Word: sidekick
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Murdered Critic. Nicholas Meyer's first literary "discovery"-an unpublished memoir by Sherlock Holmes' sidekick Dr. Watson-pleased almost everyone. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution happily accounted for Holmes' whereabouts after he was supposedly drowned in the Reichenbach Falls. He was, of course, breaking his cocaine habit under the tutelage of Sigmund Freud. The pairing of these two clue masters on one case lent Meyer's pastiche a glittering patina of ought-to-have-been. Alas, Meyer has "found" yet another of Watson's tales, and it should not have happened to anyone...
Cornell also boasts the two leading scorers in the nation from last year, all-American attackmen Mike French and Eamon McEneaney. Their unheralded sidekick, Jon Levine, is probably just as talented, and the Big Red has corralled a whole herd of fine middies too, led by all-Ivy pick Bill Marino...
...smaller-scale direction, especially blocking, is excellent. Smooth timing and imaginative use of props stretch the humor--this particular facet of Weller's play becomes the mainstay of the Dunster production. David Alpert gives a skillful and sophisticated performance as the roguish Mike who masterminds the comic scenes. His sidekick, played by Andy Berger, is a lackluster second fiddle. Andrea Gordon as Ruth and Nikki Mintz as Kathy speak their lines self-consciously, sounding unnatural saying "fuck" and "shit"; it's as though the Jackson twins have bedded down with the entire high school football team...
...course for him it's love at first sight, since she's "the first dame who hasn't fallen for his line since he was four"), but she ends up melting in his arms with Shirley Temple sweetness. Donald O'Connor is so frenetic as Kelly's comic sidekick that he's exhausting to watch, particularly in "Make 'Em Laugh," a tribute to vaudeville slapstick during which he walks into walls, falls over couches, and generally mutilates himself in a (vain) attempt to make someone, anyone laugh. But Jean Hagen is the most annoying of all, doing a pale imitation...
...ALLEN'S comic accomplice, Diane Keaton is a lot closer to earning her cinematic stripes than Peter Bogdanovich's sidekick. Cybill Shepherd, but Keaton's performance also suffers because she's fashioned in her director's image. When she turns obsessively to the camera to suggest, "May be we could have a family. Maybe not our own; we could rent one," you'd swear she could be Allen with a wig and a nose job. But she lacks the timing of a really good comedian. When she's warned on her first husband's deathbed to remember that "Life goes...