Wallace Shawn Movies
The son of an editor for the New Yorker, the diminutive comedic actor Wallace Shawn speaks with a recognizable lisp that is appropriate for his frequent portrayals of little irate men. A graduate of both Harvard and Oxford University, he has taught several courses in English and struggled as a playwright in the early '70s; in 1977 he translated Machiavelli's The Mandrake. Shawn broke into films soon after, building a successful career as a supporting actor to help fund his playwriting. He debuted in two of the best films of 1979: Woody Allen's Manhattan and Bob Fosse's All That Jazz. In 1981, he co-wrote the semi-autobiographical My Dinner With André, a talky comedy starring himself and theater director André Gregory in a dinner conversation, directed by Louis Malle. The movie was acclaimed by critics, but many audiences grew tired during its two-hour running time. After this personal project, Shawn would build a career out of playing brief but surprisingly memorable roles in a long list of movies. One of his most warmly remembered appearances was in 1987 as Vizzini, the inept leader of a misfit criminal gang, in The Princess Bride. The same year, he supplied the heroic voice for the Masked Avenger in Woody Allen's Radio Days. Taking the next step to straight voice acting, he lent his distinctive speech to the animated features The Goofy Movie, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and both installments of Toy Story. He also continued to work with Woody Allen throughout the next decade in the films Shadows and Fog and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Taking his quirky persona to the small screen, Shawn had several guest-star appearances on TV shows like Taxi, Murphy Brown, and The Cosby Show, but he didn't have his own reoccurring character until he reprised his feature-film role of Mr. Hall for the ABC sitcom version of Clueless. He quickly followed that with the role of Zek on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Throughout his acting career, Shawn has managed to continue writing successful plays, and eventually adapted one of them, The Designated Mourner, for a feature film in 1997. After a few brief appearances in some forgettable films in the late '90s, he gained some larger roles in TV movies and miniseries. In 2002, he played the publishing boss Mr. Gelb for the "Greta" story in Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity: Three Portraits. He then joined a large cast of other comedians for Danny DeVito's crime comedy Duplex in 2003. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Scripted by James L. Brooks from Dan Wakefield's novel, Alan J. Pakula's romantic comedy follows the tribulations of a freshly divorced man as he looks for love with a wary single woman. Phil Potter (Burt Reynolds sans mustache) can't quite believe it when his aspiring songbird wife Jessica (Candice Bergen) kicks him out to realize her career dreams, but the added revelation of her adultery speeds him out the door by choice. Relocating to Boston, Phil starts to settle in with the help of his psychiatrist brother Mickey (Charles Durning), joining a divorced men's therapy group. Phil really begins to feel better when Mickey and his wife Marva (Frances Sternhagen) set him up with her friend Marilyn (Jill Clayburgh), a preschool teacher who has had her share of grief from newly single men. Phil wins her over and even convinces her to move in, but an unexpected visit from a regretful, saucily clad Jessica, and an anxiety attack over buying a couch, threaten to end Phil's new life with Marilyn before it has a chance to start. Starting Over offers a ruefully comic look at how the decade's rising divorce rate did not mean fun and games for all the new bachelors; Brooks' movie debut after a sparkling career in 1970s TV with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi, it was also proof that top '70s star Reynolds could be more than just a good 'ol boy. Still, while the three leads were all praised for their work, only Clayburgh and Bergen received Oscar nominations. Starting Over was a moderate hit, and its humorous yet down-to-earth view of single life and its discontents reassured unattached thirtysomethings that, even though it may not be easy, everything could still turn out fine in modern romance. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Jill Clayburgh, (more)
"It's showtime!" In this part film à clef, part musical phantasmagoria, director/choreographer Bob Fosse takes a Felliniesque look at the life of a driven entertainer. Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, channeling Fosse) is the ultimate work (and pleasure)-aholic, as he knocks back a daily dose of amphetamines to juggle a new Broadway production while editing his new movie, not to mention ex-wife Audrey (Leland Palmer), steady girlfriend Kate (Ann Reinking), a young daughter, and various conquests. Joe cannot, however, avoid intimations of mortality from white-clad vision Angelique (Jessica Lange) that lead him to look back at his life as he heads for a near-inevitable coronary and his departure from this mortal coil with the appropriate razzle-dazzle. Taking his cue from Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963), Fosse moves from realistic dance numbers to extravagant flights of cinematic fancy, as Joe meditates on his life, his women, and his death. Following a similarly dark revisionist vein as Martin Scorsese's New York, New York (1977), Fosse shows the stiff price that entertaining exacts on entertainers (among other things, he intercuts graphic footage of open-heart surgery with a song and dance), mercilessly reversing the feel-good mood of classical movie musicals. Critics praised Fosse's daring even as they damned his self-indulgence, while Scheider was lauded for giving the best performance of his career. Though not a disastrous failure, All That Jazz came nowhere near the popularity of 1978's Grease, as late '70s audiences increasingly turned away from "difficult" movies. For all its excesses, Fosse's fiercely personal approach turned All That Jazz into another striking work from one of the few directors able to make, and experiment with, movie musicals after the 1960s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, (more)
- 1979
Not to be confused with the 1986 TV miniseries of the same name, Strong Medicine is the bizarre tale of a bizarre young woman, played bizarrely by Kate Manheim. Shunted aside by society in general, she loses all touch with reality. It helps not at all that she comes in contact with several equally "lost" souls. For an avant-garde exercise, Strong Medicine has a remarkably high-profile cast; it also features Raul Julia and My Dinner With Andre's Wallace Shawn. Filmed in 1979, Strong Medicine lay on the shelf unreleased for nearly six years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kate Manheim
On the heels of Annie Hall, the Oscar-winning romantic comedy that rocketed Woody Allen to the front ranks of American filmmakers, Manhattan continued Allen's romantic obsessions in a slightly darker, more pessimistic vein. Allen stars as Isaac Davis, a TV comedy writer sick of the pap he is forced to churn out and harboring dreams of being the great American novelist. His love life is in barbed-wire territory: he is tormented by his second ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep), a lesbian who has written a tell-all book about their marriage, and he is dating teenager Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), to whom he refuses to commit, and keeps hinting that a breakup may be imminent. Isaac's disillusioned (and married) best friend Yale (Michael Murphy) has begun an affair with the cerebral writer Mary Wilke (Diane Keaton). While Isaac makes a last minute, sink-or-swim decision to quit his job and devote all of his time to book writing, and neurotically moans about what the lack of a full time job will do to him ("My parents won't have as good of a seat in the synagogue," he moans. "They'll be far away from God... away from the action") Yale is crippled by his lack of resolve, as indicated by his inability to leave his wife Emily (Anne Byrne). Meanwhile, Isaac and {%Mary) begin to fall for one another. Tracy then tells Isaac the basic truth that none of his hung-up friends and past lovers fully realizes: "You have to have a little more faith in people." Manhattan is both a seriocomic dissection of perpetually dissatisfied New Yorkers and an ode to the city itself, filmed in glorious black-and-white by ace cinematographer Gordon Willis, and set to a score of rhapsodic George Gershwin music. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, (more)
- 1980
- R
Marred by prejudice and derogatory stereoptypes of gays and Hispanics, this subpar drama by Ken Annakin does not treat women or men well either. Bill (Mac Davis) is a detective who has just been hired by a tough lawyer, K.D. Locke (Tovah Feldshuh) to check up on some deadbeat ex-spouses who are ignoring their alimony payements. Soon Bill is caught in two complicated investigations, one focuses on a storekeeper, and the other on a sex doctor who just happens to be Locke's husband. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mac Davis, Tovah Feldshuh, (more)
- 1980
- PG
In this far-out comedy that slams it to academia, television, and the military, Simon (Alan Arkin) is a puffed-up professor who is boondoggled by a group of geniuses in a think tank. Becker (Austin Pendleton) leads the wacked-out thinkers as they invent off-the-wall games to keep themselves amused instead of solving global problems in ecology or whatever. They manage to convince Simon he is really a space alien, but then Simon gets away from them and takes refuge in a strange commune headed up by a former television executive (Adolph Green) whose bible is TV Guide. Simon's life does not get any easier since he is being hunted by the army with orders to shoot on sight. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Arkin, Austin Pendleton, (more)
Burt Lancaster stars as Lou, an aging mob flunkey, barely making a living in Atlantic City. Susan Sarandon plays Sally, a casino croupier whose husband Dave (Robert Joy) steals a large supply of drugs from the mob. When he is killed, the narcotics pass to the unwilling Sally. Lou, in the midst of longtime affair with middle-aged gangster's widow Grace (Kate Reid), falls for the much younger Sally, becoming her savior by killing the mob thugs sent to shut her up. The killings serve a therapeutic value for Lou, proving that he hasn't lost his old panache. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, (more)
A extended conversation between two old friends over dinner proves an unexpectedly fascinating subject for a film in the critically acclaimed My Dinner with André. The talkers in question are André Gregory, a renowned experimental theater director, and playwright and actor Wallace Shawn, both of whom play themselves. The film is not a documentary, but a condensation of several real discussions fashioned into a dramatic exchange by Shawn and director Louis Malle. The subtle conflict stems from the differences in the men's characters: Gregory is an inquisitive, uninhibited wanderer, willing to travel to remote lands to take part in unusual foreign rituals, while Shawn is the cynical, realistic New Yorker, more concerned with the challenges and rewards of day-to-day city life. Malle approaches their philosophical yet playful back-and-forth with a straightforward, minimal style that only rarely wanders outside its restaurant setting. The focus therefore falls on Shawn's and Gregory's contrasting verbal styles and facial expressions, highlighting conversational nuances normally lost on film. While the idea of watching any conversation for over 90 minutes, no matter how fascinating, may turn off some viewers, enough audiences have supported the film to make it an art-house classic. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory, (more)
In this feature comedy, a womanizer (Tim Matheson) marries his live-in girlfriend (Kate Capshaw) only to quickly resume his wicked ways. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Matheson, Kate Capshaw, (more)
- 1982
Having made the big move from ABC to NBC, Taxi opens its fifth season with a "Shloogel." And what's a shloogel? Well, it's what newlyweds Latka (Andy Kaufman) and Simka (Carol Kane) call a "group blind date" back in their own country. And it's quite an experience for the folks at the Sunshine Cab Company, as Alex (Judd Hirsch) is paired up with a woman (Carlene Watkins) with whom he'd like to spend the rest of his life (or so he thinks); Tony is teamed with a "dream girl" who proves to be a nightmare (Anne de Salvo); Louie (Danny DeVito) finds out that his blind date (Murphy Cross) is genuinely blind; Elaine (Marilu Henner) is attracted to a gormless nerd (Wallace Shawn); and Reverend Jim (Christopher Lloyd) ends up with actress Marcia Wallace (as herself) -- and celebrates the occasion by singing his own special version of the Bob Newhart Show theme! Although the characters don't know it yet, this episode will prove to have a far-reaching influence on the rest of season five. ~ All Movie Guide
In this subtly humorous, alien-invasion film by Michael Laughlin, who co-wrote the screenplay with William Condon, the aliens infiltrate a small Midwestern town in 1958 and beam the "spirits" of several of the townspeople up to their spacecraft in little blue bubbles, while they settle into the bodies of their new farm personae. But Margaret (Diana Scarwid), one of their number, leaves for life and marriage in New York and has a daughter Elizabeth by her earthling husband Charles Bigelow (Paul LeMat), a professor. After two decades or so go by, the aliens opt for returning to their home planet, but they have to first go to the city dressed as farmers and round up Margaret and her daughter. Soon Charles figures out what is going on with the help of the tough, optimistic Betty Walker (Nancy Allen), a reporter for a tabloid paper, and the two head to the town where it all started.The light contrast between the bucolic '50s and the street-wise '80s gives way to a few shocking scenes of repugnant aliens in transformation with formidable special effects. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Le Mat, Nancy Allen, (more)
Saigon: Year of the Cat is a low-budget drama about the fall of Saigon. The film was made for the BBC in 1983. It was one of many television projects that director Stephen Frears (High Fidelity) worked on in the early part of his career. Playwright David Hare (Plenty) wrote the script. Judi Dench plays Barbara Dean, a depressed loan officer working for a British bank in Saigon in 1974. Barbara politely wards off the advances of her Scottish co-worker, Donald (Roger Rees), who does not share her respect for the Vietnamese people. She also avoids getting involved with Frank (Wallace Shawn), an American embassy employee with whom she plays bridge. When she meets Bob (Frederic Forrest), however, she's immediately attracted to him. She soon learns that while Bob poses as a cultural attaché, he actually works for the CIA. When Bob belatedly recognizes her attraction, he opens up to her, and they become lovers. Bob hears from a reliable intelligence source that the North Vietnamese are stepping up their aggression and plan to take Saigon soon. He tries to convince his boss, Jack Ockham (Josef Sommer), and the U.S. ambassador (E.G. Marshall) to prepare for the fall of the city by evacuating the South Vietnamese citizens who have worked most closely with the U.S. government. The ambassador does not want to appear to be abandoning President Thieu's regime. He refuses to credit Bob's report. Meanwhile, as the crisis looms, Barbara is growing despondent because Bob is not spending time with her, and because there's little she can do to help her South Vietnamese friends get out of the country. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judi Dench, Frederic Forrest, (more)
- 1983
Wallace Shawn of My Dinner With Andre fame reprises his role as Arnie Ross, the nerdish chap whom Elaine (Marilu Henner) dated in the earlier fifth-season episode "The Shloogel Show." Since that time, things have gotten somewhat serious between Elaine and Arnie -- so much so that she feels it is time that he meet her children, Jason (David Mendenhall) and Jennifer (Melanie Gaffin). Well, that's how Elaine feels; whether or not she will actually work up the courage to introduce the kids to Arnie and whether or not Arnie will sabotage his chance to win over the youngsters is another matter. ~ All Movie Guide
Saul (Dudley Moore), a married psychiatrist, becomes romantically obsessed with Chloe (Elizabeth McGovern), one of his patients. Chloe has already devastated one psychoanalyst, and although the venerable Freud himself (Alec Guinness) appears to counsel Saul in his worst moments, the man continues on his tormented way. In spite of notable names in the acting field, neither the subsidiary characters nor the story itself rise above the limited dialogue and plot. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dudley Moore, Elizabeth McGovern, (more)
- 1983
In this quiet though not quite bland semi-autobiographical look at his formative years, director Charlie Loventhal has his main character Charlie (Tim Choate) enrolled in the film school of a small college. But while Charlie has aspirations of making comedies, his classmates and pretentious film professor are all into more avant-garde work. He also aspires to losing his virginity, but the woman of his dreams is not interested. He continues to strike out in spite of coaching from his lothario roommate, until a psychology professor sets him up with an older woman -- all as a part of a research project -- and Charlie, the guinea pig, finally becomes a man of experience. Meanwhile, he has made friends with Wendy (Wendy Fulton), another loner, and the two team up to try for the top prize at the school's annual film festival. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Choate, Krista Errickson, (more)
The humor in this Chevy Chase comedy lies solely in the eyes of the beholder. The comic plays Eddie Muntz, an arms dealer looking to make a big sale of war planes to a South American dictator. In order to do so, his girlfriend (Sigourney Weaver) has to sleep with the dictator and his friend (Gregory Hines) has to be convinced to do one more killing. Eddie's archenemy is Stryker (Vince Edwards) who wants to make that deal himself and will stop at nothing to obtain his ends. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chevy Chase, Sigourney Weaver, (more)
Adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by Henry James, Merchant/Ivory's The Bostonians is set among the Back Bay uppercrust of the 19th century. Basil Ransom (Christopher Reeve), bored by his opulent lifestyle and his "proper" friends, is fascinated by his cousin, outspoken suffragette Olive Chancellor (Vanessa Redgrave). Basil and Olive's mutual friend is likeable, gregarious Verena Tannant (Madeleine Potter). Soon a triangle develops, albeit an unorthodox one: Basil and Olive both find themselves pursuing Verena, Basil because he is in love with her, and Olive because she wants to exploit Verena's social connections and gift for public speaking to promote her own political ideology. Lurking in the background is Verena's true love, poor-but-honest attorney Henry Burrage (John Van Ness). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Reeve, Vanessa Redgrave, (more)
This macabre, whimsical, erotic, dark, seriocomic film is a complex tale about an eccentric family and the psychological and emotional maelstroms that follow them around from New England to New York to Vienna, where the Hotel New Hampshire is located. Writer-director Tony Richardson worked from the convoluted novel by John Irving that covers most universally saleable topics -- homosexuality, death, incest, abandonment, Nazis, masochism, terrorists, rape, mental instability, and anarchists. The children in the family are the main focus: John (Rob Lowe) is a womanizing high-school student with a deep-rooted desire for his own sister; Franny (Jodie Foster) is the eldest daughter, a victim of a gang rape, now morbidly fascinated by one of the rapists, and equally attracted to her brother with incestuous desire; Frank (Paul McCrane) is the younger gay brother; and Lilly (Jennifer Dundas) is the little sister who blossoms into a famous author. Associated with the family is Suzie the Bear (Nastassja Kinski) who is not secure enough to come out of her bear suit. One friend of the family, Freud (Wallace Shawn), has been blinded by the Nazis and is running the Hotel New Hampshire in Vienna when he asks everyone to come and help him out. By this time, the plot has run out of room, and the climactic endings to several unresolved relationships happen in quick succession. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jodie Foster, Beau Bridges, (more)
- 1984
- PG
A remake of Pigeon by Mario Monicelli, but set on the streets of San Francisco in a contemporary America instead of Italy in the '50s, this comedy about a conspiratorial heist of a greedy pawnbroker has excellent acting and good light fun but not much in the way of character motivation. Weslake (Donald Sutherland) is unemployed and has reason to frequent the pawnshop of his money-hungry friend Garvey (Jack Warden). People come and go around the shop (almost the only setting for the action): an aspiring musician of sorts (Sean Penn), the eccentric meter-maid Maxine (Christine Baranski), a safe-cracker (Irwin Corey), and others. Then one day Weslake gets the idea to break into Garvey's safe and make off with a few valuables just for the fun of it. Everyone agrees, and the plot goes on unhindered by motivation or ethics. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donald Sutherland, Jack Warden, (more)
- 1984
A bravura performance from Wallace Shawn highlights the made-for-TV children's comedy How to Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days. Ilan Mitchell-Smith plays a woebegone grade schooler who can't seem to do anything right. Under the tutelage of wigged-out Dr. Silverfish (Shawn), Ilan takes a course in "perfectology." The boy soon learns that he's better off just being himself. How to Be a Perfect Person first aired October 8, 1984, as the second presentation of PBS' Wonderworks series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Micki (Ann Reinking) is the wife of Rob (Dudley Moore), an airheaded TV talk show host. Maude (Amy Irving) is an attractive musician who is unaware of Micki's existence, and with whom Rob falls in love. Rob is a guy who can't say no, thus when Maude announces that she's pregnant, Rob obligingly marries her. Trouble is, he's still married to Micki who is also pregnant. To make matters worse, Rob's wives are due to give birth on the same day, forcing the double dealer to work doubly hard to keep both demanding women happy. Matters reach their comical climax when the Big Day arrives and Rob is expected to attend both births at the same time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dudley Moore, Amy Irving, (more)
Charles Purpura scribed this semi-autobiographical tale about his experiences in a Brooklyn Catholic school of 1965. The film focuses on several Catholic school boys who get into ever increasing amounts of trouble with the presiding priests of the Catholic school, St. Basil's. Andrew McCarthy plays Michael Dunn, a newly arrived student who latches onto the class egghead Caesar (Malcolm Danare), who is constantly picked on by the class bully Rooney (Kevin Dillon). Rooney intimidates Michael and Caesar to become his erstwhile chums and, along with a few other quiet students, they receive corporal punishment for minor infractions, disrupting communion and confession and, ultimately, their antics inspire changes in the strict school hierarchy. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donald Sutherland, John Heard, (more)
With a script that is too anemic for the red-blooded actors featured here, this anorexic comedy moves slowly up and down the corporate ladder with the fortunes and misfortunes of several company men. Jack Issel (Judge Reinhold) gets a VIP position at INC in the PR department (business-speak). Suddenly the corporation's shady activities come to the fore -- especially when a U.S. plant is set to close for a move south of the border where labor is almost free. Enmeshed in these tangles, Jack is hardly prepared to fall in love with the leading activist against the plant closing -- but he does. Meanwhile, a lot of other subplots quickly dispose of potentially budding villains like Stedman (Danny DeVito) the inside trader -- too bad. DeVito and Don King (appearing as himself) would have made a great team. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judge Reinhold, Eddie Albert, (more)
This unadorned biography of playwright Joe Orton (Gary Oldman) charts his bawdy, dangerous relationships. Alfred Molina plays Orton's brutish lover, Kenneth Halliwell, a pathetic figure who becomes horrific and then tragic before the film is over. The hilarity of scenes from such Orton plays as Loot and What the Butler Saw is evenly balanced by the bleakness of the playwright's tormented (and tormenting) off-stage existence, which ended suddenly at age 34 with half a dozen blows to the head from a hammer. Prick Up Your Ears is based on the book by theater critic John Lahr, who is played in the film by Wallace Shawn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, (more)
Woody Allen's gentle and nostalgic tribute to the glory days of radio and coming-of-age during World War II plays like Fellini's Amarcord filtered through Neil Simon. The nominal star is Seth Green as Joe, a teenage Jewish boy, growing up with a house full of relatives in Brooklyn. Allen cuts between Joe's working class neighborhood of Rockaway Beach, Queens, and the glittery and glamorous world of radio in Manhattan. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mia Farrow, Seth Green, (more)
