Fun with Dick and Jane

Plot synopsis:
An upper-middle-class couple, Dick and Jane Harper, hit a hump in living the good life when the husband loses his job. Falling through the cracks of society in the United States, they become high-class thieves to get back all they have lost.
Dick Harper is a successful aerospace engineer in Los Angeles, where he and wife Jane have a lovely house, with a swimming pool and new lawn under way. Due to financial reversals at the agency, however, Dick's boss, Charlie Blanchard, suddenly fires him.
Dick and Jane owe more than $70,000 and abruptly have no income. His attempts to find other gainful employment fail. Jane lands a fashion modeling appearance at a restaurant that becomes a fiasco. Dick ends up applying for unemployment and food stamps, while Jane's wealthy parents, rather than help, advise them to use this experience positively as a life lesson.
Unable to come up with any other solution to their problems, Dick and Jane turn to a life of crime. They make an effort to select their victims judiciously, robbing the telephone company, for instance, which makes customers in line cheer. In time, Dick and Jane weigh their guilty consciences against their needs, trying to get their old lives back and keep out of jail.

Tags: satire

Review:
I agree with the reviewer who said that George Segal and Jane Fonda are an unlikely couple to star in this movie.
George Segal and Jane Fonda are not he kind of actors you would expect to find in this movie with low brow humour that is a delightfully guilty addiction.
Dirty jokes, a rancid social commentary and the glib life of bad mid to late 1970's economics drive 'Fun With Dick and Jane' to a level of crime that makes you root for them.
Another one has Fonda visiting her conservative parents to ask for financial help and her father turning her down with an evangelical sermon and Dick and Jane's first stick up at a cheap motel.
The Excellent George Segal And The Equally Excellent Jane Fonda, Play Dick And Jane, A couple who have it all, a large dream home complete with maid, and swimming pool(Under Construction) and a young son, and even a dog named Spot!George Segal, is a successful Aerospace Executive, who get's laid off due to some unforeseen cutback's, unfortunately the couple who are living beyond their mean's, and soon hit rock bottom as the pair struggle to find employment, with exceptionally hilarious result'sBut where there's a will their's a way as Dick And Jane 'Accidently receive stolen money from a botched bank raid, the couple who develop an appetite for robbery then devise various and ingenious method's of grand larceny to pay off their mortgage/Bill's,Unfortunately they had to unnessesary remake this gem for the attention deficit generation,(which is nowhere as great as this!.
As usual, it's a "Jane Fonda movie" that thinly conceals a social message underneath its comic scenario, but I didn't feel it got too preachy until near the finish-line.
George Segal works very easily with Fonda, and there are some hugely funny scenes after an arduous opening wherein Segal loses his cushy job.
But for every foul ball there comes along something fresh and groovy, like the sequence where Fonda acts her way out of neighborhood humiliation once the gardeners start rolling up her lawn, or when the gentleman from Food Stamps shows up at an inappropriate moment (a ritzy family dinner) confessing he just had a Big Mac and a Coke.
When the executive engineer Dick Harper (George Segal) is unexpectedly fired by the president Charlie Blanchard (Ed McMahon) of the Taft Aerospace, company where he works, his wife Jane Harper (Jane Fonda) and him get completely broken, full of debts including the mortgage of their fancy house and without means to support their lifestyle.
There is a heist in the bank and Jane accidentally steals some money from the thieves, and the couple decides to robber to survive and maintain their social status."Fun with Dick and Jane" is a great amoral comedy that has not aged or dated.
Jane Fonda is very beautiful and shows a great chemistry with George Segal.
The story of the American Middle Class in jeopardy and is aptly personified in this movie, called 'Fun With Dick and Jane.' There have been several other films based on this theme, but for my money, the stars of George Segal and Jane Fonda are solidly entrenched and not easily replaced by later film couples.
Segal stars' as Mr. Richard Harper a Aero-space executive who as his boss (Ed McMahon) states is the very best at his job, but like so many other corporate executives is no longer needed.
"Fun with Dick and Jane" from 1977, starring George Segal and Jane Fonda, is the type of comedy that's rarely made anymore in mainstream cinema.
Like the remake, which had a different script but the same premise, it's about a financially totally overextended couple who find themselves flat broke when the husband, Dick, loses his job.
When Jane looks over the bills, she declares her husband "the Typhoid Mary of finance." What follows is a very funny comedy as Dick and Jane try to make it on unemployment, apply for food stamps, and attempt to borrow money at a 17% interest rate ("That's illegal!" Jane yells).
Today you need a Jim Carrey to sign on for a film like this in order for it to be made, where in the '70s and '80s, these movies were plentiful.
Dick and Jane Harper are happy and very well off; they have a dog, a son, a great house and Dick has a high-powered job as an aerospace company executive.
Fun with Dick and Jane serves as an entertaining satire on the upper middle class standards of living, produced in the presumably stifling corporate environment of the mid-1970's.
Lovely wife Jane Fonda, who handles matters fairly well when their landscapers tear up all their unpaid work, finds herself forced to find some source of income to maintain their expensive lifestyles  it would seem Segal's unemployment only takes them so far.
Fonda secures a job as a model while Segal manages to lose his benefits when a gay unemployment officer spots him working as a bit character in the opera.
In addition, Fun contains a few instances of dated racism, with jabs at homosexuals, Hispanics and African-Americans (who hold a pajama dance party in McMahon's office as Segal and Fonda crack his safe, their loud drill protected by the celebrants' louder music).
Fun With Dick And Jane has George Segal and Jane Fonda as this upper middle class suburban couple living the American dream with their son Sean Frye.
It all comes to an end when aerospace engineer Segal gets fired by his unctuous and smarmy boss Ed McMahon.
After trying other ways to get an income and failing, Segal and Fonda turn to a life of crime.
Though they have many setbacks, they begin to like it.Watching Fun With Dick And Jane put me in mind oddly enough of dealing with World Trade Center families at Crime Victims Board who were a lot like Segal and Fonda.
There's a great cameo part from Dick Gautier as a crooked televangelist Fonda and Segal rob.
That should almost be legal.With all the humor Fun With Dick And Jane is an interesting social critique and commentary on American values.
It was a little painful to see George Segal be so homophobic, but I choose to see this as a reflection of how far society has leapt in the last 25 years.I've read elsewhere that Jane only made this movie for the $ to support then-husband Tom Hayden's political campaign/career.
Even still, the late 1970s was Jane's era, in which she cranked out gem after gem, from the Electric Horseman to an incredibly bitchy role in The California Suite to a powerful performance in The China Syndrome.All in all, FWDAJ is a funny time capsule that has a few messages, but don't be mislead by posters here who say it's a thinly-veiled moralistic movie.
The Harpers (Fonda &Segal) are yuppies trying to hang on to middle-class status after Dick is fired from well-paying aerospace job.
Dick Harper (George Segal) and Jane, his wife (Jane Fonda) believe themselves to be living the high life.
I'm a big fan of Jane Fonda, and she's great in this movie.
Fun with Dick and Jane is a take on the Dick and Jane children's books; George Segal and Jane Fonda play the title characters who've always played by the rules and done everything society's told them to do.
They try everything they can think of to get jobs and money, but when they reach the end of their rope, they turn to crime.This movie isn't made to be taken seriously, so don't expect a dramatic heist film.
Our couple, portrayed by George Segal and Jane Fonda are really, really good a defining how we saw ourselves at that time.
Dick (George Segal) and Jane Harper (Jane Fonda) are living the American dream.
George Segal and Jane Fonda play a good bickering couple.
After upper middle-class aerospace executive George Segal (as Dick Harper) is unexpected fired from his high-paying job, he and housewife Jane Fonda (as Jane) are forced to tighten their economic belts.
However, when Ms. Fonda fails to hold a job of her own and Mr. Segal is exposed as a unemployment check cheat, the increasingly desperate couple must become the "Bonnie and Clyde" of the corporate world...Watching "Fun with Dick and Jane" alongside the 2005 re-make elevates this version of the film, although neither really approaches classic status.
Don't blink once or you'll miss Jay Leno, twice for Thayer David.****** Fun with Dick and Jane (2/9/77) Ted Kotcheff ~ George Segal, Jane Fonda, Ed McMahon, Hank Garcia.
Jane Fonda, George Segal, and Ed McMahan are both very well cast and very effective - This is a great movie for those who think Jane Fonda can't do comedy.
I saw this movie in the theaters back in 1977 and it is one of my favorites.The chemistry between George Segal and Jane Fonda is good and there are some very funny moments like when he tries to hold up an Afro-American bar and they just look at him and ask "When did they start busing the white robbers to the black neighborhoods?" The other crack that was risqué for the time is when Dick shoves the pistol in his waistband and screams.
Later at the party, someone is admiring his Jaguar and he cracks, "I took one for a test drive and loved it."Ed McMahon is great as the drunken manager firing everyone, playing off his reputation from the Johnny Carson show and connections with Budweiser as their spokesman.It's really a very funny movie for it's time and wears well with age.
"Fun with Dick and Jane" is a solid, well-made family movie, although it goes without saying that it's not perfect.Dick (George Segal) is a successful upper-class businessman who suddenly loses his job when his boss (Ed McMahon) fires him.
His wife, Jane (Jane Fonda), soon finds her world turned upside-down as she is hard-pressed to afford the most simple commodities.In a last-ditch effort, the couple turn to harmless crime such as robbing banks (never killing people - it is a PG movie after all and they aren't Bonnie and Clyde, as the tagline says), until they decide to even rip off Dick's ex-boss at one of his Christmas parties.The movie is being remade this year with Jim Carrey (originally to co-star Cameron Diaz, who pulled out) and I don't think it's necessary.
The original works as an amiable, entertaining family comedy and a remake set today would only seem redundant.The cast is strong - McMahon is a scene-stealer and Fonda and Segal have good chemistry.It's a lite version of "Bonnie and Clyde" with a predictably fairy-tale-happy ending and likable characters.
It's not ugly or mean-spirited, it's just a nice family film - and what more would you expect from a movie called "Fun with Dick and Jane"?
And, if you never really were around during the late 70's, you won't get the concept either....Sure, we've all read and re-read the plot concept - upper middle income bracket Dick (George Segal) loses his job - just at the time with he and his wife Jane (Jane Fonda) are playing 'keep up with the Joneses' - by buying and buying and buying everything that his salary will afford: there's the new home (typical of ANYTHING in Orange County at the time), the cars, the household furnishings and electronic gadgets, and, oh, yes, let's not forget the LAWN!
George Segal made his name in the 1960s with dramas such as King Rat and the sublime Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?In the 1970s he became a master of light comedy and this is a good example as he teams up with Jane Fonda.
Dick is unable to get another job and when Jane succeeds with employment it ends in disaster.The couple turn to theft rather ineptly at first to make ends meet.
They then decide to rob Dick's former boss who has stashed some slush money in his safe.This is an immoral light hearted film with a subtext of life in breadline America which did get worse from the late 1970s onwards.Its a fun, zippy film which is a lot better than the Jim Carrey remake but has dated with its racial attitudes.
Ironically Segal would go on to make Carbon Copy a few years later which would examine prejudice as he discovers he has a grown up black son played by Denzel Washington (his film debut.)George Segal and Jane Fonda bounce off well with each other, there is a nice cameo from John Dehner who plays Jane's father who turns down her plea for financial help..
George Segal and Jane Fonda play a yuppie couple whose well-to-do lifestyle suddenly gets interrupted when he loses his job.
I taped 'Fun With Dick and Jane' nearly four years before I actually watched it.
But I like Jane Fonda and George Segal so I figured I would watch it SOMEday.
Sometimes a movie starts with one idea and goes nowhere other trying to exploit it several ways.Jane Fonda was the rare thing: a so-called sex kitten ingénue turned serious actress, additionally capable of comedy.
Tame today but a big deal in its time.Jane (the character has this name, and he husband is the dick) comes home with a great, exciting idea.
Outside of a clever initial idea, and two capable stars in Jane Fonda and George Segal, this dated exercise in social commentary comes off as forced and mean spirited to minorities, especially to gay people.
Dick Harper (George Segal) is suddenly fired from his high-paying job.
The best thing about Dick & Jane is the music, like the main theme by The Movie 'Ahead of the Game', and as some of it's supplied by Lamont Dozier it's not hard to see why.
This film brings a smile to my face every time I think about it!Jane Fonda and George Segal are Jane and Dick Harper,A typical Suburbia Couple in LA.When Dick loses his Aerospace job,he goes downhill,first losing his Welfare status by Working one night at the Opera,and getting caught by the welfare adjuster!!And the laughs just keep on coming.Jane loses her job,Dick borrows money from a loan agency,but as they collect the cash,the place gets robbed.The Harpers get a new idea:Rob to pay the bills!As the story progresses,they rob:The telephone company,A record store,a no-tell motel,and a minister!But the best of all:When the Harpers are invited to a party at Dick's old job,they go in and steal all the money out of his old boss's safe.Since the Money is not supposed to exist:He let's them go:WITH THE MONEY!!All in all a good film and one that will make you laugh to see that crime does pay......In Laughs!!.
''Fun with Dick and Jane'' is not the best comedy I watched, but still is a nice movie from the 70's starring George Segal and Jane Fonda as Dick and Jane, a couple from the upper-middle class who suddenly stay with high debts, since Dick was fired, and decide to steal to pay their bills and keep their life style.
In this one, George Segal plays a serious executive engineer, while in the new version, Jim Carrey makes Dick a stupid idiot.
Jane Fonda is very beautiful, and I am amazed that she was already 40 years old when she did this movie,since she doesn't look more then 32..
George Segal and Jane Fonda had the right chemistry to pull off their roles here, but a lot of times I thought the story was forced and didn't ring true to character.
I actually know a married couple whose names are Dick and Jane who are friends of mine, and managed to reference the film the last time we got together.
"Fun with Dick and Jane" was released during George Segal's flirtation with real stardom during the mid-1970s.
While pleasant in tone and easy to take, the movie loses momentum about halfway through, wandering to a strictly standard ending.Dick (George Segal) and Jane (Jane Fonda) are a couple living the Southern California dream: lots of money, big house, comfortable lifestyle.
Then Dick is laid off by his drunken boss Charlie (Ed McMahon), resulting in the couple borrowing money at first, then turning to a life of crime later.
Great stuff.It wasn't a 'fall out of your seat laughing' kind of comedy, but none the less it was amusing and entertaining enough to be perfect family viewing on a rainy afternoon.It really is Fun with Dick and Jane..
All the characters are awesome, and George Seagal and Jane Fonda had brilliant chemistry together, and made a hilarious duo, plus The ending was especially smart and clever.
George Seagal is brilliant here, he had wonderful chemistry with Fonda, was hilarious, seemed to be enjoying himself,had some great dialog, and before this I have never seen him in anything, but will be checking out more of his movies after this terrific performance!.
Jane Fonda was gorgeous and was equally as good, she was very funny, added spark, also seemed to be having fun, and proved she was indeed one of the greatest actresses of all time!.
It is the same format, executive engineer Dick Harper (The Cable Guy's George Segal) is unexpectedly fired by Charlie Blanchard (Ed McMahon) just after finishing a new swimming pool, and he and his wife Jane (Jane Fonda) are in financial trouble.
I saw this back in 1979,when you often used to get 2 movies for the price of one.Its probably not the funniest film either Segal or Fonda made.but it races along providing plenty of laughs and hitting its targets.Basically Higher middle income bracket couple turn to crime,after he is made redundant and finds he can't get another job.The funniest scene involves them trying to rob a bar in a black neighbourhood,unsuccessfully.Along the way come encounters with the welfare,food stamps,the opera and a bank robbery.Overall,no classic but very funny and worth seeing at least once,certainly much better than some of the witless drivel that passes for comedy these days.