The Tall Guy **** (1989, Jeff Goldblum, Emma Thompson, Rowan Atkinson) – Classic Movie Review 3583

Comedian Mel Smith makes his début as director on this naughty but nice 1989 British romantic comedy starring Jeff Goldblum as the tall guy, Dexter King, an American actor trying his luck over in the UK, working as straight man fall guy to an unpleasant rubbery-faced comic, Ron Anderson (Smith’s Not the Nine O’Clock News comedy team partner Rowan Atkinson).

Soon the tall guy falls for the attractive British nurse Kate Lemmon ( Emma Thompson) he meets when he is getting injections for hay fever. They have an afternoon of hilariously unbridled passion. Anderson fires Dexter and he lands a job as the Elephant Man in a musical stage version of the story that deliciously parodies the shows of Andrew Lloyd Webber. But then Kate suspects Dexter is having an affair with a fellow cast member, and dumps him so he sets out to try to win her back.

This genuinely funny film may be all a bit hit and miss in the laughs department but, when Richard Curtis’s screenplay hits, it is great. And Goldblum keeps it going appealingly when the laughs are scarce, while Thompson charms and Atkinson’s humour is, perhaps surprisingly, cruelly funny. The hilarious comic sex scene with Goldblum and Thompson is a highlight.

It also the feature film debut of screenwriter Richard Curtis, who went on to Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually. His screenplay mischievously draws from his experiences as straight man to long-time collaborator Atkinson.

Also in the cast are Geraldine James, Emil Wolk, Kim Thomson, Harold Innocent, Anna Massey, Hugh Thomas, Joanna Kanska, Peter Kelly, Tim Barlow, Declan Mulholland, Neil Hamilton, John Waldon, Angela Meredith, Angus Deayton (as as Actor in Agent’s Office), Kate Duchène, Kate Lonergan and Jason Isaacs. There are also cameo appearances from John Inman, Melvyn Bragg, Suggs, Jonathan Ross, Richard Curtis (as the bearded man Dexter passes on his way to the loo) and Mel Smith. Michael Fitzgerald is credited as ‘Man with vacuum cleaner tube up his bottom’!

Peter Brewis wrote the score and the soundtrack includes Labi Siffre’s It Must Be Love performed by Madness. Characters sing along to it, with a cameo by Madness frontman Suggs. Other tracks include Let the Heartaches Begin (Long John Baldry), Heartbreak Hotel (Sam Williams), Breaking Up Is Hard to Do and Crying in the Rain (these performed by Phil Pope).

Mel Smith later named The Tall Guy the high point of his career, saying: ‘I didn’t know enough about the film business, and so it seemed wonderfully easy.’

Smith died of a heart attack aged 60 on July 19 2013. He directed four other movies, High Heels and Low Lifes (2001), Radioland Murders, Bean (1997) and Blackball.

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© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3583

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