Charles Grodin Movies
Supporting and occasional leading actor Charles Grodin built a successful career playing low-key, uptight, and frequently wholesome comic roles, with occasional turns as an arch-villain. Whereas many funnymen have been popular for their ability to overreact and mug their way around everyday obstacles, Grodin belonged, from the beginning, to the Bob Newhart school of wry comedy that values understatement and subtlety. Grodin learned to act under the guidance of Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen before making his 1962 Broadway debut opposite Anthony Quinn in Tchin Tchin. Two years later, Grodin made his first film appearance in Joseph Adler's Sex and the College Girl. Though offered the leading role in The Graduate (1967), Grodin refused, thereby providing a lucky break for Dustin Hoffman. In 1968, he played a small but memorable role as a naive obstetrician in Rosemary's Baby, and then tackled another villainous role as heartless navigator Aarfy Aardvark in Mike Nichols's Catch-22.
Grodin got his big break when director and Nichols's former comedy partner Elaine May, who had been a longtime friend and mentor of the young actor, cast him in the lead of the Neil Simon-scripted The Heartbreak Kid (1972), in which he played a salesman who falls in love with Cybill Shepherd during his honeymoon. Though Steven Spielberg wanted him to play the role of shark expert Matt Hooper in Jaws (1974), Grodin preferred to direct the play Thieves on Broadway instead. In 1977, Grodin signed for the leading role in the film version. He also added spice as the villain in Warren Beatty and Buck Henry's remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Heaven Can Wait (1978). Since then, Grodin continued as a supporting actor in such films as The Woman in Red (1984) and The Couch Trip (1987).
After receiving rave reviews starring opposite Robert De Niro in the 1988 hit comedy Midnight Run, Grodin's career began to slow down. He played the long-suffering patriarch in the first two Beethoven films and turned in a memorable performance in 1993's Dave, but by 1995 Grodin had decided to switch gears, opting to host a talk show. After The Charles Grodin Show ran for several years on CNBC, Grodin later took a gig doing Andy Rooney-esque commentary on CBS's 60 Minutes II.
~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Acclaimed music-video director Jesse Peretz made his third feature with this comedy starring Zach Braff and Jason Bateman. Tom (Braff) is an aspiring chef whose wife Sofia (Amanda Peet) has just quit her high-paying job to stay home with their new baby. When it becomes abundantly clear that they can no longer maintain their New York City lifestyle, the family picks up and moves to Sofia's hometown in Ohio, where Tom is hired to work at her father's ad agency. It is there that Tom meets Chip (Bateman), the agency's wheelchair-bound golden boy, who also happened to have a one-night stand with Sofia while the two were cheerleaders in high school. Suddenly, Tom finds himself sabotaged by Chip at every step as the nefarious paraplegic schemes to steal Sofia from him and destroy any chance he might have of success at the agency. Released briefly in 2006 under the title Fast Track, the film was retitled The Ex before receiving a wide release in the Spring of 2007. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- Starring:
- Zach Braff, Amanda Peet, (more)
Versatile Canadian comedian Martin Short plays a 10-year old boy in this comedy aimed at younger audiences. The tale is told in flashback to another little boy. Clifford is a manipulative brat. Clifford really wants to visit Dinosaur World in Los Angeles. Clifford wants to go so badly that he manages to force the Hawaii bound plane he and his parents are on to land in L.A. His parents need to attend a convention in Hawaii so they leave him with his Uncle Martin who despises children. Martin's fiance adores kids, so he pretends to be ecstatic about Clifford's visit. He must also pretend that Clifford is the angel child he isn't. Because Martin reneges on a promise to take him to Dinosaur World, Clifford begins an elaborate plot for revenge. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Martin Short, Charles Grodin, (more)
My Summer Story is the video title for It Runs in the Family. Based on the writings of humorist/raconteur Jean Shepherd, the film was the long-awaited sequel to the 1984 "sleeper" A Christmas Story. Set in the 1940s, the story is told from the point-of-view of Ralphie Parker (Kieran Culkin), who watches in bemusement as "The Old Man" (Charles Grodin) carries on a long-running feud with their hillbilly neighbors, the Bumpus family. Mary Steenburgen is cast as Ralphie's ditsy mom. Also appearing is yet another celebrity sibling, Christian Culkin. Jean Shepherd himself narrates, as he did in the earlier film, while the direction is in the hands of A Christmas Story's Bob Clark. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen, (more)
- 1993
- PG13
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The ghost of Frank Capra must have smiled when he saw Dave, an amusing and effective update of one of Capra's favorite themes -- the scrupulously honest little guy who becomes a force for good against a corrupt system. Dave Kovic (Kevin Kline) runs an employment agency and seems to genuinely enjoy finding work for people who need it. He also bears a striking resemblance to the president of the United States, Bill Mitchell (also played by Kline) and occasionally gets work as a Bill Mitchell impersonator. One day, Dave gets a call from the Secret Service -- for security purposes, they want to hire him to act as a decoy for an upcoming appearance by the president. All goes well, but later that evening President Mitchell suffers a massive stroke while in bed with his mistress. Wanting to keep the matter a secret, two of the president's top advisors appeal to Dave to stand in as Bill Mitchell until he regains his health. One of the men behind this scheme, Bob Alexander (Frank Langella), hopes to use Mitchell's absence to promote his own right-wing political agenda, but after a few weeks "in office," Dave decides it's time to promote some changes of his own that will help increase employment and keep homeless shelters open. Dave also finds himself growing fond of Ellen Mitchell (Sigourney Weaver), the President's wife, while Ellen sees in Dave the idealism her husband left behind years ago. Dave features numerous cameo appearances by politicians, Washington insiders, and journalists; Oliver Stone also appears to explain a conspiracy theory regarding sudden changes in Bill Mitchell's behavior. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, (more)
- 1993
- PG13
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Comic actor and former Saturday Night Live stock player Mike Myers attempted to transform himself from the goofy title character in Wayne's World (1992) (and its sequel) into a romantic leading man with this box office disappointment. Myers stars as Charlie Mackenzie, a San Francisco poet who meets the girl of his dreams, Harriet Michaels (Nancy Travis) when he stops to pick up some haggis for his parents at Meats of the World, a butcher shop where Harriet works. Although he's been neurotically commitment-phobic in the past (dumping one girlfriend because she "smelled like soup"), Charlie thinks Harriet could be the one. That is, until his mother May (Brenda Fricker) and cop best friend Tony (Anthony LaPaglia) begin to suspect that Harriet could be an axe-wielding serial killer who has butchered several husbands. Harriet's wacky sister Rose (Amanda Plummer) and her connection to several of the slayings make Charlie nervous, but he nevertheless pops the question, leading to an eventful honeymoon where all is revealed. Although So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993) earned less than $12 million at the U.S. box office, Myers hit upon the Peter Sellers-inspired formula of playing various supporting characters with this film, portraying Charlie's amusingly paranoid father Stuart. The actor repeated the trick with greater success in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) and its sequel. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mike Myers, Nancy Travis, (more)
The gargantuan St. Bernard finds love in this sequel to the box-office hit. Beethoven happens to meet Missy, another St. Bernard, in the park and the two find they share a certain chemistry. Unfortunately, Missy is being held captive by Regina (Debi Mazar), a spiteful ex-wife attempting to leverage ransom money from her wimpy former husband. Fortunately for the dogs, their visit was long enough for the stork to come calling (no one ever accused Beethoven of having slow paws), and soon Missy berths a litter of adorable pups. Regina decides at first to drown the pups (an apparent attempt by the screenwriters to justify whatever horrible fate befalls her later) but reconsiders when she learns of their monetary value. However, the Newton children (Christopher Castile and Sara Rose Karr) manage to rescue them, and the entire family heads off for a Montana resort, Beethoven and pups in tow. Somehow, Regina and her sleazy boyfriend (Christopher Penn) end up at the resort as well, setting the stage for the final showdown. Less appealing than the original, Beethoven's 2nd is still an innocuous hour and a half of fun for younger kids and hardcore dog lovers. ~ Jeremy Beday, Rovi
- Starring:
- Charles Grodin, Bonnie Hunt, (more)
Director Ron Underwood follows up his crowd-pleasing hit City Slickers (1991) with this likable, feel-good comedy drama about a selfish businessman who discovers that he's permanently being followed by a group of ghosts. In 1959, a bus accident links the spirits of four fatally injured passengers to a newborn baby whose birth is caused by the crash. For 25 years, Milo (Tom Sizemore), Harrison (Charles Grodin), Penny (Alfre Woodard) and Julia (Kyra Sedgwick) remain bound to Thomas Reilly (Robert Downey Jr.), who believes the quartet to be imaginary childhood friends that have long since disappeared. When the four spooks suddenly realize that they are meant to use Thomas as a conduit to bring closure to their unfinished corporeal lives, they reemerge, causing Thomas to think that he's gone insane. As he becomes reattached to his supernatural companions, however, Thomas' innate decency asserts itself and he begins helping them to right the wrongs in their lives, allowing them to possess his body to achieve their goal of settling accounts and moving on into the afterlife. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Downey, Jr., Charles Grodin, (more)
Feeling that something is lacking in their lives, the family of suburbanite Charles Grodin adopts a stray St. Bernard puppy. The cute lite beast grows up to be the less-than-cute Beethoven, a sloppy, slobbery, oversized and extremely destructive animal. Beethoven also brings with him a lot of hidden baggage in the form of evil veterinarian Dean Jones, who'll stop at nothing to steal Beethoven for the purposes of his insidious lab experiment. Several sequels followed, beginning with 1993 Beethoven's Second. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Charles Grodin, Bonnie Hunt, (more)
James Belushi and Charles Grodin team up for this variation on the Prince and the Pauper. Belushi plays Jimmy Dworski, a convicted car thief, serving time in a minimum security prison. But when Jimmy wins a pair of tickets to the World Series from a radio call-in show, he can't resist walking out of jail, particularly when the warden won't even let the inmates watch the series on television. Grodin plays rich workaholic Spencer Barnes, who, when his wife walks out on him right before a long-planned vacation, leaves his datebook in an airport telephone booth. Happening upon Spencer's datebook is Jimmy, who simply intends to return the datebook to Spencer for a 1,000-dollar reward. But when he finds the datebook contains his credit cards, Jimmy assumes Spencer's identity, living the good life and dating the boss's daughter, while making his way to Malibu to return the property to Spencer. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Belushi, Charles Grodin, (more)
Michael Ritchie's The Couch Trip follows a long line of Hollywood films (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Disorderly Orderly) in which the psychos are seen as saner than the psychiatrists. Charles Grodin plays Dr. George Maitlin, a pompous radio self-help guru, who is having his own personal mental breakdown. Maitlin's lawyer puts in a call to a Cicero, IL, mental facility and the telephone is answered by schizophrenic mental patient John Burns (Dan Aykroyd). Thinking Burns is a crony of Maitlin, Burns is offered the job of replacing Maitlin during his recovery. Of course, Burns accepts the job. Immediately jetted to Los Angeles, Burns meets panhandler Donald Becker (Walter Matthau) at the airport. While wearing the garb of a priest, Becker sounds off against the madness of societal conventions; Burns takes to him immediately and they become fast friends. When Burns assumes command of the airwaves in Maitlin's place, his words of wisdom are so obvious and commonsensical that he is an overnight sensation. Meanwhile, in London, where Maitlin is convalescing, he gets wind of Burns' success. With renewed vigor and outrage, Maitlin leaves his recovery room and hops on a plane back to Los Angeles in an effort to recover his radio show. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dan Aykroyd, Walter Matthau, (more)
Director Martin Brest, of Going in Style and Beverly Hills Cop fame, was in charge of Midnight Run. Robert De Niro stars as Jack Walsh, a hard-bitten bounty hunter offered $100,000 to bring in embezzler Jonathan Mardukas (Charles Grodin). Handcuffed to the wimpy Mardukas, Walsh assumes that the extradition trip from New York to Los Angeles will be an uneventful one. But the prisoner hasn't told Walsh the whole story: the embezzler owes $15 million to a mobster (Dennis Farina), and he's been targeted for assassination. It's a toss-up as to what is the most entertaining aspect of Midnight Run: the slam-bang action and chase sequences or the verbal byplay between DeNiro and Grodin. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, (more)
- 1988
- R
A young Ohio man moves to Los Angeles in search of a career and a girlfriend in this romantic comedy, whose action centers on the '80s singles scene. Eddy (David Packer) heads to California after his cousin, Skip (Scott McGinnis), promises him a job in the ad biz, but Eddy ends up with the unenviable task of handing out flyers on the beach. Turning his focus from the professional to the romantic, Eddy joins a video dating service and endures a series of inaccurate match-ups that drive him to adopt wilder and wilder guises for his video ads. Along the way, he meets Peggy Kellogg (Bridget Fonda), an employee of the dating service, but she's always got her boyfriend on her arm. Frustrated over Peggy's inaccessibility and the dead-end job he's unfairly been stuck with, Eddy finally decides to take a gamble -- to be himself in the yuppie fantasia of L.A. The soundtrack to You Can't Hurry Love features singer Phil Collins' cover of the '60s song from which the film takes its name. Kristy McNichol, Charles Grodin, and Sally Kellerman all appear in cameo roles. Kellerman previously appeared in writer/director Richard Martini's previous outing as a screenwriter, Three for the Road. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
- Starring:
- David Packer, Scott McGinnis, (more)
- 1987
- PG13
Considered one of the great box-office turkeys of its decade, Ishtar was an attempt by writer/director Elaine May and stars Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty to do a modern-day road picture in the style of the much-loved Bob Hope and Bing Crosby comedy classics. Beatty is Lyle Rogers, a dimwitted songwriter who befriends and partners with Chuck Clarke (Hoffman), who is only slightly more intelligent but every bit as untalented. Together the duo dreams of becoming a big-time lounge act, but their songs, with titles like "That a Lawnmower Can Do All That," are unintentionally hilarious. Chuck becomes suicidal, but just when it seems they'll never strike it rich, the boys are offered a shady gig at a North African hotel, entertaining U.S. troops stationed in the tiny nation of Ishtar. On their way to accept the job, Lyle, Chuck, and their blind camel are sidetracked by a mysterious woman (Isabelle Adjani) and a scheming CIA agent (Charles Grodin), who are involved in a rebellion against the country's emir. The memorable songs crafted by Chuck and Lyle were written by actor and composer Paul Williams. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, (more)
- 1986
This compilation tape is a collection of clips and trailers from low-budget, cult-type movies. The "framing" device of having two guys on a couch (one of whom is future cult-icon Steve Buscemi) watching TV and making cracks about the movies is fairly lame, and many of the films showcased have been included in other compilation tapes. However, there are clips and trailers from some rarely seen gems, such as Al Adamson's sleazo western Five Bloody Graves, Herschell Gordon Lewis' Living Venus (featuring an early appearance by Harvey Korman), and Doris Wishman's "masterpiece," Bad Girls Do Cry. ~ Brian Gusse, Rovi
- 1986
Adapted from the play by Jules Feiffer, Grown Ups was produced for cable television. A pre-talkshow Charles Grodin plays the Feifferesque central character, a writer facing a mid-life crisis. He turns to his family for support, but, to put it mildly, they're no help at all. Feiffer is a writer of monologues rather than plays, and the verbose nature of this taped drama bears this out: characters talk at each other incessantly, but never to each other. Still, Grodin and his co-stars Jean Stapleton, Martin Balsam and Marilu Henner hold up quite well under the circumstances. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
George Lollar (Charles Grodin) overrides his wife's judgment and takes his family for a vacation on a sunny Caribbean island that just happens to be on the verge of a revolution. Their hotel is not the usual Hilton on the beach but a pick-up joint for singles where the main activities are sex, sex, and sex. In that order. As the horrified father watches almost helplessly, his wife becomes liberated, his daughter falls for a Frenchman who is actually a guerrilla, one of his sons loses his virginity to a buxom, worldly-wise woman, and his other son burns down the mini-camp he was forced to attend. But that's hardly the worst of it -- there is that small matter of a political overthrow about to explode on the scene. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Charles Grodin, Robin Pearson Rose, (more)
- 1985
- PG
The "movers and shakers" in this weak comedy limned by Charles Grodin do not refer to a religious sect, but the big-wigs in Hollywood who determine how the next many millions are to be spent. Two parallel stories occupy center stage. On the one hand, Joe Mulholland (Walter Matthau) has made a promise to a dying producer that he would put together a film on "Love in Sex." The problem is that there is no script to go with that title -- a minor hurdle by Hollywood standards. On the other hand, Herb Derman (Grodin) is hired to make up the story, but he is neck-deep in marriage woes and will have a hard time holding down his personal life long enough to write. Mixed into both of these tales are parodies of behind-the-scenes Hollywood at its worst. These scenarios are helped along by a fine cast of actors and actresses. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Walter Matthau, Charles Grodin, (more)
In a comedy as flat as the cardboard cut-outs of movie stars that appear in one scene, Steve Martin plays Larry Hubbard, a wild and lonely guy who has been dumped by his girlfriend. Since misery loves company, he takes up with Warren, a fellow Lonely Guy (Charles Grodin), and eventually both Warren and Larry find some surprising companions, especially after Larry writes a best-selling Lonely Guy Guide. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Steve Martin, Charles Grodin, (more)
- 1984
- PG13
- Add The Woman in Red to Queue
Gene Wilder's remake of this 1976 French comedy is a Hollywood version of what happens when Theodore (Wilder), an ordinary ad agency executive, is captivated by a gorgeous woman (Kelly Le Brock). The woman just happens to be standing on a grate when her skirt blows up over her waist (a scene first made famous by Marilyn Monroe in The Seven-Year Itch), and one glimpse is enough to change Theodore's whole life. Although he is married, he is willing to risk his happy relationship with his wife for a romp in the hay with the beautiful stranger. Unfortunately, even when he tracks down the object of his lust he is woefully inept at sneaking out on his wife to consummate his desire. Three of his male office mates help him as much as they can, but Ms. Milner (Gilda Radner) is really incensed when she finds out that the object of Theodore's attention is not herself. Stevie Wonder's score included his hit song "I Just Called to Say I Love You", which received an Oscar nomination. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gene Wilder, Charles Grodin, (more)
- 1982
- R
The action-adventure scenes of unconvincing sword fights, passable martial arts, and other macho displays alternate with the feminine displays of twins Mira and Mara (Leigh Harris and Lynette Harris) in this prehistoric fantasy. Mira and Mara were raised as boys -- for awhile, anyway -- to protect them from their villainous father Traigon (Robert Ballesteros) who needs to sacrifice his first-born to the gods in order to become even more powerful in the arts of magic. The twins are aided in their struggle against their father by two warriors, Erlik (Bob Nelson), dubbed with a Southern accent that gives away the tongue-in-cheek subtext of the plot, and Baldar (Bruno Rey). Subsidiary battles with sex-starved zombies who have been put away too long, and the monkey men who suffer from the same problem, imply that sexual deprivation can lead to some nasty-tempered machos, even if they are zombies. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lynette Harris, Bob Nelson, (more)
- 1981
Charles Grodin appears as himself in this episode, endeavoring to spread some genuine Christmas cheer throughout cynical, jaded Hollywood. When Grodin shows up at Bardwell's Department Store, Laverne (Penny Marshall) jumps to the wrong conclusion that the actor wants to date her, while Shirley (Cindy Williams) labors under the misapprehension that Grodin wants her job. Before the inevitable cross-purpose conversations, bitter arguments and warm-hearted reconciliations play themselves out, Lenny (Michael McKean) contributes his bit to the Holiday season by giving his roommate Squiggy (David L. Lander) a free shampoo! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1981
- PG
The Incredible Shrinking Woman, directed by Joel Schumacher, is an attempted social satire focusing on the position of women in our society and our social values. After being exposed to a bizarre mixture of household chemicals, Pat Kramer (Lily Tomlin) begins to shrink. While this baffles scientists and makes parenting difficult, Pat captures the hearts of the American people. An evil political group who plots world domination kidnaps Pat and performs experiments on her to learn the secret of how to shrink everyone. The screenplay was written by Jane Wagner, Tomlin's frequent collaborator; Charles Grodin plays Pat's husband. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lily Tomlin, Charles Grodin, (more)
The Great Muppet Caper is the second Muppet film and it is considerably more complex than its predecessor, The Muppet Movie, which was essentially just a road movie. As the film begins, Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear are reporters who have failed to bag a story of a London jewel heist, which happened under their watch. The real criminals managed to escape and frame Miss Piggy as the thief. Kermit, Fozzie and the Great Gonzo set out on a mission to solve the mystery and track down the criminals who stole the Baseball Diamond. There are fewer star cameos and songs in The Great Muppet Caper than in The Muppet Movie, although appearances from John Cleese and Charles Grodin are particularly memorable. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
- Starring:
- Charles Grodin, Diana Rigg, (more)
- 1980
- R
Claudia Weill's second feature is a romantic look at the humorous and tragic sides of love, starring Jill Clayburgh as Kate Gunzinger, a mathematics professor who lives with perpetually sunny architect Homer (Charles Grodin) in Chicago. But during a trip to New York City, Kate becomes romantically involved with handsome hunk Ben Lewin (Michael Douglas), a recently retired professional baseball player who is trying to adjust to a life outside of professional sports. The son of her father's fiancee, Ben, in spite of uncertainties about his future, actively pursues Kate, and Kate, much to her surprise, willingly permits Ben to make his amorous approaches. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jill Clayburgh, Michael Douglas, (more)
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