Mrs Winterbourne *** (1996, Shirley MacLaine, Ricki Lake, Brendan Fraser) – Classic Movie Review 2259

Director Richard Benjamin’s 1996 comedy is a wayward and unwieldly but nevertheless still appealing fairy tale. It is a much-changed version of a Cornell Woolrich/William Irish novel (‘I Married a Dead Man’) and Barbara Stanwyck’s 1950 movie No Man of Her Own, replacing heated melodrama with easy-going comedy and, oddly, changing all the characters’ names too.

This time Ricki Lake stars as young Connie Doyle who, after a train crash, is mistaken for Patricia, the daughter-in-law of the extremely rich Mrs Winterbourne (Shirley MacLaine). There are a few laughs as the gauche Connie tries to fit in with her new upper-class family, but most of the fun and acting quality comes from MacLaine’s delicious performance as the lovable but ailing matriarch. Brendan Fraser is wasted with little to do as her suspicious, snobbish son, all too easily won over by Connie, but Miguel Sandoval is hilarious as the family’s loyal butler.

The downside is that it’s all listlessly directed by Richard Benjamin, who gives a small, unbilled role to his wife, Paula Prentiss, as ‘Obnoxious Nurse’.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2259

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