Illegally Yours * (1988, Rob Lowe, Colleen Camp, Kenneth Mars, L B Straten, Harry Carey Jr, Kim Myers) – Classic Movie Review 11,833

Peter Bogdanovich’s ill-advised and unamusing 1988 American screwball comedy film Illegally Yours stars a poorly-cast and awkward Rob Lowe as bespectacled college dropout Richard Dice, who comes back home to put his life together. He is called for jury duty and finds his childhood crush Molly (Colleen Camp) on trial for murder, and tries to prove her innocent, hoping to win her heart.

It is set in St Augustine, Florida, scene of messy, misfiring, complicated comic capers involving murder, blackmail, perjury, a corpse, an incriminating audiotape, an innocent woman who picks up the tape, and two teenage blackmail victims.

They were hoping to strike more gold like What’s Up Doc? but the film was a huge financial and critical failure. Bogdanovich called it ‘awful… I don’t even like to mention it.’ It cost $13 million and earned $259,019 at the box office.

The film was to be released on 31 July 1987, but half the audience walked out of a test screening, and the release date was pushed back to 13 May 1988.

Lowe says Bogdanovich insisted on rewriting the script, which worried Lowe as he liked the original script. Lowe said he went along with the changes because he ‘loved Peter’, though he felt ‘every artist can chase his own vision into a blind alley. And on Illegally Yours he did just that.’ Lowe, riding on the success of About Last Night, seems honourably and optimistically to have put himself in the hands of Bogdanovich, who needed more time to get his act together.

Filming took place from January to April 1987. Bogdanovich recalled: ‘There were constant weather problems. We were shooting in northern Florida under two different weather fronts. There was also pressure to complete the movie in time for summer release – something that became more and more difficult to do.’ The film basically was not ready and its issues were never resolved.

Rewrites included adding a character to be played by L. B Straten, or Louise Stratten, sister of Playboy Playmate model Dorothy Stratten who had dated Bogdanovich before she was murdered at the age of 20 by her estranged husband and manager. Bogdanovich later married Louise Stratten.

The film’s theme song is performed by Johnny Cash.

The cast are Rob Lowe as Richard Dice, Colleen Camp as Molly Gilbert, Kenneth Mars as Hal B Keeler, L B Straten as Sharon Woolrich, Harry Carey Jr as Wally Finnegan, Kim Myers as Suzanne Keeler, Marshall Colt as Donald Cleary, Rick Jason as Freddie Boneflecker, Jessica James as Mrs Evelyn Dice, Linda MacEwen as Ruth Harrison, George Morfogen as Judge Norman Meckel, Marjorie O Taylor as the Judge’s wife Honey Bunny, and Ira Heiden as Andrew Dice.

In 1988 Rob Lowe was involved in a scandal over a videotape of him having sex with a girl he met in a nightclub.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,833

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