My Favorite Year (1982)

Overrated and overhyped

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Hilarious, an unexpected joy. The laughs keep coming, thanks to an expert cast and a big dose of Jewish humor. No one seems in charge of getting the weekly TV show together for an audience of 20-million. Instead, everyone backstage appears to be rushing around like spinning tops. Even the alleged star King Kaiser (Bologna) can't seem to keep the order of his skits straight. Looks to me like bibulous guest star Alan Swann (O'Toole) should fit right in, drunk or sober. Then there's poor young schlemiel (Linn-Baker) who gets to baby-sit Swann when not pursuing a fruitless romance with the comely K.C. (Harper). Mix in a bunch of mobsters who don't like being made fun of, and you've got a finale to end all finales, even if the mayhem is every TV producer's nightmare.Now I'm really curious whether the old Sid Caesar show was really as wild backstage as the movie presents it. At the time, I was a faithful watcher, so the hijinks here come as a special revelation. But what else could you expect from backstage characters like Caesar's writers Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. Anyhow, this was Dick Benjamin's first directorial outing even though you'd never know it. Then too, credit O'Toole with coming up with a really sly performance that alternates between drunken stupor and charming finesse. I particularly like it when Swann reveals his real self but still shifts gears into the movie swashbuckler when needed.All in all, it's a wacko comedy well deserving its place on Premiere's Top 50 comedies of all time.

I've heard people gushing about this movie for years and have always been interested in seeing it. I finally had the chance to see it for the first time today on TCM. I'm sad to say I was quite disappointed overall, but I did enjoy Peter O'Toole's performance immensely. This movie could have been truly amazing if the direction and editing were better. The cast is wonderful (I like Mark Linn-Baker, but a better director would have reined in his youthful over-acting here), the script is good and the story is charming. But the pace is tediously slow. As they say in the industry, you could have driven a truck through the pauses between the lines. Yikes. The movie could still have been tightened up in post-production editing, but no soap. And I'm not a youngster whose attention span has been irrevocably destroyed by the Internet. It's a sad day for me, I had been really looking forward to this movie. But, as always, Bravo O'Toole. What a treasure.

So says Alan Swann and he is so right. Peter O'Toole shows that there is a great actor inside of a great comedic performance. His remarkable portrayal of Swann stands out among all his other performances because Swann, in so many ways, is a thinly veiled O'Toole. His timing, physical grace and delivery rival the all time greats including Chaplin, Laurel, and Gleason. The pacing, casting and plot are expertly woven by director Richard Benjamin to create an inside look at early T. V. production and a crazy Jewish family. The scene of Swan attending dinner in Brooklyn with staff writer Benjy Stone's family is one of the funniest in screen history due in equal parts to the fantastic performances of O'Toole, Lou Jacobi (as a scene-stealing "Uncle Mortie") and Lainie Kazan as the mother of all Jewish mothers. As Swann, O'Toole manages to be loathsome, endearing, infuriating, charming and vulnerable. Kudos to Bill Macy as Benjy's crass boss and Joseph Bologna as the hot-tempered but indomitable King Kaiser. My Favorite Year never disappoints in delivering laughs and perhaps a sentimental tear as well.

Sweet comedy about 50s television (specifically 'Your Show of Shows'), and the week that a fading film great (clearly based on Errol Flynn) guest stars. A simply terrific comic performance by Peter O'Toole as the almost washed up star, close to matched in a supporting role by Joe Bologna as a tough cantankerous Sid Cesar stand in. On the other hand, there's something of the feeling of a TV sitcom to a lot of it, with stagy blocking, and obvious schmaltz. And some of the supporting characters are out of another movie, just a little too cartoony to fit with the broad, but reality based leads. My feelings about the film are also affected by the fact that I remember the script, with it's more bittersweet ending, as having more heart and soul than the final product. None-the-less, this is a charming, well-acted comedy, and deserves it's good reputation.