Mr Deeds ** (2002, Adam Sandler, Winona Ryder, John Turturro) – Classic Film Review 1226

Adam Sandler of all people is miscast as a simple, honest pizza-parlour owner, Longfellow Deeds, who moves to the big city to inherit $40billion and meets greedy opportunists after his money.

There’s an ugly rash of lazy acting – particularly from John Turturro as a butler with a foot fetish – in director Steven Brill’s feeble, obvious, unamusing 2002 farcical comedy remake of director Frank Capra’s 1936 comedy drama film Mr Deeds Goes to Town, with Gary Cooper.

A wan Winona Ryder has the Jean Arthur role as ace reporter Babe Bennett sent to get the dirt on him, but falls for him instead.

Tim Herlihy really seems to be struggling to ‘modernise’ a story that doesn’t need modernising in his bumpy screenplay based on the short story Opera Hat by Clarence Budington Kelland and the 1936 screenplay Mr Deeds Goes to Town by Robert Riskin.

There’s a notable support cast in Peter Gallagher, Allen Covert, Jared Harris, Erick Avari, Peter Dante, Conchita Ferrell, Harve Presnell, Steve Buscemi, Blake Clark, John McEnroe, J B Smoove, Tom McNulty and Rob Schneider.

The Mr Deeds character just shouldn’t be hitting anyone, Mr Sandler. Unlike the director, it’s not brill

Looking for a small, old-fashioned, New England-type town close to New York, the producers discovered New Milford, Connecticut, to portray Deeds’s fictional home-town of Mandrake Falls, New Hampshire. The Bistro Café at New Milford was used as Deeds’ Pizza restaurant. Some scenes were also shot in Carmel, N.Y.

After poor reviews, the film was a big hit, especially in America where it took $126million, though the rest of the world totalled only $45million.

(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 1226

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/