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Jun 03, 2017mswrite rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
The Guacamole Act of 1917! I'm not going to trash the 2003 remake starring Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks, partly because I like both actors a lot, and mostly because... I've never seen it. I don't want to see it; this 1979 screwball original renders any other version unnecessary. Alan Arkin and Peter Falk are inspired casting in this hilariously deadpan take on the buddy films of the seventies. Sheldon Kornpett, a mild-mannered well-to-do Manhattan dentist, is trying to survive his unexpected and largely unwanted friendship with Vince Ricardo, the "businessman" father of his daughter's fiance. The opening sentence of my review references their dinner conversation, the first meeting between the families, in which Vince (Falk) calmly tells a lunatic story of witnessing small children carried off by giant tsetse flies during a consulting trip to Guatemala in 1954. For Sheldon (Arkin) this is the first of many confirmations to come that the affable Vince is absolutely out of his mind, but he's promised his daughter Barbara he'd give the new in-laws a chance. Nevertheless, he gives Vince a skeptical look: Sheldon (sarcastic): "Are you sure these are flies you're talking about?" Vince (nodding sagely): Flies. The natives had a name for them: "Jose Grecos de Muertos." Flamenco dancers of death. When asked what he did about this strange and awful phenomenon, Vince explains there was nothing really he could do, "given all the red tape in the bush." (Sheldon: "There's red tape in the bush?") Yes, Vince continues, it seems the flies are "protected against pilferage under the provisions of the Guacamole Act of 1917." That's only 15 minutes into "The In-Laws," which gets weirder, wilder and more absurdly hilarious from there. This Criterion Collection version is a single disc but includes a 2003 Commentary track featuring director Arthur Hiller, writer Andrew Bergman and co-stars Arkin and Falk. Their amused observations and recollections about the making of the film (including a lengthy discourse on the classic "Serpentine, Shelly, serpentine!!" scene) are so entertaining it actually enhances the movie, making it even funnier. Whatever your thoughts about the remake, borrow this DVD and see the original at least twice--once for the movie (these guys talk and laugh a lot, obscuring much of the dialogue) and then again with the commentary track, which confirms all involved had a wonderful time making this action-comedy classic.