Buck Henry Movies

Assembled long after John Belushi's death in 1982, The Best of John Belushi is at once hilarious and melancholy. From 1975 to 1979, Belushi was a member in excellent standing of the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" on NBC's Saturday Night Live. This 60-minute video covers those amazing years, offering such highlights as "Samurai Delicatessen" and "The Honeybees." Best and most poignant of all the scenes is the elegiac "Don't Look Back in Anger". This is the one wherein an aged John Belushi strolls reflectively past the graves of all his SNL costars-then breaks into an exuberant dance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Eating Raoul was celebrated at the time of its release as the perfect marriage between mainstream moviemaking and the so-called "underground" cinema. Cult-film icons Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel (both of whom directed) play a married couple who decide to cash in on the sexual perversions of others. Posing as a hooker, Woronov lures the "johns" in and indulges their every kinky whim, whereupon Bartel kills the unwary client, steals the valuables, and sells the corpse for dog food. Though they see nothing wrong in what they're doing, they react in prudish disgust at the sexual preferences of their victims. Eventually, Raoul (Robert Beltran), the fellow who transports the corpses to the dog food concern, proves expendable--and extremely edible. Eating Raoul features a high-powered comic supporting cast, among them Buck Henry, Ed Begley Jr., Richard Paul, Hamilton Camp, and Edie McClurg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gloria (Gena Rowlands), a self-involved woman in her forties who was once a mobster's mistress, is asked to look after Philip (Juan Adames), the son of her Mafia-connected Puerto Rican neighbors. This temporary set-up becomes permanent when the neighbors are killed in a mob hit. Philip has in his possession a diary containing a record of illegal Mafia activities; thus the boy is as good as dead unless Gloria takes decisive action. With Philip in tow, Gloria leads the hit men on a frantic chase around Manhattan, and during the various gunfire exchanges, more than holds her own. Offering to exchange the diary for the boy's life, Gloria is rebuffed by the vendetta-driven assassins. Where once she was content squirreling herself away in her lonely apartment, Gloria now must face a lifetime on the run. Directed on a more commercial level than was customary for John Cassavetes (with a subversive streak of self-parody in the bargain), Gloria served as an excellent showcase for Cassavetes' wife Gena Rowlands. The film won the Golden Lion Award at the 1980 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gilda Radner, Bob Newhart, and Madeline Kahn star in this comedy. The farce sends up an idiotic First Family in the persona of a bumbling president (Newhart), his semi-alcoholic wife (Kahn), and his oversexed daughter (Radner). Satirizing the artificial, formal speech of real-life First Families in television interviews, director Buck Henry carries this mode of speech into their private lives as well. The trio travel to an African country where the First Daughter is kidnapped and white Americans are traded as slaves in exchange for some special animal dung that is able to accelerate plant growth. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Noted screenwriter Joan Tewksbury made her directorial debut with this bittersweet comedy-drama. Diane Cruise (Talia Shire), a psychologist going through a severe depression, takes a long look at her life after attempting to commit suicide. Diane decides to pay a visit to her former boyfriends in order to get in touch with her past and map out her future. She meets up with her high school sweetheart Eric Katz (John Belushi) and gets to turn the tables on him in revenge over a past humiliation. She also finds Jeff Turrin (Richard Jordan), her college beau who now works as a filmmaker, and she discovers that the first boy she fell in love with has died -- only to find herself drifting into an unexpected romance with his older brother, Wayne Van Til (Keith Carradine). The supporting cast features John Houseman, Buck Henry, Gerritt Graham, and P.J. Soles. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Culled from a 1979 comedy concert, this sampling of the Wild and Crazy Guy at his wildest and craziest may be familiar to his older fans, but is well worth another go-round. "Happy Feet," "King Tut," the arrows and the bunny ears are all in attendance; by this time, Martin's catchphrase and stock routines were so familiar that audiences began laughing before they even occurred, sometimes shouting the lines in unison just as Martin opens his mouth. The video is rounded out with Martin's Oscar-nominated short subject, The Absent Minded Waiter. Steve Martin Live was directed by Carl Gottleib, an associate of Martin's since his days on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour writing staff. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This 1978 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guest the Grateful Dead. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide

Opting for light entertainment after the critical satire of Shampoo (1975), producer-director-writer-star Warren Beatty remade the 1941 comic fantasy Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Dimly amiable L.A. Rams quarterback Joe Pendleton (Beatty) is prematurely called to Heaven by an over-eager escort (Buck Henry, who co-directed) after a traffic accident. When archangel Mr. Jordan (James Mason) discovers the error, he offers to return Joe to his body, only to find that it has been cremated. On the verge of playing in the Super Bowl, Joe demands a fit body rather than the old about-to-be-murdered industrialist Farnsworth he has been offered, but he reconsiders when he sees environmentalist Betty Logan (Julie Christie) in Farnsworth's house. Assuming Farnsworth's body while keeping his sweet self, Joe hires his beloved coach Max Corkle (Jack Warden) to get him in shape (after convincing Max who he really is), sets Farnsworth's business on an eco-friendly path, and romances Betty. Farnsworth's homicidal wife (Dyan Cannon) and secretary (Charles Grodin), however, are still determined to succeed in their plan to kill him. When Mr. Jordan finally finds the Super Bowl body Joe wanted, Joe has to trade his old self for the new life -- but will he remember his love for Betty? Heaven Can Wait offered contemporary yet old-fashioned escapism and tapped into the late-1970s vogue for nostalgic fun, becoming one of 1978's most popular summer movies after Grease. Updating the original while following its blueprint, Beatty and co-writer Elaine May switched Joe's sport and turned Joe into a man of his '70s moment, adoring Betty for her convictions and favoring "green" policies over corporate greed. Gently breathing life into a classic form, Heaven Can Wait found romantic innocence in a jaded time, and it went on to receive nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

This 1977 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guest Leon Redbone. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide

This 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guests Bill Withers and Toni Basil. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth achieved cult film status for David Bowie's performance as Thomas Jerome Newton, aka "Mr. Sussex," and the imagery of director Nicholas Roeg, a former cinematographer. In this deeply allegorical science-fiction drama, Newton is an alien from a planet that is dying for lack of water, and he has been sent to earth to find a way to ship some of the earth's plentiful supply to his home planet. He arrives with a human-looking disguise, his knowledge of unusual technologies, his despair, and little else. Using his knowledge, he takes out patents on "his" inventions, aided by patent lawyer Oliver Farnsworth (Buck Henry). He skillfully parlays the money from these inventions and becomes a financial/industrial tycoon. These inventions, and others like them, along with his political and financial power, should make possible the transfer of water to his planet. But instead of pressing forward with plans to save his home planet, he becomes enamored of Earth's low-down ways and of his strange, passive relationship with his elevator-operator girlfriend, Mary Lou (Candy Clark). Meanwhile, his phenomenal rise from anonymity to power, and his eccentric behavior, spark the government's interest. Chemistry professor Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn) also comes calling, fascinated by the alien's history. As gin and despair slowly cripple him, he becomes consumed by memories of life on his doomed planet. The longer (140 minutes) and sexier British version of this film was toned down for its American release. Roeg, whose work has received polarized responses, also directed such distinctively stylized movies as Walkabout (1971) and Don't Look Now (1973). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

With Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby (1938) as his blueprint, Peter Bogdanovich resurrected and payed homage to 1930s screwball comedy in What's Up, Doc? (1972). When wacky co-ed Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand, in the Katharine Hepburn part) spies nebbishy musicologist Howard Bannister (Ryan O'Neal in bespectacled Cary Grant mode) in a San Francisco hotel lobby, she decides that Howard and his precious igneous rocks are right up her alley. Too bad Howard already has a fiancée, the propriety-fixated Eunice (Madeline Kahn in her film debut). Using all her arcane knowledge from brief stays at numerous colleges, Judy tries to charm her way to a $20,000 grant for Howard, and Howard himself, at a banquet with grantor Frederick Larrabee (Austin Pendleton). Things get even more complicated the next day when Judy's underwear-filled overnight bag gets mixed up with Howard's rock bag, which gets mixed up with Mrs. Van Hoskins' bag of jewels, which gets mixed up with Mr. Smith's bag of top secret government papers. All sides converge at Larrabee's mod townhouse and the chase begins. Retaining Hawks' machine-gun pace (as well as the sly pop culture referentiality of Billy Wilder), Bogdanovich and writers Buck Henry, David Newman, and Robert Benton updated the opposites-attract screwball convention for contemporary times. O'Neal gently parodied not only Grant but also his own Love Story (1970) preppy, while Kahn represents stiff-wigged 1950s manners as opposed to Streisand's long-haired, pants-wearing free spirit. The happy ending, in which Cole Porter-belting youth wins out over old manners, found favor with audiences, as What's Up, Doc? became one of the most popular films of 1972, and the second hit in a row for Bogdanovich after 1971's The Last Picture Show. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide