I enjoyed this film far more than anything had led me to anticipate; from reading other comments here, I suspect it benefits enormously from being seen on a full-size screen in the cinema, in the company of a cheerful and enthusiastic audience. I was lucky enough to have that experience, borne up on ripples of laughter from all around, and had an immensely good time with this undemanding comedy.
For it is as a comedy that it shines, if it shines anywhere at all. The music is nothing special -- in fact, I hadn't realised it *was* a musical, and was very surprised when the assembled ancestors burst into half-spoken lyric -- but I do have to admit that the half-threat, half-promise of 'Oh, what I'll do...' has proved far more catchy than it ever seemed at the time, as it's still going round and round in my head!
The plot, such as it is, largely pivots around the past history of the eponymous Francesca, a sixteenth-century portrait sporting a distinctly anachronistic hairstyle and fur-coat. Her idea on the sanctity of marriage don't quite jibe with those of her distant descendant, the Countess Angelina, and one can almost hear the storyline creaking at the seams under the strain of the Production Code in order to ensure that the heroine arrives unsullied in her much-delayed marriage-bed with the right man...
The romance is scarcely earth-shattering, and in fact the first few scenes, played pretty well straight, verge on the tedious. But where script and film really come to life is in the battle of the sexes that follows. The impudence of Douglas Fairbanks Jr's courtship of Betty Grable's married Angelina is equalled only by Betty-Grable-as-Francesca's pursuit of him in turn, culminating in complete role-reversal in the hilarious fantasy sequence where she -- literally -- sweeps him off his feet. This is probably the comic climax of the plot, although the consequences of the Colonel's understandable confusion are worked out with a deft touch in the remaining two 'acts' of the operetta-structure, and the spectacle of Fairbanks' blissful, bemused awakening is more or less worth the price of admission on its own.
Grable is entirely convincing in establishing her two contrasting characters, wisely gets almost all the (limited) singing opportunities, and shares the honours where the swathes of quotable dialogue in the various verbal duels are concerned. But in the field of unspoken reaction she is really outclassed by her male supporting leads; Fairbanks in particular is an absolute treat in a number of wordless sequences whose set-up and humour is worthy of the silent screen.
This film is too uneven in style to be a classic, varying from sparkling repartee to hackneyed tedium. But at its best it is quite honestly very funny indeed, and brought a round of spontaneous applause and laughter across the auditorium at the end as the lights went up. Out of tune with its times, it may have failed to draw contemporary audiences -- but, on this showing, really didn't deserve to be disowned by both Grable and Preminger, the (uncredited) director. This is no masterpiece, but a thoroughly entertaining minor work, and I for one found myself grinning in remembrance all the way home.

When I began watching The Muppets Take Manhattan, the choppy presentation and dialogue had me convinced I was watching something recent, so you can imagine my surprise when I came to the IMDb and read that it was made in 1984. Jim Henson may have ended The Muppet Show when it was at its peak, but spin offs like this and Muppet Babies (which apparently is based upon a very terrible sequence in this film) are the absolute nadir of all things Muppet. I used to wonder why Muppets attracted such derision from such film reviewers as Mr. Cranky, so I am glad that The Muppets Take Manhattan (henceforth: TMTM) set me straight on that one. Of course, many series have had a massive drop off in quality when the third episode came around: Aliens, RoboCop, The Evil Dead, even Night Of The Living Dead. So while it is no surprise that TMTM is less than The Muppet Movie or The Great Muppet Caper, the surprise lies entirely in how much less than the awesome debut or its slightly lesser follow-up TMTM is. Not only is the music far less satisfying, the scenes that link it all together are utterly terrible.
There are, of course, some redeeming and genuinely funny moments, but they are few and far between. The Swedish Chef is great in any scene he inhabits, so thank the spirit of small mercies that he appears in one sequence where his eccentricity is exploited to the fullest. The problem is that there are just no scenes that work. The story, such as it is, revolves around a Broadway musical Kermit is attempting to get produced. He goes through many trials and tribulations along the way, including the sneaking suspicion the viewer has that we have seen this all before. The biggest problem is that Kermit does not have a decent antagonist to work off this time. Charles Durning was cinematic gold as Doc Hopper, the proprietor of a fast food chain who wants to exploit Kermit for his business. Charles Grodin was dynamite as Nicky Holiday, a jewel thief the Muppets must fight in order to save Miss Piggy from a lifetime in prison. The saying is that a hero is only as good as his antagonist, and these two are at least half responsible for the greatness of the previous two films.
Charles Grodin also highlights what is wrong with TMTM. Namely, the music sucks. The opening number of the Manhattan Melodies show that is at the centre of TMTM, to put it nicely, makes the drivel that now dominates the airwaves seem coordinated. I might just be letting my peculiar sensitivity to the sounds of words and phrases getting to me, but songs like The Rainbow Connection inspired tears of joy, not irritation. Grodin's big solo during The Great Muppet Caper, while not having the same resonation, he lifts the tone of the film eight steps on his own. He is all class. And if there is one thing TMTM could use, it is rising eight steps in addition to attaining a semblance of class. TMTM also feels severely time-compressed, with the story leaping from scene to scene without any consideration for making sense or giving the story cohesion. Maddox himself pointed out that transition and cohesion make a film feel like a coherent whole rather than a mess of thrown-together pieces. See if you can find them in TMTM.
While TMTM does have its guest stars, they are either poorly utilised (Brooke Shields and John Landis), or totally out of their element (Liza Minelli, Dabney Coleman). To call this a waste of time for puppeteer and actor alike is flattery. The absence of an end credits routine is especially sore here, after Animal's "go home" postscript for The Muppet Movie in particular. Which highlights another problem. The characters are poorly written at best, with none of their individual quirks to be seen or heard. Animal shouts singular words at times, but they have nothing to do with the plot, or the conversation going on around him. Say what you will about set pieces designed to show off characters, but think of Animal's moment after eating the instant growth pills, or his "sowwy" after the incident when he pulled the window down on top of his fellow Muppets. Now see if you can remember a single memorable moment with an individual Muppet other than Swedish Chef's hilarious misunderstanding of three-dimensional film involving popcorn. Give up? Then you have proved my point.
Given that Labyrinth, one of the Henson company's best and most timeless products outside of the Muppets, arrived some two years later, it makes TMTM all the more puzzling. Perhaps this misfire convinced Jim Henson to rethink his strategy regarding character development and usage. Or perhaps the misfire can be attributed to Frank Oz, who at the time had just finished working with George Lucas on what many would agree is the most childish episode in the original Star Wars saga. The writers were also involved with The Great Muppet Caper, so I will let them off the hook for this in spite of the fact that a script is one of the most essential pieces of a film. The production is also substantially improved here, with Muppets appearing capable of moving in ways that were previously beyond them. Had the story and script been better thought-out, TMTM might have been at least comparable to The Great Muppet Caper. As it stands now, it is a great answer to the question of whether Muppets write under the influence, or excrete.
For that reason, I gave The Muppets Take Manhattan a three out of ten. Two to denote its actual quality, and a bonus for the Swedish Chef's moments. Without him, this film would be unwatchable.