Tockinit not horrible nor great

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Syl This film is about private detectives in New York City. It is shot on location with stars like Ben Gazzara, Audrey Hepburn, John Ritter, the late Dorothy Stratten, and others in this character driven piece. Despite some problems with the film, it comes across as an ensemble delight. Ben and Audrey are perfect together. Dorothy Stratten was murdered shortly after they filmed this movie and it's dedicated to her. She had a promising career as an actress and model but cut short by violence. There are other cast members but the film's appeal is New York City in the early 1980s where it was still gritty and fun. John Ritter does a fine job here and a world apart from Jack Tripper. Glenn Scarpelli has a small role as the son to Audrey Hepburn's character. The film is a lot of fun to watch and see over again if not for the great actors and the setting. The cast is excellent and an ensemble piece.

Bill Slocum A gentle, wistful comedy that plays with audience expectations as much as the fates of its many characters, "They All Laughed" is a hard film to characterize but a pleasure to watch for those of us who remember its central character, the island of Manhattan, way back when.The plot, after much ambling, centers on a trio of stalkers who work at the Odyssey Detective Agency, circa 1980. They have been hired to watch over a pair of ladies suspected of straying by their suspicious husbands. We figure out well into the movie that the detectives themselves are the very people unknowingly threatening these troubled unions.The 1930s introduced the "remarriage comedy;" this could be called a "demarriage comedy." Film lovers will find much to enjoy here. As romantic comedies go, it's not an especially funny or clever film, but "They All Laughed" remains amusing throughout and quite engaging with its idiosyncratic pacing and quirky characters.Would this film pack the same punch without the tragic death of co-lead actress Dorothy Stratten just after filming wrapped? I suspect not. Like the World Trade Center, which figures in the background of several scenes, Stratten's Delores character makes for an arresting central image that's hard to miss, as much as you wish otherwise. This ices some of the humor but adds resonance about the passage of time.As far as the film's premise is concerned, a character that no doubt echoes director Peter Bogdanovich blurts out: "I don't know what I'm going to do!" Ben Gazzara's lead character, John Russo, replies: "Who does?"Gazzara is the center of the film, his quiet authority suggestive of Frank Sinatra whose songs permeate the eclectic score. He speaks in koans much of the time, and this can be annoying, except he seems plugged into a sort of wisdom "They All Laughed" espouses."I'm a charmer," is how he introduces himself, and he is.It's enjoyable watching him trade lines with Odyssey's other two detectives, played by John Ritter and Blaine Novak. Likable romantic foil Ritter does a lot of physical humor, not far removed from his Jack Tripper character on TV's then-hit sitcom "Three's Company," while Novak, a total blank to me, sticks out with his wild hair and goofy patois."Look at it this way, Chas, she's in pre-bop with the boyfriend, she's in post-bop with the husband," he says. "If she gets into post-bop with the boyfriend, she'll be in ex-bop with the husband, the case is over, we get paid, and well, then it's every man for himself."Is Bogdanovich too self-indulgent, too in love with Stratten, too caught up in the moment to explain to us the audience what's going on? Yes, and for 45 minutes we have no dialogue to tell us what it is we are supposed to be watching. But that same reticence becomes a kind of magic when you watch the film again and see how things flow so well. The challenge is sticking with this movie enough to watch it once, let alone multiple times. But it's a pretty fun ride once you make that effort.Bogdanovich calls this his personal favorite of his films, which I can't relate to. "What's Up Doc?" is a far funnier romantic comedy, for one thing. But "They All Laughed," with its springtime visions of Broadway, Rockefeller Center, and Audrey Hepburn saying little but holding our attention as she crosses Fifth Avenue looking like a cross between Yoko Ono and Jackie O, makes you care despite your understandable confusion. Like Gazzara's character, it's a charmer.

Fanchoa It's really a peculiar film, very engaging even if there is no real intrigue in it but I can watch it endlessly because it makes you feel happy.Why ? Well the city (New York looks superb in early summer) and the relationships between all the characters are shown with great simplicity and love. Director Peter Bogdanovich being a native born New Yorker, it's no surprise that the town is in fact the main character. Here the "Big apple" is very welcoming , very beautiful with the sun shining everywhere.It's like a nest in which are evolving all these characters. It gives the film a peculiar charm , because as i've said the plot here has no importance.Beside New York the other big attraction are the actors. Ben Gazzara, Dorothy Stratten, Patti Hansen, John Ritter... they are all perfect. I mean you have to see Patti Hansen's face as she drives a cab. That's cinema at his best , it's simple but so beautiful because it gives you an emotion. I won't talk much about Dorothy Stratten( it's so sad) but here she appears to be a very promising actress. Needless to say that her beauty illuminates the film .Really Peter Bogdanovich knew how to find and reveal such beautiful and talented girls: Cybill Shephed, Dorothy Stratten, Patti Hansen.

pmullinsj I have this film out of the library right now and I haven't finished watching it. It is so bad I am in disbelief. Audrey Hepburn had totally lost her talent by then, although she'd pretty much finished with it in 'Robin and Marian.' This is the worst thing about this appallingly stupid film. It's really only of interest because it was her last feature film and because of the Dorothy Stratten appearance just prior to her homicide.There is nothing but idiocy between Gazzara and his cronies. Little signals and little bows and nods to real screwball comedy of which this is the faintest, palest shadow.Who could believe that there are even some of the same Manhattan environs that Hepburn inhabited so magically and even mythically in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' twenty years earlier? The soundtrack of old Sinatra songs and the Gershwin song from which the title is taken is too loud and obvious--you sure don't have to wait for the credits to find out that something was subtly woven into the cine-musique of the picture to know when the songs blasted out at you.'Reverting to type' means going back up as well as going back down, I guess. In this case, Audrey Hepburn's chic European lady is all you see of someone who was formerly occasionally an actress and always a star. Here she has even lost her talent as a star. If someone whose talent was continuing to grow in the period, like Ann-Margret, had played the role, there would have been some life in it, even given the unbelievably bad material and Mongoloid-level situations.Hepburn was a great person, of course, greater than most movie stars ever dreamed of being, and she was once one of the most charming and beautiful of film actors. After this dreadful performance, she went on to make an atrocious TV movie with Robert Wagner called 'Love Among Thieves.' In 'They all Laughed' it is as though she were still playing an ingenue in her 50's. Even much vainer and obviously less intelligent actresses who insisted upon doing this like Lana Turner were infinitely more effective than is Hepburn. Turner took acting seriously even when she was bad. Hepburn doesn't take it seriously at all, couldn't be bothered with it; even her hair and clothes look tacky. Her last really good work was in 'Two for the Road,' perhaps her most perfect, if possibly not her best in many ways.And that girl who plays the country singer is just sickening. John Ritter is horrible, there is simply nothing to recommend this film except to see Dorothy Stratten, who was truly pretty. Otherwise, critic David Thomson's oft-used phrase 'losing his/her talent' never has made more sense.Ben Gazarra had lost all sex appeal by then, and so we have 2 films with Gazarra and Hepburn--who could ask for anything less? Sandra Dee's last, pitiful film 'Lost,' from 2 years later, a low-budget nothing, had more to it than this. At least Ms. Dee spoke in her own voice; by 1981, Audrey Hepburn's accent just sounded silly; she'd go on to do the PBS 'Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn' and there her somewhat irritating accent works as she walks through English gardens with aristocrats or waxes effusively about 'what I like most is when flowers go back to nature!' as in naturalized daffodils, but in an actual fictional movie, she just sounds ridiculous.To think that 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' was such a profound sort of light poetic thing with Audrey Hepburn one of the most beautiful women in the world--she was surely one of the most beautiful screen presences in 'My Fair Lady', matching Garbo in several things and Delphine Seyrig in 'Last Year at Marienbad.' And then this! And her final brief role as the angel 'Hap' in the Spielberg film 'Always' was just more of the lady stuff--corny, witless and stifling.I went to her memorial service at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, a beautiful service which included a boys' choir singing the Shaker hymn 'Simple Gifts.' The only thing not listed in the program was the sudden playing of Hepburn's singing 'Moon River' on the fire escape in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's,' and this brought much emotion and some real tears out in the congregation.A great lady who was once a fine actress (as in 'The Nun's Story') and one of the greatest and most beautiful of film stars in many movies of the 50's and 60's who became a truly bad one--that's not all that common. And perhaps it is only a great human being who, in making such things as film performances trivial, nevertheless has the largeness of mind to want to have the flaws pointed out mercilessly--which all of her late film work contained in abundance. Most of the talk about Hepburn's miscasting is about 'My Fair Lady.' But the one that should have had the original actress in it was 'Wait Until Dark,' which had starred Lee Remick on Broadway. Never as celebrated as Hepburn, she was a better actress in many ways (Hepburn was completely incapable of playing anything really sordid), although Hepburn was at least adequate enough in that part. After that, all of her acting went downhill.