Friday, January 11, 2019

Skin Deep


Actors: John Ritter, Vincent Gardenia, Alyson Reed, Joel Brooks, Julianne Phillips, Chelsea Field, Peter Donat, Don Gordon, Nina Foch, Denise Crosby, Michael Kidd, Dee Dee Rescher
Rating: 7 out of 10, I continue my revisit of director Blake Edwards’ films with this sex comedy from the late 1980s. I liked this back in the day for the gratuitous display of topless ladies but it has aged well with Edwards’ cutting humor, or at least better than the “tall hair” styles of that era. Ritter is very good but almost too likable to play a vile alcoholic, womanizer descending into what seems to be a bottomless pit of depression. I know I said comedy and it really is funny. My favorite character was the wife of Ritter’s lawyer, Dee Dee Rescher, who laughs uncontrollably every time Ritter gets himself into further comical trouble. She plays the Greek chorus exposing how ludicrous Ritter’s character’s life has become. There is also the luminescent condom fight scene which is still funnier than it should be. Well worth a watch, a lot of subtle as well as slapstick humor.
MVP: Ritter as the Zach, a writer who should know better than let his ex-girlfriend strap him into an electric stimulation machine

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