...e tutti risero

I don't know about you but I thought that this movie, which Bogdanovich claimed to have written for Audrey Hepburn was overall a pretty amateurish effort. The so-called 'screwball comedy' turned out to be a little annoying for me, especially the scenes with Colleen Camp (if she said the name Charles just one more time!) which was like watching a bad school play. Now, Dorothy Stratten looked a little distant in this, but was given sound advice by the director (to keep a close eye on Miss Hepburn) She was good looking and pretty shapely but beyond that...? Ben Gazzara does just what Bogdanovich did not want his actors to do..act like they were 'acting'. Hepburn had a mighty talent for being real, and when shes on screen you feel your money's worth. Gazzara, looking a little preoccupied in his scenes only shines when Audrey is on screen with him. John Ritter brings his usual comic relief with some pleasure, after enduring some of the very bad dialog (Bogdanovich claims some of the scenes were written on the spot while filming and you get a sense of that hurried effort in a bad way) In the end I will keep a copy of this flick for myself. I love Audrey and this was her last feature film. She still had the natural beauty and class that sets her millenniums apart from the other actresses in this flick. While you may not like this vehicle as Audrey's 'swan song' as it were, you will just love to have seen her again.

Everybody seems to be following everyone in this caper from Bogdanovich. Some really big names: Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, and of course, 33 year old John Ritter, while he was still making Three's Company. Minimal speaking, at least the first part of the film. Turns out, private-eyes are following spouses who may be playing around. Some pretty good singing by Colleen Camp, who plays the jealous Christy. Great street scenes of New York city. Patti Hansen (now MRS. Keith Richards in real life! ) is taxi driver Sam, who pals around with Russo (Gazzara). although everyone is pretty much hitting on everyone in this tangled bowl of spaghetti. lots of following people around the streets of new york. Bogdanovich explores married people flirting and fooling around. and partners and new friends keep meeting the other partners. Bogdanovich really explores un-expected new relationships, and people having multiple partners. Why does Christy keep saying Charles?? quite odd. and "Jose" is Hepburn's real-life son. lots of similarities to What's Up Doc, but that was just one person trying to steal the engaged guy away from his fiancee. As goofed up as director Bogdanovch's personal life was, he sure made some great films. My personal favorite is What's Up Doc? really interesting info him on wikipedia, as well as a full interview in New York Magazine March 2019. Good character study.

There is a certain French farcical charm, however calculated, about director Peter Bogdanovich's 1981 urban valentine to romantic entanglements in Manhattan; but just released on DVD a quarter-century later, the film still feels half-baked in execution. Perhaps because Bogdanovich has too innate a familiarity with Hollywood's golden era, there is just too much pastiche and not enough depth to the shenanigans of three private eyes, their put-upon boss and the various women with whom they intertwine most predictably. The characters come in and out of this omnibus tale like Robert Altman's "Nashville" and Jean Renoir's "Rules of the Game", but the results are not nearly as resonant.

Unfortunately, the movie was jinxed immediately when co-star Dorothy Stratten, who became romantically involved with Bogdanovich during filming, was infamously murdered by her husband right after its completion. If the film was meant as the director's launching pad for Stratten as he did previously for Cybill Shepherd in "The Last Picture Show", he is only partially successful this time as the pretty starlet makes a comparatively modest impression as Dolores, the innocent object of obsession for bumbling detective Charles. These two are part of a larger ensemble, which includes Arthur, a long-haired shamus constantly on roller skates, and John, the veteran investigator who finds himself drawn to Angela Niotes, the possibly philandering wife of an Italian industrialist.

Bogdanovich had the good fortune of casting Audrey Hepburn, in her last feature film starring role, as Angela. Even though her story does not even get going until an hour into the movie, a fiftyish Hepburn looks radiantly stylish and is the epitome of resigned grace as an unhappily married woman. In an apparent nod to Bogie, Ben Gazzara performs too close to the vest as world-weary John, while a young, bespectacled John Ritter seems to regale in all his slapstick business as the smitten Charles. Less successful are Blaine Novak as the overly hip Arthur, model Patti Hansen (long since married to Rolling Stone Keith Richards) as bromide-spouting taxi driver "Sam", and a particularly unctuous Colleen Camp as motor-mouthed country singer Christy Miller insinuating herself into everyone else's lives.

Much like a Jacques Demy film ("The Young Girls of Rochefort" comes immediately to mind), the plot unfolds after a long wordless introduction, and character motivations get filled in on an as-needed basis until the film gains some gravitas and then whimpers away. On the DVD's main extra, Bogdanovich states emphatically that this is the favorite of his films in an interview conducted with director Wes Anderson, who also admires the film (as does Quentin Tarantino, who makes it one of his top ten in "Halliwell's Top 1000" book). The details of the location shooting are interesting, as much was done on a modest scale with a minimum of extras, and Bogdanovich gratefully does not belabor the sensationalistic aspects of Stratten's death. He also provides a solid commentary track, and the print transfer on the DVD is relatively clean. I'm not sure the film is completely worthy of rediscovery in a vaunted 25th Anniversary Edition except for Hepburn's near-valedictory work and any lingering curiosity about Stratten.

I suppose we're lucky that this film ever got out at all for the movie going public to see. With the tragic murder of Dorothy Stratten all set to break out into a film career and her connection with director Peter Bogdanovich the big studios thought the whole thing all to sordid. Bogdanovich went bankrupt buying the film from 20th Century Fox and getting it released as best he could.

It was his work and a labor of love in every sense of the word. They All Laughed is a story about a detective agency where the operators just can't stop mixing business with pleasure. They're spying on several women and then get involved with all of them. I mean they are a fetching lot, but apparently no one puts their libido on hold.

The biggest names in the cast are Ben Gazzara and Audrey Hepburn who had co-starred previously in Bloodlines, a truly mediocre film. But this is an ensemble piece and having the biggest box office names doesn't translate into screen time. Gazzara as a detective gets as much time it seems as John Ritter and Blaine Novak. These guys are spying on Hepburn, Stratten, and Colleen Camp. Around as a girl Friday is Patti Hansen who drives a cab and seems always available for the operatives of George Morfogen's agency.

Some lovely viewing of Manhattan during the year 1980 including the once and future twin towers. One thing that made no sense was Colleen Camp as a country singer. Now having lived in New York for almost 50 years I can say that there are no country type bars in Manhattan that have even middle line singers like Camp. Maybe Bogdanovich should have had Camp be a piano bar performer or changed the locale to a city like Houston.

There was also certainly not enough Hepburn. This was an improvement over Bloodlines, but They All Laughed will never rank as one of Audrey Hepburn's great films.

"They All Laughed" is one of those little movies I am always recommending to friends seeking something out of the ordinary. It is firmly rooted in the screwball romance traditions of the past, but seems more contemporary. Even the decidedly early 80s atmosphere doesn't date it too much. Bogdanovich wisely keeps the whole enterprise so light on its feet, that reality never brings it crashing down to earth. But, that said, this sort of sweet little movie absolutely relies on the actors to keep it going, and "TAL" is blessed with a dream cast who understand the requirements of this sort of tale. It is a movie that wouldn't linger so long in the memory if it weren't for the little moments provided by the excellent cast: Colleen Camp's simultaneously shouting orders at John Ritter and her dog; Blaine Novak unleashing all that hair from under his hat; and especially the moment Dorothy Stratten falls for John Ritter and says, "How...weird." It's such a piece of fluff one doesn't want to lay too much on it for fear of crushing it, but it is certainly does leave one with a light heart and a smile on one's face.