My Favorite Year

Plot synopsis:
Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker), the narrator, tells of the summer (in his "favorite year" of 1954) he met his idol, swashbuckling actor Allan Swann (Peter O'Toole). In the early days of television, Benjy works as a junior comedy writer for a variety show starring Stan "King" Kaiser (Joseph Bologna). As a special upcoming guest, they get the still famous (though largely washed-up) Swann. However, when he shows up, they realize that he is a roaring drunk. Kaiser is ready to dump him, until Benjy intervenes and promises to keep him sober during the week leading up to the show.
As Benjy watches out for Swann (or at least tries to keep up with him), they learn much about each other, including the fact that they both have family they try to hide from the rest of the world. In Benjy's case, it's his Jewish mother (Lainie Kazan), who is married to a Filipino former bantamweight boxer, Rookie Carroca (Ramon Sison), and Benjy's embarrassing relatives, such as uncouth Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi). For Swann, it is his young daughter, Tess (Cady McClain), who has been raised entirely by her mother, one of his many ex-wives. He stays away, but continues to keep tabs on her secretly, frustrated that he cannot muster the courage to reconnect with her.
During the week of rehearsals, Kaiser is threatened by corrupt union boss Karl Rojeck (Cameron Mitchell), who does not appreciate being parodied on the show. "Accidents" start happening when Kaiser refuses to stop performing the "Boss Hijack" sketches.
In a subplot, Benjy tries, clumsily and over-enthusiastically, to win the affections of co-worker K. C. Downing (Jessica Harper). Swann advises him on the right approach, which includes crashing a party at the home of K.C.'s affluent parents.
The night of the show finally arrives, but minutes away from going on-air, Swann suffers a panic attack when Benjy informs him that the show is broadcast live. (He is accustomed to getting many takes to get his lines right, exclaiming, "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!") Swann gets drunk, and bolts from the studio, but is confronted by Benjy, who angrily tells him that he always thought of Swann as the swashbuckling hero he saw on the big screen, and that deep down, Swann possesses those qualities as a person. As Benjy puts it, "Nobody's that good an actor!"
As the "Boss Hijack" sketch gets underway, Rojeck's men show up backstage and begin beating up Kaiser. The fight spills onto the stage during the live broadcast (with the audience thinking that it is part of the comedy sketch). Swann and Benjy observe the melee from a balcony, when the audience suddenly notices Swann and breaks into enthusiastic applause. Swann grabs a rope and swings into action (dressed as a Musketeer for a later skit), saving Kaiser in front of an appreciative if still clueless audience.
Benjy narrates the epilogue, relating that Swann, his confidence bolstered, finally gets up the nerve to visit his daughter the next day and the two apparently have a heartfelt reunion.

Tags: action

Review:
It's so note-perfect, from the opening shot of midtown Manhattan 1954 with the cars, outfits, and bustle all coming together beneath the strains of Les Paul and Mary Ford's "How High The Moon" into a tight closeup of Benjy Stone carrying a cardboard cutout of his hero, Alan Swann, through an uncaring, jostling crowd.I almost wish they could have made a sitcom featuring the King Kaiser crew, with of course Joseph Balogna, Bill Macy, Adolph Green and the rest all reprising their roles in a kind of "Remember WENN"-style show.
I hope nobody does to you what you're doing to him." Of course Caesar did end up like this, strung out on substance-use problems that derailed his post-50s career, and knowing that gives the scene, both funny and tension-filled, a certain undertone of poignancy for those in the know.Mark Linn-Baker could have taken it down a notch or two, and the Brooklyn idyll was to die for, and not in a good way.
MY FAVORITE YEAR is that kind of movie!Directed with gusto by Richard Benjamin, the film is both a loving tribute to Sid Caesar's 'Your Show of Show', and the remarkable talents that brought it together each week, and a sincere homage to Errol Flynn, whose antics and larger-than-life persona, in the waning years of his life, still had a kind of magic that could enthrall a shy young fan, or make a woman swoon.Three dynamic performances dominate the film.
Just as Flynn, by the 1950s, was a nearly burned-out roué, his classic good looks long gone, O'Toole's matinee-idol appearance, after years of self-abuse, had aged into a gaunt mask, making Benji Stone's film montage of 'classic' clips more poignant.
What Flynn still had, in abundance, were charm and a ready wit, and O'Toole's 'Swann' is so enchanting a personality that you can't help but love him, and root for him to succeed.From the opening nostalgic strains of Nat King Cole's rendition of 'Stardust', through Benjy's futile effort to attempt to keep Swann sober (Red Skelton loved to tell how he kept Flynn sober on his program...he emptied all of the actor's bottles of vodka, replacing it with water...and Flynn couldn't tell the difference!), to a riotous Swann dinner with Benjy's family, to the near-disastrous broadcast, with Swann developing stage fright, and Kaiser brawling with mob enforcers...MY FAVORITE YEAR has one glorious scene after another, each unforgettable!One of the AFI's '100 Greatest Film Comedies', MY FAVORITE YEAR will bring a tear to your eye, even as you laugh.
This laugh-filled comic romp follows the adventures of Benji (Mark Linn-Baker), a gopher for COMEDY CALVACADE (this film's version of YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS), who is excited when a swashbuckling actor of the period named Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) has been booked as a guest on the show turns out to be a skirt-chasing alcoholic who Benji is put in charge of keeping under control until showtime.
O' Toole and Linn-Baker get solid support from Lainie Kazan as Benji's mother, Joseph Bologna as King Kaiser, the star of Comedy Calvacade, Cameron Mitchell as a not-too bright gangster, and Adolph Green as the manic producer of the show.
I was born in 1958, so I never saw Your Show of Shows, and needless to say, I never knew there was a famous or infamous incident involving one of my boyhood idols, a very drunk Errol Flynn.Dennis Palumbo, in what is ( sadly) apparently his only effort as a script writer, has taken this incident and woven a very human and very funny film from it.
The best movies have moments -- scenes so powerful, or simply so note-perfect, that they live on in your memory after the plot is forgotten."My Favorite Year" has more than its share of these.Other reviewers on this page have singled out the dinner at Belle Mae Steinberg Carioca's (Lainie Kazan's) Brooklyn apartment.
Both onscreen and off, the audience is spellbound in the midst of the slapstick as these two senior-citizen actors seize the screen for the duration of their waltz.Even more compelling is an important scene later in the movie in which Swann makes a quick trip to visit a young daughter whom he hasn't seen in years.
Hilarious film about a Sid Caesar-like comedy series where the special guest is a legendary swashbuckler movie idol who is more known for taking to drink, than for his acting credits.
Peter O'Toole, who's been known to take an occasional drink himself, probably had a lot of experience to bring to the part of Alan Swann, swashbuckling movie star of bygone years who's gone to seed.
But by now he's a boozy shadow of his former self and the star of the show Joseph Bologna assigns his most junior writer, Mark Linn-Baker to keep him in reasonable condition to perform.As it turns out it means bringing O'Toole into his world which is Jewish Brooklyn of the Fifties, something I'm somewhat familiar with myself.
He had a certain charm and could get away with it, a lot though not the way O'Toole does.Based on Mel Brooks's recollections of having to work with Errol Flynn, the film lets you know it's Flynn were remembering.
Joseph Bologna is great as the egotistical comedy star and the Brooklyn vignette has a great performance by Lainie Kazan as Baker's most Jewish mother and Lou Jacobi as his most Jewish uncle.Still it's what goes on and what's between O'Toole and Baker that makes My Favorite Year an all time comedy classic..
Peter O'Toole is magic as an Errol Flynn like movie star, swashing every buck in sight, charming the socks off one and all.
Bologna is as mercurial and difficult as Caesar supposedly was, and when upset at some comments made by Brook's film version "Benjy Stone" (Marc Lynn-Baker), he appoints Stone to keep an eye on the notoriously tipsy and unreliable Swann to make sure he shows up for the show's rehearsals and final production.The addition of Jimmy Hoffa is interesting to this mix.
Peter O'Toole gives his best comic performance in this movie, abetted by Linn-Baker, Bologna, Selma Diamond (whose face glows when O'Toole shows her what he has to make a woman happy), Kazan, Bill Macy and the rest of the film.
I've loved it since the first time I saw it.There is little I can add to the basic story--a washed-up Errol Flynn type of action movie star goes on a live television comedy program in the 1950s.
With the exception noted above, there isn't a missed beat from a single cast member, and Bologna and Kazan are particularly notable.But the movie belongs to Peter O'Toole, and, as in The Stunt Man (made a few years earlier), when he's on screen you can barely take your eyes off him.
It was quite a coincidence that today April 3, 2005, I first saw this great piece of comedy "My favorite Year" as so happens to be the birthday of Anne DeSalvo who played Alice Miller.I dedicate this comment to Ms. De Salvo on her birthday.This film is truly one of a kind.
Perfectly cast in every role and with a wonderful sense of period this will captivate you from the first scene all the way through to the touching finale.Director Benjamin wisely filled his parts with only one star and the rest talented character actors, anything else would have thrown the balance of the film off.
Though she doesn't have much of a part keep an eye out for Gloria Stuart in a lovely scene dancing with Peter O'Toole.All of them and the other cast members are wonderful but the film wouldn't mean a thing if the part of Alan Swann wasn't believably cast.
Very few movies have the overall excellence of this one..."My Favorite Year" melds together a superior script, outstanding ensemble cast, and outstanding direction from Richard Benjamin...and the crowning achievement of it all is the tour de force performance by Peter O'Toole...Mr. O'Toole takes a character that potentially could have been a buffoon and creates a hilarious yet touching portrayal of an aging action film star who has to do American TV for his "new business associate- the IRS"...assigned to watch over our British invader is Mark Lynn-Baker, who is lucky to still have hair by the end of the show...which by the way is one of the cooler endings ever...and ya gotta get the movie to see it for yourself...I could say something wonderful about each member of the cast...and you'll want to pay particular attention to Joseph Bologna as "King Kaiser"...in fact, rent this movie, enjoy it, then buy it...you can watch it over and over again and love it each time...one note...the scene with the firehose on the roof is one of the funniest movie sequences ever...but it is all good...and I loved it!.
PETER O'TOOLE is the nominal star of this brisk farce about an alcoholic action hero (based on Errol Flynn, in case anyone doubts it), given the fictitious name of Alan Swann.
When he is assigned to appear in a live TV show as guest star, his reputation for booze gets him assigned to the care of Benjy Stone (MARK LINN-BAKER), a Brooklyn kid whose job it is to protect O'Toole from further exploits with the bottle so that he can perform as scheduled before a live audience.That's basically the plot, derived from a true-life situation involving Errol Flynn's appearance on, presumably, Sid Caesar's Saturday night live show, "Your Show of Shows".
Also, theowinthrop ("Sid Caesar, Errol Flynn, Mel Brooks, and Jimmy Hoffa meet 'incognito'", theowinthrop from United States, 29 July 2006) has more background information that is interesting to fans of this great movie."My Favorite Year" is at times uproariously funny, poignant and romantic, taking the viewer to great heights within the comedy/romance genre.
Hopeless tipper Flynn's booking on comedian Sid Caesar's live TV program is a general inspiration for the almost entirely fictional narrative.This is also a love story, as Mel Brooks-stand-in Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) succeeds romantically with office co-worker KC Downing (Jessica Harper), thanks largely to the help Swann gives to his young chaperon.
"My Favorite Year" cleverly depicts early television shows of the 1950's and enfolds as charming Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) junior comedy writer for the "Comedy Calvacade" promises to keep his movie hero, former swashbuckler Alan Swann and guest star, out of trouble.
Swann, beautifully played by Peter O'Toole is a washed out movie star infamous for his drinking and making unsavory headlines.
"My Favorite Year" has a talented cast including Lainie Kazan as Stone's mother and Joseph Bologna as King Kaiser, the star of the television show.
Reminiscent of real television programs like "Your Show of Shows with Sid Ceasar," Screenplay writer, Dennis Palumbo was inspired to write this enjoyable screenplay when he found out producer Mel Brooks worked as a comedy writer and had to keep an eye on movie star Errol Flynn.
Swann, accustomed to doing several movie takes, declares he can not do the live show, "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!" "My Favorite Year" takes place in 1954 and Benjy's narration at the beginning and end of the story, gives the film a nice nostalgic touch.
Mark Linn-Baker plays a young aspiring comedy writer, a great fan of Swann's, who is working as an intern on a comedy show in the early days of television, whose job it is to keep Alan Swann (O'Toole) in line while he prepares for a guest appearance.
Boy Peter O'Toole Creates One Of The Greatest One Of The Best Comedy Characters Of All Time In This Movie Allan Swann.
That title year is 1954 and young TV comedy show writer (Linn-Baker) gets assigned as the chaperon to former, swinging, - and heavily drinking - swashbuckler movie star on the downfall (O'Toole) for one wild weekend in NYC.
Mark-Linn Baker plays Benjy Stone, who reminisces about "My Favorite Year" in this 1982 film starring Peter O'Toole, Joseph Bologna, Anne DiSalvo, Bill Macy, and Lainie Kazan.
My Favorite Year (1982) **** (out of 4) Washed up actor Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) is given the chance to appear on a television show and the job of keeping up with him goes to young fan Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) who soon realizes that the former star and alcohol can lead to problems.
Linn-Baker is also very good in the supporting role and we get strong performances from the entire cast including Joseph Bologna, Bill Macy, Jessica Harper and even Cameron Mitchell.
Even the weaker moments in this movie and its story still work out well, thanks to its characters and the actors portraying them.Peter O'Toole plays Errol Flynn, even though his character is named differently in the movie.
Joseph Bologna as King Kaiser, a TV comedian, imitates Sid Caesar with considerable success, Mark Linn-Baker is very good as a junior writer on the show assigned to make sure that Alan Swann (O'Toole's character modeled on Errol Flynn) is actually on hand when the show is broadcast, and Jessica Baker is charming as the young writer's love interest.
I still know people who can quote lines from this movie, especially the scenes in Brooklyn with Rookie!Peter O'Toole has fun playing Errol Flynn and there are other recognizable actors here, as well, such as Selma Diamond, Joe Bologna and Cameron Mitchell as a gangster.Great fun for all!.
Sweet comedy about 50s television (specifically 'Your Show of Shows'), and the week that a fading film great (clearly based on Errol Flynn) guest stars.
In this movie Flynn becomes Allan Swann (Peter O'Toole) and Benji Stone (Mark Linn Baker) plays Brooks.
Here he gets the opportunity to play Alan Swann, a swashbuckling movie star that is not too far from the real Peter O'Toole, who almost destroyed his career with booze.
This 1982 comedy has some very comic set pieces however there is not enough to save the viewer from wandering "How Much Longer".Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker), the narrator, tells of the summer (in his "favorite year" of 1954) he met his idol, swashbuckling actor Alan Swann.
Great comedy drunk scenes performed by a superb Peter O'Toole.
Timing is everything, and if you are a student of comedy, MY FAVORITE YEAR is a must-see.Among the great lines of dialogue in the script (penned by Dennis Palumbo and Norman Steinberg) are the memorable line by Swann: "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!" As well as his memorable encounter in the ladies room with the show's costume designer who tells Swann the room "is for ladies only!" To which Swann unzips his fly, and answers "So's this mum, but every now and then I have to run a little water through it."The production design is theatrically pleasant, creating a mystical world within the television studios, while making use of real New York locations, transforming the then 1981 (the year the film was made) streets into the 1950's.The other great "thespianic" comedies?
Yet, Peter O'Toole, playing a tippling film star in the 1950s reduced to appearing in a live television program, doesn't do anything here acting-wise he hadn't already accomplished (under far better circumstances).
Peter O'Toole clearly makes this movie work, playing Alan Swann, a washed up, alcoholic, swashbuckling type movie star (in the mode of Errol Flynn) who has one last chance at glory when he's invited to be a guest star on the TV show "Comedy Cavalcade" starring "King Kaiser" (Joseph Bologna) - clearly a take off on Sid Caesar's "Show of Shows."Set in 1954, described as "my favorite year" by Benjy (Mark Linn-Baker) - who is given the job of keeping Swann sober and making sure he shows up for the show, the movie provides an interesting look at the era of live television, where any mistakes would be instantly seen by the viewers (no retakes here.) Consistently humourous rather than outrageously hilarious, the movie also benefits from a solid supporting cast, featuring the likes of Bill Macy and Selma Diamond among others.6/10.
Legendary actor Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) is coming to guest star on the show.
O'Toole is great in the role.I was born in1952, so it is nice to see what fashions, cars and other things looked like in the New York of that era.The King Kayser character has echoes of Sid Caesar when you hear him.This movie is one to watch if you want something to watch on a night when there's nothing else on.George Senda Concord, Ca. Gentle, amusing.
The story seems somewhat autobiographical of Brooks- being about a young Jewish comedy writer (Benjy Stone) on a TV show similar to legendary "Your Show of Shows" who has been given the assignment of watching over the weeks guest star, acting great Alan Swann.
Mel Brooks wrote this based on his experiences working as a junior comedy writer on Sid Caesar's "Your show of shows." The first time I saw this movie I laughed from beginning to end.
It's got real heart mixed in with the laughs...and I do laugh out loud when I watch this film.Mark Linn-Baker, an actor I've never seen in any other movie or television show (although I know he has been in several) is just right as the young studio aide whose job it is to manage O'Toole's character.
Mark Linn Baker does a good job as Benjy but this film belongs solely to Peter O Toole who plays the alcoholic Allan Swann perfectly.This may well be because the role mirrored his own life in so many ways.
MY FAVORITE YEAR (1982) **** Peter O' Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Bill Macy, Joseph Bologna, Lainie Kazan, Lou Jacobi, Anne DeSalvo, Basil Hoffman, Cameron Mitchell.
One of my favorite films: Richard Benjamin's wonderfully comic valentine to "The Golden Age of Comedy" in television about rookie comedy writer Linn-Baker with his hands full keeping his movie idol and guest host alcoholic actor Alan Swann (Oscar nominee for Best Actor O' Toole; brilliant a la Errol Flynn) sober and in condition for the big show.