Mark-Linn Baker plays Benjy Stone, who reminisces about "My Favorite Year" in this 1982 film starring Peter O'Toole, Joseph Bologna, Anne DiSalvo, Bill Macy, and Lainie Kazan. Set in 1954, Baker plays a young NBC writer for a live TV show starring a Sid Caesar type (Bologna). He is put in charge of a drunken film swashbuckler named Alan Swann (O'Toole) to keep him sober and make sure he shows up for the rehearsals and the performance. This includes bringing Swann (totally based on Errol Flynn) to his family's home in Brooklyn for dinner, riding on a stolen policeman's horse through Central Park, and witnessing Swann going over a rooftop with a fireman's hose tied around him. That's actually the good news. All goes well until Swann realizes it's going to be a live show. "I played before an audience once!" he screams. "I was a butler. I had one line. I forgot it." One of my favorite lines was made all the more hysterical by O'Toole throwing it away - when he's questioned about going to the Stork Club, he says, "Why not? It's been a year. Surely they've fixed the wall and replaced the bandstand." The film captures the egomania of the TV star with Bologna's fabulous portrayal of King Kaiser, who is being threatened by a mobster (Cameron Mitchell) due to his weekly impersonation of the man; their scene together is a riot. Mark Linn-Baker is delightful. The other actors fit their roles to a T. As far as O'Toole, what can be said? As Alan Swann, he is sheer perfection - dissipated but handsome, drunken but charming, frustrating but lovable - a man who hides his sorrows, fear and loneliness in drink and debauchery. A truly great portrayal that doesn't simply rely on the surface comedy but lets you see the man beneath.
Director Richard Benjamin gives us the feel of '50s New York and live TV in all of its excitement and keeps the pace going beautifully. A real treasure you won't mind seeing more than once.
Director Richard Benjamin gives us the feel of '50s New York and live TV in all of its excitement and keeps the pace going beautifully. A real treasure you won't mind seeing more than once.