text: Again, it seems totally illogical, to me at least, that "Arthur" merits a mere 6.4 out of 10 possible. Steve Gordon's one-shot masterpiece herein is the totally "unlikely" if not quite "impossible" melding of wildly disparate elements. That he managed to make alcoholism laugh-friendly rather than tearjerking tragic is, in itself, wonderful. That he gave Dudley Moore his finest role, and every other cinematic element herein its optimal impact, including the score, seems to me patent and egregious. I challenge ANYone to sit through this film and not laugh out loud. But, apparently, nearly a third of its audience has so managed. Well, I, for one, found and find Gordon's effort both laughable AND lovable, and the iikes of Geraldine Fitzgerald's great-aunt and Stephen Elliott's murderous would-be father-in-law absolute gems of background characters. Even the black chauffeur managed to escape patronization, and the late, sniffish Sir John Gielgud was right about accepting his fee, but wrong about undertaking his role. "Arthur" makes no effort to "Underztand," much less rationalize, the scourge of "alcoholism" (hey, iFit ain't booze, it's other drugs of choice, including meth, and addictions are merely symptoms, not targets), it simply observes in its own quizzical manner.