#34(b) At Long Last Love (1975) (Colin)

Cast: Burt Reynolds, Cybill Shepherd, Madeline Kahn, Duilio Del Prete, Eileen Brennan, John Hillerman

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

Genre: Musical, Comedy, Romance

I hate musicals. I despise them. I loathe them. So when I found out that the next movie on our list was a musical, I was desperate to get out of it.

I offered to watch 10 Adam Sandler movies in its place; Wes declined. I offered to watch every Meg Ryan film ever made; Wes declined. I put on a fake moustache, thick glasses and said in my best broken French accent, ‘I know not of this Colin you speak about’; Wes told me to stop being silly and then declined.

So there was no avoiding it, I had to watch our next movie, At Long Last Love (1975).

When I looked at the cast, I was pleasantly surprised as it contains a host of stars whose work I enjoyed as a kid growing up in the 80’s.

It stars Burt Reynolds, who to me will always be ‘Bandit’ from Smokey and The Bandit, (1977) and it co-stars Cybill Shepherd, who forever will be Maddie Hayes from Moonlighting, (1985-89).

The supporting cast is not too shabby either, with Eileen Brennan, who is best know to me as Capt. Doreen Lewis in Private Benjamin, (1980) and John Hillerman, who will always be known to me as Higgins from Magnum PI, (1980-88).

With such a familiar cast, I felt in safe hands. You know what?  Maybe I was judging this movie too harshly, maybe, just maybe there was a musical out there that I could actually enjoy…….

It’s the 1930’s and Michael Oliver Pritchard III is a millionaire who likes nothing more than to quaff champagne, gamble and enjoy life. He also enjoys holding onto the side of his car whilst butler, Rodney James, (John Hillerman), drives around at whopping 10mph.

When Michael loses his grip, flies off the car and tumbles into Kitty O’Kelly, (Madeline Kahn), it’s love at first sight. Or so it seems….

Meanwhile, at a horse race event, single heiress, Brooke Carter, (Cybill Shepherd), meets and falls for a young Italian gentleman called Johnny Spanish, (Duilio Del Prete). Again it appears to be love at first sight. Or is it?........

It turns out Brooke and Kitty are old school friends and eventually all 4 meet. They party around town and are joined by Brooke’s maid, Elizabeth, (Eileen Brennan), who falls instantly for Rodney.

At a dance, Brooke and Kitty swap partners and there is an instant spark between Brooke and Michael. When the pair step outside to talk, Kitty and Johnny spot them and decide to pretend to fall in love to make Brooke and Michael jealous, but all doesn’t go to plan when Kitty and Johnny realise they may have feelings for each other…….

Will Brooke find love with Michael or Johnny? Will Kitty find love with Johnny or Michael? Will Elizabeth find love with Rodney? Watch this stupendously tedious long movie to find out!

OK, let’s get the positives out of the way. The costume and set design are good and I can not deny that this does look and feel like a 1930’s musical, so job done on that account.

Also some of the quick exchanges between the characters, particularly Michael and others, can be quite fun and some of the lines contain genuine intelligence and humour. This made some scenes watchable but invariably they were spoilt by someone bursting into spontaneous song and that, I’m afraid, is where they lose me.

If I was ever in a situation whereby I am having a nice little chat with someone and they then broke out into song and then everyone around them joined in and then they started dancing around me with perfectly choreographed moves, I would let out a little Tommy squeaker from my bottom and shuffle toward the exit. To me, this is the stuff of nightmares and is up there with spiders, clowns and Piers Morgan.

I do realise that this is a personal preference, but there are things about this film which I am sure we can all agree make this a truly bad movie.

Firstly, for some reason director Peter Bogdanovich decided that all the actors should sing live. Now I will admit I am the first one to tut loudly when Britney Spears is badly lip syncing to some dross she is peddling out on X-Factor, but when it comes to shooting a movie, I can see why the need to overdub the singing is preferable, especially after watching this movie.

The cast are predominately actors, not singers or musical performers and so singing and walking does not come naturally. What little tune they can hold goes out of the window when left foot has to go in front of right foot and what we end up with is something that resembles an off-key shop mannequin with a broom up it's behind.

Then there is the fact that we can hear the background noise whilst they are singing. In one especially annoying moment, Elizabeth and Rodney are making the morning breakfast in the kitchen and are pouring coffee and moving plates around. The noise is so loud, that the singing is barely audible, (not a bad thing, I grant you), and it sounds like I'm trying to listen to someone's ringtone in the middle of a canteen.

Why did Bogdanovich insist on doing this? Would it not have been better to record the songs in a studio and dub over the movie?

The songs themselves are unoriginal and were all previously written by Cole Porter, a composer and songwriter who was big in the 1930's. Having died in 1964, Porter was not involved in this movie but his work has largely been ripped off for the film. Whether or not these are good covers of the original songs, I do not know, but I can say that this movie's version of 'You're The Top' seems to have Charlie Brown's teacher as backing vocals.

In fact 'At Long Last Love' was taken from Cole Porter's song of the same name and this leads me to my biggest problem with this movie. It is to all intent and purposes Cole Porter's movie, with a very shallow storyline sellotaped in between songs which Bogdanovich then passes of as his own.

I find this disgraceful, Porter did all the hard work for Bogdanovich by writing all the songs and all Bogdanovich had to do was to create a half interesting storyline to tie them all together, which he failed miserably at. This is another movie which could have been tweeted and did not need 2 hours of my time to be wasted!

If I was to use Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, then in between songs write a story about a man's indecision as to which curtains to buy and then if I was then to call the movie 'Any Colour You Like', I could hardly expect to ethically pass this off as my own work.

At the very least, Bogdanovich should have asked someone to write songs which were a nod to the 1930's musicals of the time; a celebration but something original.

And so my worse fears were confirmed, I did not find a musical that I could actually enjoy. The script was sparse, the actors could not sing, it was poorly executed, directed and in the end Bogdanovich was, in my opinion, lazy.

I do have some respect for Bogdanovich though, after the movies poor reception he did write a letter to the national newspapers apologising for the film. He did cite issues with the studio which contributed to the disaster and I believe him. His apology seemed sincere and I see no reason why the excuse was not either.

But the fact is, this movie was made and is still out there; all 2 bloody hours of it!

So if you like Cole Porter, give it a go, if you like musicals, give it a go, if you like 80's TV, give it a go, but I think you'll all be as disappointed as I was and will all be saying the same thing when it's over:

'At Long Last, the end credits!'.