Johnny Mercer Movies

Songwriter Harold Arlen is the subject of this documentary. Arlen wrote several songs for famous artists, but remained in the shadows as singers such as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett received the acclaim. Arlen's most popular song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", the noted song from the Wizard of Oz, is added to the title. Filmed performances by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, Mel Torme, and many others are included as they sing songs penned by Arlen and take part in several interviews that make up the bulk of this film, but his life is also well documented. ~ Ed Atkinson, Rovi

Something of a sleeper in its 1990 release, White Hunter, Black Heart is one of Clint Eastwood's most engaging films. It is based on Peter Vietel's novel about the location shoot of John Huston's immortal The African Queen. But the focus is never on Bogie and Hepburn. Egomaniacal director John Wilson (Eastwood) is far more interested in killing an elephant than in making a movie. His old friend and scriptwriter Pete Verrill (Jeff Fahey) and his producer, Paul Landers (George Dzundza), are on hand to try and talk him down from this pursuit. Eastwood's verbose, outlandish performance will be particularly remarkable to fans who tend to think of him as the soft-spoken tough guy. ~ John Voorhees, Rovi

In this farcical comedy, Matthew Broderick plays Clark Kellogg, an aspiring director who arrives in New York City to attend film school. However, moments after he arrives in the city, he's robbed by Victor Ray (Bruno Kirby), leaving him no money for the $700 in books required by his instructor, Arthur Fleeber (Paul Benedict). A few days later, Clark runs into Victor and demands his money back, but Victor has already lost it (on a horse race in which he wasn't entirely sure the animal he bet on was a horse). Instead, he offers to fix Clark up with a job with his boss, an "importer and exporter" named Carmone Sabatini (Marlon Brando), who bears a stunning resemblance to Don Corleone in The Godfather. Clark's adventures with Sabatini are just beginning when he's instructed to pick up a package from the airport. Clark is expecting it to be contraband, and he's right, but not in the way he figured -- it turns out he's accepting delivery of a komodo dragon, which is to be served at a "gourmet club" specializing in dishes prepared from endangered species. Marlon Brando's hilarious comic variation on one of his best-known roles is the highlight of this film, but Bruno Kirby and Paul Benedict also deliver fine comic turns, and Matthew Broderick copes nobly with his role as the film's lone normal person. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Harvey Fierstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit was adapted for the screen by Fierstein himself. The playwright also repeats his stage role of female impersonator Arnold Beckoff, aka nightclub entertainer "Virginia Hamm." The three-part plotline, whittled down to accommodate the film's 117-minute running time, concerns Arnold's seriocomic efforts to find a lasting relationship. We first meet Arnold in 1971, when his heart is broken by his bisexual lover, Ed (Brian Kerwin). Next we find Arnold in 1973, enjoying short-lived happiness with his true love, Alan (Matthew Broderick). The final act takes place in 1980: Arnold, still grieving over Alan's sudden death and struggling to raise the young boy that the couple had adopted, has a long-anticipated showdown with his uncompromising mother, superbly played by Anne Bancroft. A witty film that is by turns touching and outrageous, Torch Song Trilogy works well despite its somewhat soft-pedaled approach to the material. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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

Popular African-American comedian Jo Jo Dancer is severely burned while free-basing cocaine. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists that the movie is not autobiographical. While hovering between life and death, Dancer flashes back to his childhood, when he grew up in a brothel. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists that the movie is not autobiographical. Dancer decides to become a comic, but has a great many difficulties rising to stardom until he begins making scatological comments about race relations. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists that the movie is not autobiographical. As he rises to fame, Jo Jo has problems controlling his drug addiction and womanizing. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists.....Well, you've caught on by now. If one were able to excise the excruciatingly boring "introspection" scene, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling would stand as an excellent testimonial to Richard Pryor's cutting-edge comic brilliance. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of America's great songwriters, Johnny Mercer, plays host for this special television concert which features vibraphone virtuoso Lionel Hampton leading an all-star jazz ensemble, including Gene Krupa on drums, Roy Eldridge on trumpet, Milt Hinton on bass, Zoot Sims on sax, Tyree Glenn on trombone, and Joe Bushkin on piano. Selections include "The Man I Love", "She's Funny That Way", and "Jazz Band Ball". ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

It is not uncommon for actors to double and triple in roles while appearing in the "omnibus" plays of Neil Simon. Plaza Suite was the first film version of a Simon play to carry over the multiple-role device to the screen. Walter Matthau appears in all three one-act playlets comprising Plaza Suite, with a different leading lady in each. First we see Matthau as the husband of Maureen Stapleton, nostalgically returning to the same hotel suite where they'd spent their honeymoon 24 years earlier. Times have changed, however, and the twosome spend more timing sniping at one another than pitching woo. The second vignette casts Matthau as an effusive movie producer (lavish toupee and all) who hopes to seduce his old sweetheart Barbara Harris. The third and best sequence finds Matthau and Lee Grant playing the parents of a bride who steadfastly refuses to leave her locked room to attend her own wedding. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Director Michael Ritchie's ongoing satirical spin on the American Dream is dressed up in quasi-documentary fashion in Downhill Racer. Robert Redford stars as an Olympic-grade skier, whose talent is matched only by his aloof self-involvement. As the cocksure Redford rises to the top of his class, he discards any emotional attachments that might impede his progress, ranging from girlfriends to his own father. When Redford finally attains his goal in life, the thrill of victory is an empty one indeed. The cold-bloodedness of Redford's character may have worked against Downhill Racer at the box office; on the other hand, Ritchie's similarly structured political satire The Candidate offered a "warmer" Redford -- but it, too, was a box-office disappointment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on the hit Broadway play by Neil Simon, who made his screenwriting debut with this adaptation, Barefoot In The Park follows the lives of newlyweds Paul (Robert Redford) and Corie Bratter (Jane Fonda) as they adjust to married life in a tiny Greenwich Village apartment. Paul is a buttoned-down, straight-arrow lawyer who's wound a little too tight, while Corie is an effervescent free spirit who won't let anything disturb her romantic bliss. Aside from the five-flight climb and the hole in their skylight, the Bratters must also contend with eccentric upstairs neighbor Victor Velasco (Charles Boyer), who must go through their apartment to get to his. Corie hatches a plot to get her mother (Mildred Natwick) together with Mr. Velasco, but the entire evening goes awry and even casts doubt on the viability of the Bratters' new marriage, as Corie tries unsuccessfully to loosen Paul up. All ends well, however, and Fonda and Redford are full of youthful appeal in this light domestic comedy. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

In the words of Hamlet, there's a plentiful lack of wit in Not with My Wife, You Don't! Korean war vet Tony Curtis is living in London, blissfully married (so he thinks) to Virna Lisi. In strolls old air force buddy George C. Scott, who has a history of stealing Curtis' ladies away from him. Unable to woo Lisi by fair means, Scott resorts to foul; he exercises his prerogative as Curtis' superior officer, shipping him out to a faraway post. George C. Scott may have been right to refuse his Oscar for Patton; he doesn't look like much of an award-winner in Not With My Wife, You Don't! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Tony Curtis stars as The Great Leslie, a hero among heroes whose purity of heart is manifested by his spotlessly white wardrobe. Leslie's great rival, played by Jack Lemmon, is Professor Fate, a scowling, mustachioed, top-hatted, black-garbed villain. Long envious of Leslie's record-setting accomplishments with airships and sea craft, Professor Fate schemes to win a 22,000-mile auto race from New York City to Paris by whatever insidious means possible. The problem is that Fate is his own worst enemy: each of his plans to remove Leslie from the running (and from the face of the earth) backfires. Leslie's own cross to bear is suffragette Maggie Dubois (Natalie Wood), who also hopes to win the contest and thus strike a blow for feminism. The race takes all three contestants to the Wild West, the frozen wastes of Alaska, and, in the longest sequence, the mythical European kingdom of Carpania. This last-named country is the setting for a wild Prisoner of Zenda spoof involving Professor Fate and his look-alike, the foppish Carpanian king. When Leslie and Fate approach the finish line at the Eiffel Tower, Leslie deliberately loses to prove his love for Maggie. Professor Fate cannot stand winning under these circumstances, thus he demands that he and Leslie race back to New York. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk as Fate's long-suffering flunkey Max, Keenan Wynn as Leslie's faithful general factotum, Dorothy Provine as a brassy saloon singer, Larry Storch as ill-tempered bandit Texas Jack, and Ross Martin as Baron Von Stuppe. The film also yielded a hit song, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer's The Sweetheart Tree. The Great Race was dedicated to "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy". ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi