems to be saying that the only rational response to living in an insane environment is to vigorously participant in the insanity.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child. June 18, 2008

Close to the real

This old cult classic was seen by myself and a few friends more than 40 times at all the old neighborhood theaters back in the early to mid seventies. It was a great escape from what the world was then. We laughed at all the crazy stuff that happened in the film. I happened to think of this movie and decided to look it up. I am having a dinner party with some of the same people who saw it with me years ago. How true it is all becoming. August 6, 2007

A collection of set pieces

that left me singularly unengaged. So, the world is going to heck in a handbasket and the characters respond to their situation by howling in the storm, apart from the lead, who has given up. A very able cast each get their chance on stage (and it betrays its stage roots at every turn), and boy do they make the most of it. The female lead's archness was so irritating that it was a positive relief when - well, enough of that. She wasn't alone though: the saliva flowed and the carpet fibres flew freely throughout.
It's an odd film, in that it contains some very vivid scenes that stick in the mind, along with many very long, self-indulgently-delivered speeches that bog the story down and leave the viewer wanting it to be over. July 13, 2007

Why a new one, so soon?

I just saw that on April 10, 07, this great film will be comming out again, and I don`t think there are any additional special features. This is such a great film, I even remember seeing it back in mid June of 71, on a double bill with Midnight Cowboy. Why can`t FOX put out other titles that have never been on DVD before, like; The Flim Flam Man, John Goldfarb Please Come Home, It Happens Every Spring, The Sicilian Clan, & Homeboy, just to name a few. April 5, 2007

The gold standard of dark comedy

I stumbled on "Little Murders" on HBO back in the 70's and loved the dark and intellectual humor. Recently, I bought a copy and snuck it into our family movie night rotation. Having not seen it in so many years, I was a little worried it might not live up to my recollection. However, it did not disappoint. Quite the contrary... it turned out to be one of the best movie viewing experiences I've had in years. I saw both my wife and daughter laughing, though to be fair.. I think they expected things delivered a little faster.

In my opinion, Little Murders is the gold standard of dark comedy. Generally, attempting to analyze why a particular piece of art "works" is a silly exercise, but some comments on the high points for me... First, the cast. Vincent Gardenia was one of the finest character actors ever to stand in front of a camera and this was, in my opinion, his magnum opus. Alan Arkin too holds a very special place in "comedies for people who think" and he delivers in Little Murders as well. The underlying vision of the film takes "dark" to never-seen-again levels, and gets there primarily under the power of five of the all-time most perfect rants/soliloquies in the history of film:

* Lou Jacobi as a judge speaking on the presence of The Deity in marriage vows gives a brilliant, extended, passionate rant on how difficult life was for his generation. The camera angles are *perfect*. The details are perfect. I would have paid just to watch this.

* Vincent Gardenia, who is to avant garde 70's comedy what Steve McQueen is to prison camp escape movies, delivers an exquisite, progressive, meltdown as he finally gets his arms around, and then recongizes his place in, the mega-apocalyptic nature of the NY he lives in... I wept. (Example: [police are taking a Stepford Wives looking woman out in a body bag as Vincent and his wife step past and around it, barely taking notice] - Wife: "I saw that nice detective again today.. he was here investigating another murder." Vincent: "Who got it this time?" Wife: "I don't know.. some woman from the other wing" Vincent: "Thank *GOD*.").

* Alan Arkin was the director and had a cameo as the detective.. His attempt to reassure the family after 347 unsolved murders in their neighborhood is spectacular.

* The marriage vows scene with the radical priest Donald Sutherland interacting with the rest of the cast is rich in exquisite detail.

* Finally, this introspective, quiet moment with lead character Elliot Gould in the dark.. unfolding very slowly.. when he recounts how he once monkey wrenched his FBI mail watcher in college.. It was slow and intellectual.. It didn't advance the plot of the movie.. but when you were done watching it, you were left sitting there reeling from the brilliance of the scene. It too was almost it's own short subject.

If you enjoy dark comedy, find some quiet time and watch this film. Give it time to build. It does start slowly if you compare it to modern films, but I promise you will enjoy it.
December 30, 2006

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