My Favorite Year (1982)

Directed by Richard Benjamin. Starring Peter O’Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Joseph Bologna, Jessica Harper, Bill Macy, Lainie Kazan, Tony DiBenedetto, Basil Hoffman, Anne De Salvo, Lou Jacobi, Cameron Mitchell, Adolph Green, George Wyner. [PG]

Aging swashbuckler actor O’Toole is set to make a guest appearance on a television variety program; show writer Linn-Baker is given the task of keeping the womanizing lush out of trouble and as sober as possible. Easy to take and easy to forget with one significant exception: O’Toole, absolutely delightful in a part that feels tailor-made for his talents and offscreen persona. His frequent screen partner, however, is too slack and wildly uneven—broad Jewish stereotyping one moment, bland enough to blend in with the wallpaper the next. At its best with quieter character moments and the occasional piquant one-liner from its socko, blotto star; the more outrageous moments, however—such as a farcical live-TV brawl and O’Toole shimmying around on the side of a building—drift too close to the realms of stunt and fantasy. Writer Dennis Palumbo loosely based the story on his own experiences corralling Errol Flynn when the soused veteran was set to appear on “Your Show of Shows” in the 1950s; one of the writers for that program, Mel Brooks, serves as an executive producer here. The girl wearing the cigarette box is Lana Clarkson (Phil Spector’s 2003 murder victim).

67/100