User reviews

Alan Alda, still trying to be Hollywood's Everyman, wrote, directed and starred in SWEET LIBERTY,a relatively entertaining comedy about a small town professor who has written a book about what went on his town during the revolutionary war and has sold the film rights. The film chronicles the arrival of the film crew to do the film on location and Alda's exasperation at all the changes they want to make to his book; however, his attitudes toward what they are doing to his book take a back seat when he meets the film's leading lady (Michelle Pfeiffer) who apparently physically resembles the character she is playing to a T but as Alda finds, out is nothing like her. This movie is just so Alan Alda and like all of his movies, the characters all seem to talk and think like Alda but I have come to expect this from an Alda movie after THE FOUR SEASONS. Alda has assembled an impressive cast including Michael Caine as a hammy actor and Bob Hoskins, extremely amusing as the screenwriter who pretends to want Alda's input on his screenplay while seeking his constant approval at the same time. The film does run out of steam before fade out, but Alda and company manage to keep it afloat for most of the ride.

It was not too much of a strain for Alan Alda to do Sweet Liberty as his character of Hawkeye Pierce from MASH stepped right from the small screen to the big. Imagine Hawkeye as an American history professor writing a book on the southern theater of the American Revolution and you've got a start to Sweet Liberty.

Alda has not only written a book, but it was so good that he got some big bucks from Hollywood for the screen rights. And the company is going to film on location in North Carolina where Alda teaches history at a college and where he participates in the annual recreation of the Battle of Cowpens. But one read of what the Hollywood writers have done to his work and he's ready to sue.

Well that's not going to work because they've got the contract and the lawyers to back them up. How to salvage his work, for that he turns to screenwriter Bob Hoskins to help him navigate the ways of the movie business jungle. Hoskins too would like to see his name on something worthwhile and maybe Academy Award winning.

This involves Alda wooing in a different way stars of the film Michael Caine and Michelle Pheiffer. Caine is quite a wooer himself and the best performance from the supporting cast is that of Lois Chiles who plays Caine's wife who's decided he's been on too long a leash.

But in the scenes he's in Bob Hoskins truly steals Sweet Liberty. He's the quintessential Hollywood man who drags Alan Alda along through the highways and byways of movie speak. Saul Rubinek is also good as a most harassed and egotistical director.

I would like to have seen more of Lillian Gish playing Alda's dotty mother who wants to hook up with a bricklayer she had a LONG ago fling with. It's that way with Alzheimer's patients they remember something from ages ago, but not what they had for dinner yesterday. All I can say was the sex must have been fabulous.

Sweet Liberty is nice sparkling comedy about the business of making movies.

I had hoped to like this film a bit more than I did, and I certainly expected to laugh more. Sweet Liberty is an Alan Alda project through and through. In it, he plays a history professor whose historical novel is going to be made into a movie during one crazy summer in the little college town. Everyone is excited about the upcoming shoot, but Alda's excitement turns to disgust once the cast and crew arrive. He finally gets a look at the script and finds out that the movie will be sort of a sex comedy with little regard for historical accuracy. Alda then sets out with the screenwriter to try and convince the actors and director to film his own version. While all of this is going on, we sit through several arguments about Alda's relationship status with his girlfriend. We are also treated to the eccentricities of Alda's ancient mother played by legendary actress Lillian Gish. Overall, there is just too much going on, and the film never quite sustains any comedic momentum.

The film has some genuine strengths. The cast is an eclectic bunch of old stars, new faces, and genial nobodies. Alda and Michael Caine basically play themselves and do a very good job. Michelle Pfeiffer is not only beautiful as hell, but she also gives a strong early performance as the lead actress. Bob Hoskins' character is well-written, but he plays the man in too shrill of a manner to be taken seriously. His screenwriter character has some wonderful points to make about using flattery to get the attention of the actors and director if you want them to change what they are doing. But he is just so hyper that you cringe whenever you hear his voice. Saul Rubinek is good as the hotshot, pompous young director who is only out to show the audience three things: People defying authority, destruction of property, and people taking off their clothing. That's what industry research shows that younger audiences want, he informs Alda more than once.

There are other problems besides the annoying Hoskins character. I'm sure it would seem desirable for an icon like Lillian Gish to be included in just about any film at that time. However, her character and scenes are just not needed and end up being more of a distraction than anything else. Alda and his girlfriend have about the same argument at least half a dozen times. Another scene looks like it will give a huge laugh payoff, but it falls flat. In it, a group of stunt men are in a bar with some of the local re-creators of the Battle of Cowpens who will also be used as extras in the film. The stunt men are trying to tell the amateurs how to fall in the battle scene. One of the stunt men breaks out one of those harnesses that people use to get pulled backwards through doorways in bar fight scenes. And you think you are going to see one of the amateurs get unknowingly hooked up to it and taken for the ride of his life. But alas, they apparently thought it would be funnier for the guy just to fall down on his back like an idiot. Another missed opportunity! 5 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

Michael, a history teacher in a small East Coast town, has written a scholarly book about the American Revolution. Hollywood has decided to turn it into a movie, and cast and crew are descending on Michael's hometown to shoot the location scenes. The author gets a shock when he sees how is work is being revamped for the big screen.

Alan Alda wrote, directed and stars in this good-natured romantic comedy. We are in classic Alda terrain here, the unspectacular small-detail world of domestic discord and couples who feel compelled to analyse their love lives. "You buy dishes together," ventures Michael, "and you invite people over. Then you talk about them in the bathroom while you're brushing your teeth." This is the microsmic universe that Alda loves to explore.

Michael has three problems, all linked, which are currently exasperating him. Firstly, his aged mother (Lillian Gish) is very dotty and in need of care, something she steadfastly refuses to accept. Secondly, his lover Gretchen (Lise Hilboldt) won't cohabit unless he marries her. Thirdly, the Hollywood company which has come out east to make the film has desecrated his work by turning it into a lightweight (and historically worthless) love story. "I just wrote the book from which the movie has NOT been taken," fumes Michael.

Faith Healey (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a method actress and a very big star. When in costume she is in character, even to the point of talking in 'colonial' English offscreen. Michael and Faith become romantically entangled, until Michael realises his mistake. There is no person at the core of the actress - just a creature voracious for the period detail that only Michael can supply. She was playing the part of a lover in order to draw from him what she needed.

Elliott James is selfish and shallow, but incredibly charming and enormous fun to be around. A leading man who cares nothing for films, or even other people, he lives his life as one long party. Michael Caine parodies himself, and in the process turns in a commendable performance as the eternal matinee idol.

Alda can certainly write. His dialogue always flows beautifully, and his understated characters are utterly believable. When Michael's 'authentic' 18th-century dialogue is spoken, the venerable cadences are gorgeous.

Essentially, the film is about the artifice of movie-making. "Who really knows what happened a coupla hundred years ago?" asks the director (Saul Rubinek). The issue is, how far should film-makers go in disregarding historical truth in order to obtain audience approval? Films are, of necessity, separate and distinct from their source material - but in the trade-off between authenticity and popularity, where is the balance to be struck?

A New England community such as this one is fiercely proud of its heritage, and indeed very knowledgeable about it. The guys who stage War of Independence re-enactments know in minute detail about the manoeuvres, skirmishes, equipment and ammunition which constituted real events and which form their living culture. It is an affront to these people for ignorant West Coasters to play fast and loose with their sacred lore.

In a film about the artifice of film, Alda makes intelligent use of cinema tricks and conventions. Elliott insists on doing his own stunt work - and yet for his triumphant fall into the pond, Michael Caine is doubled by a stunt man. The blizzard scene is shot in glorious New England sunshine. The steadycam revolve shot which marks the romantic climax of the 'film' film is repeated at the romantic climax of 'our' film.

With delicious malice, Alda satirises the internal dynamics of cast and crew. Bob Hoskins is the writer with no brains and no class who helps Michael understand the power struggles within the movie's little community, and how best to exploit these envies and vanities in order to get what he wants.

Sword fencing is a subtle metaphorical strain running through the film. When we see Michael and Gretchen fencing in the opening scene, the play-fight represents the involvement and the conflict inherent in their relationship. The 'audience' of fencing masks on the wall stands for the public attention to which they will shortly be exposed. Newly-arrived film crew members unload Scottish broadswords, showing from the outset that there will be brash disregard for authenticity. Elliott and Michael sublimate their clash of wills in a protracted sword duel.

We are told (and shown) that teenage cinema audiences expect three things in a movie: defiance of authority, destruction of property, and nudity. Alda's film complies with the formula, but also intelligently undermines it. Gretchen's quiet jealousy is excellent, as is Michael's stiff back, expressing vehement disapproval without moving a muscle. A film can stimulate eye, ear and intellect: it doesn't have to follow shallow formulae.

If the action climax is a little too smug and convenient, Alda can be forgiven. He is making smart, literate films for grown-ups. Long may he continue.

Alan Alda gives the film industry a mild ransacking in this slight and horribly scored metafilm comedy. As always, Alda's characters are good-natured and often amusing, embodying Alda's sometimes keen-eyed, sometimes bland observations. But despite a potentially original concept and angle, as well as Alda's familiarly enjoyable atmosphere, the film never is able to rise out of conventionality, leaving it mostly up to the actors to charm their way out of otherwise unremarkable situations. In addition to Alda himself, the star-studded cast includes Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins, Michelle Pfeiffer and Lillian Gish, in her penultimate screen appearance.

Written, directed, and starring Alan Alda, Sweet Liberty follows, well, Alan Alda as he gets introduced to the wacky world of Hollywood. He plays an author—which foreshadows his real-life accomplishments, since he later wrote three memoirs and became a New York Times bestseller—whose novel is being adapted into a film. Even though he has his hands full with his personal life, when he becomes surrounded by the cast and crew, he learns an entirely new definition of drama.

If you like movies about making movies, you'll probably want to rent this one. The lead actors of the film within the film are Michael Caine and Michelle Pfeiffer, and it's always fun to watch beautiful people on the big screen. A ninety-two-year-old Lillian Gish plays Alan's mother, and Lois Chiles and Bob Hoskins join the supporting cast. In general, I find this genre a little too over-the-top in the backstage "drama", and even though I love Michael Caine, this movie didn't really break the mold. But there are some pretty funny scenes, and if you don't take it too seriously, it can be fun with a bunch of your friends and a bowl of popcorn.

Michael, played by Alan Alda, writes a History of the American Revolution, sells it to a producer, and films it. Alan Aldo wrote the script and produced it. The whole story is screwed up by Hollywood, and altho the oneliners are funny, there is so much confusion, and dissension; too many people involved. If it wasn't for the fine actors Michael Caine, Michele Pfeiffer, and that grand lady of old films Lillian Gish, it wouldn't amount to much. 6/10

I like this very silly movie about the making of a movie set during the Revolutionary War. History takes a back seat to the backstage madness as film crew invades a small town in the American South... ...except that this film was filmed on Long Island. Living on the Island I get great joy watching all the technical gaffes in the film, only the lead characters cars have non-New York license plates, a Long Island Railway Train goes by in the background and on it goes. You don't have to have sharp eyes to see the errors, they are glaring if you know that they are there. They don't take away from the fun, they add to it since as Alan Alda's character quickly finds out, there is nothing real about making movies.

The cast is great across the board, with everyone seeming to have such a good time its infectious.

See this movie, its just a lot of fun.

This and others will feel this too, not just me, that this colorful entry, doesn't rise up to the rest of Alda's works. If you're involved in any facet of the film industry, even a budding new screenwriter, you'll identify with this film. What SL manages to do, is be so darn bloody entertaining, in a good way, with a lot of good performances by many, none more than the late Gish, while I really liked Caine in this as a narcissistic, womanizing lead and hopeless leadr, and again, one who likes to drink, while Alda is just Alda, again. He plays a English lit teacher, who's just written a book on the American Revolution, which is gonna be transpired to a decent sort film, he can be proud of, via a script, but that's where the trouble first starts, in the name of loud zesty scriptwriter, Hoskins who's instead written, like a sex farce. This really gets Alda irked, but Hoskins becomes an ally and the two try to see they can slowly adjust it, to what he wants, under the uncaring and greedy eyes of the film's director (the ever reliable, Rubinek, typecast). Alda has a beautiful girlfriend, and of course, he falls for actress in the story, Pfeiffer, who pretty much resembles, I gather what she would be in real life, regarding the serious craft of the acting world. Gish just steals every scene, obsessing over an old flame, he implores Alda to track down, but of course, he has other worries. I'll never get the opening theme out of my head. Again, if involved in any facet of the film industry, you'll find this film a blast. One scene, at it's end, even has an actor engaged in a perpetual kiss, fare welling an extra. This film is never dull, and manages to be colorfully entertaining all through. Actually writing this review, has me wanting to videe it again. Though it's not without flaws, and doesn't fully rise, to the standard anticipated, what could of been, SL not the less, just boils down to such a enjoyably entertaining sit down movie, which kind of disappointingly, shares the same song to Outrageous Fortune, the following year. The film shows, what can be achieved, about righting your disapproval, and the fruits of liberty, when you reclaim your realization. Even Rubinek, whose character is such an ass of a director, tells Alda after he's tampered with it, "I'll just cut those scenes out later on". What was really inspiring was when the extras, rallied with Alda, to right one part.

The "making of a Big Hollywood Movie" is certainly not a new idea for a comedy. Over the years there have been many movies like this--most recently David Mamet's "State and Main." What Alan Alda did for this movie is playfully comment on the state of the blockbuster (six years before Robert Altman's "The Player"). In 1986, the "blockbuster movie" was in its early stages. This film originally came out around the same time as Top Gun--case in point. Saul Rubinek plays the obnoxious Hollywood director (what? An obnoxious director?) who turns Alda's historical, and serious, book about the American Revolution into a romantic comedy, complete with big stars who take their clothes off. What makes this movie different from Alda's other films is that there are no serious undertones. Everyone is having a great time, and it shows. Michelle Pfeiffer, in one of her first starring roles, has rarely been funnier. Michael Caine struts his best comic stuff. And Bob Hoskins--how can you go wrong? The film has an obvious mid '80s feel (the music is terrible), and Alda's direction seems more suited for television, but this is still an enjoyable movie, less successful and acidic in its approach to Hollywood and its stars and blockbusters (compared to Sunset Blvd., The StuntMan, and of course The Player) but still worth watching.

Michael Burgess (Alan Alda) is a simple college history professor. He had written a serious Pulitzer winning book about the American Revolution which is being turned into a movie. The production has come to town and everybody is excited. He is shocked when the scriptwriter (Bob Hoskins) tells him that his book has been turned into a bad comedy. The director (Saul Rubinek) does not care. Elliott James (Michael Caine) and Faith Healy (Michelle Pfeiffer) are the lead actors in the movie within the movie. This also stars silent film legend Lillian Gish.

Alan Alda stars, writes, and directs this satire of a Hollywood movie production. It's mildly humorous. It tackles a satire-rich environment but pulls its punches when it should be going for the throat. The movie starts off right with good turns from Hoskins and Rubinek on the consultation. After that, the only one truly going for it is Michael Caine. His sword fighting is the most memorable part of the movie. In the end, the movie doesn't have enough comedic power to deliver the knockout punch of a great satire.

I just saw this on AMC the other day, and thought it was extremely funny! Michael, played by AlanAlda has written an American History which was bought by a Hollywood studio and turned into a movie; but the movie is entirely screwed up; or the battle scenes were screwed up; beautiful Michelle Pffeifer plays the girl friend; Michael Caine steals the show with his pomp and egotism; Lillian Gish plays mom of Alda; and all have a riotous time. It was good to see Gish again; I almost forgot who she was! Not much sense to this but it was fun

"Sweet Liberty" is quite a surprise, as Alan Alda wrote, directed and stars in this film...something he also did with "Betsy's Wedding". And, I was actually impressed with all of the roles he took on in this most unusual film.

The story is set in some small town where Professor Burgess is a history teacher. But the entire town, as well as Burgess' life, are thrown into a dither when a movie crew arrives to film a movie based on one of Burgess' books. During the process of making the film, Burgess learns a lot about the filmmaking business....most of which is disappointing to say the least. The biggest disappointment is that the screenwriter (Bob Hoskins) has completely butchered his Revolutionary War story....and Burgess spends much of the film working to make sure the film is as good and historically accurate as possible...given that many of the folks making the picture are bonkers and couldn't care less about realism!

This is a movie where the plot seems less important than the characters and dialog...which I don't think is a bad thing at all. Character driven stories are often delightful...and Alda's dialog and characters truly are delightful. In fact, it makes me feel sad that he didn't write more films. It also makes you wonder how much of the weirdness of the story represents the real eccentricities of the filmmakers and actors...especially Michael Caine's incredibly strange and semi-unhinged character! Overall, a lot of fun and a film which really is unique and memorable.

First of all, let me say that Michael Caine is pure genius in this film. His portrayal of a screen-idol that "makes the girls wet their pants" is perfect!

Michelle Pfeiffer's part is a bit 2-dimensional, but she does have her moments. Even Alan Alda is surprisingly good (gee, I had never realized before that he could act!).

Anyway, the film is very light-hearted and easy on the mind. Some good laughs, some nice scenes, etc.

I'd recommend renting this, making a nice disgustingly buttered tub of popcorn, a nice big glass of sugared soda ... sit back and enjoy!

To the list of satires on Hollywood we can add Alan Alda's "Sweet Liberty". He plays a history professor whose novel about the Revolutionary War is getting filmed in his town. Except that because this is a Hollywood production, they've pretty much ignored his book, instead pandering to audiences' lowest and stupidest preferences! And sure enough, the people involved in the production make excessive demands every step of the way.

OK, so we could make the argument that this is sillier than the stuff for which Alda is usually known. I counter by saying that this is his own swipe at the studio system that dominates entertainment in the US. He grew up in the Hollywood system, so he probably saw it firsthand. My favorite scenes in the movie were the helicopter ride and the final battle scene. I suspect that they had fun filming the entire movie. This is exactly what patriotism should be!

Since Michael Caine and Michelle Pfeiffer co-star, I guess that means that Alfred got to meet the other Catwoman (if we identify people by their Batman roles).

Alan Alda plays an historian who has written about an historical character. When his book is made into a film, the character he feels he knows so well is brought to life by an actress. The history he knows so well is translated into an "historical" film, with the fact gradually draining away. The film gently, lyrically plays on the interface between reality and fantasy.

An irony is that in "Sweet Liberty" Michael Caine plays an actor who plays a character based on Banastre Tarleton, a British commander of Tory troops in America during the Revolution. In 2000, the German director Roland Emmerich made a film called Patriot in which Jason Isaacs plays a character based on Banastre Tarleton. In the Emmerich film, the fact has drained away and the British commit atrocities more appropriate to Germans in the Second World War.