Coupe de Ville **** (1990, Patrick Dempsey, Arye Gross, Daniel Stern, Alan Arkin) – Classic Movie Review 10,614

Director Joe Roth’s 1990 film Coupe de Ville is a funny and warm-hearted bitter-sweet comedy drama about brothers Bobby, Buddy and Marvin Libner (Patrick Dempsey, Arye Gross and Daniel Stern) meeting up for the first time in five years and squabbling while driving their father Fred Libner’s beautiful 54 Cadillac home to him in Florida in 1963 in time for their mother Betty (Rita Taggart)’s 50th birthday.

Alan Arkin is a delight as the tough and eccentric old man, full of frustrated dreams, but all the performances charm, while Mike Binder’s screenplay is both sharp and poignant.

Coupe de Ville may have been a box office failure but is a lovely, special little sleeper with a fab Sixties soundtrack.

The Cadillac in the movie is not a Coupe De Ville. The three very different bickering brothers are actually driving a 1954 Cadillac Series 62 convertible on a cross country road trip from Detroit to Miami, trying to keep the Caddy in mint condition. The oldest, Marvin (Daniel Stern), is a sergeant in the US Air Force. Buddy (Arye Gross) is a timid dreamer and the youngest, Bobby (Patrick Dempsey), is a handsome rebel in reform school.

Also in the cast are Annabeth Gish, Rita Taggart, Joseph Bologna, James Gammon, Chris Lombardi, John Considine, Ray Lykins, and Josh Segal.

It was shot in Cape Coral, Florida; Fort Myers, Florida; Spartanburg, South Carolina; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Greenville, South Carolina, between May and June 1989.

Coupe de Ville opened in only 170 cinemas in the US and took just $715,983.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,614

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