There must be something wrong with me. Most people praise Peter Bogdanovich's They all Laughed, a romantic comedy from 1981 as blithe, charming, and witty with a faint strain of sweet melancholy. Bogdanovich, also, admired the film; he regarded it as his best and most fully accomplished work. But I'm unable to join this chorus of admiration. The film is so weightless and without consequence that I struggled to remain attentive to its complicated plot, The picture involves a trio of private dicks tailing two beautiful women on suspicion of adultery. However, in Bogdanovich's fantasy, all beautiful women are, more or less, instantly available for sex. Therefore, in the context of New York, around 1980, detectives would not be required. Rather, every woman between the ages of 18 and 60 would simply be presumed to be sexually promiscuous. A jealous husband wouldn't have to go to the expense of hiring a private eye -- the promiscuity is open, apparent, publicly obvious and every husband is similarly guilty. In Bogdanovich's romantic fantasy, everyone is always doing it with everyone else and, even, small children are aware of their parent's infidelity and, even, complicit with it. My critique of the film's plausibility betrays an unpleasant strain of voyeuristic puritanism in me; indignation at the idea that sexuality is wholly liberated except not for me or those in my circle. Perhaps, this is the basis for my inability to see the merit in They all Laughed.
For the film's first ten minutes, we have no real idea what is going on. There are gaggles of beautiful women and several men seem to be stalking them; the men signal to one another on Manhattan's busy streets and tail the girls hoping not to be seen. The three detectives are played by Ben Gazzara (John Russo), John Ritter as the clumsy, naive Charles, bespectacled and obviously intended as a surrogate for Bogdanovich, and a man named Blaine Novak playing Arthur Brodsky. Brodsky is a "head", always smoking pot, and he has an enormous frizzy mane of hair, wears shades, and affects the role of a pot-head -- he speaks in weird jargon referring to the women that they are tailing as "pre-bop", "post-bop", and "ex-bop", meaning looking for a sex, post-coital, and divorced. All three men work at the Odyssey Detective Agency, a business run by an aging, angry Greek boss (who is cheating on his wife with the comely secretary) -- there's a Howard Hawks' aspect to the detective agency: it's like a version of the newspaper offices in His Girl Friday. The women that the private dicks are tailing are played by Audrey Hepburn who looks melancholy and a bit withered in this role -- it must be one of her last parts -- and Dorothy Stratten, the former Playboy Playmate of the year, who is radiantly beautiful and funny. (The rape and murder of Stratten by her pimp-boyfriend, the subject of Bob Fosse's Star 80, hangs heavily over the film which is dedicated to her memory; the 20-year old girl was killed before the film was released imparting a ghoulish aura to what would otherwise be an idyllic, lush, and funny performance. This aura scuttled the whole picture which was not timely released. Bogdanovich, for whom the film was literally a labor of love -- he was Dorothy Stratten's boyfriend -- retrieved the film from the studios, tried to market it himself, and failed horribly, resulting in the movie being cast into the shadows as a loser, the sort of film all righteous Hollywood producers abhor. In a 2006 commentary on the film in which Wes Anderson interviews Bogdanovich, the older man says that he wanted to play the part of Charles, John Ritter's role, but 'was too old for Stratten' -- the irony is that Bogdanovich was involved in a torrid affair with Stratten during the making of the film.) In the course of the movie, Ben Gazzara's divorced tom-cat falls in love with Audrey Hepburn's character -- but the relationship is doomed; she is a very wealthy socialite with a teenage son and she returns to her husband. John Ritter falls in love with Dorothy Stratten and she seems to separate from her boyfriend, a figure who is really only glimpsed in one scene as a bearish presence at the townhouse where the young woman lives. Christy, a country-western singer at City Limits, is one of John Russo's girlfriends; when Gazzara's character abandons her to pursue Audrey Hepburn, Christy tries to seduce Charles (Ritter). She almost succeeds but, after a night, dancing to hillbilly music at City Limits, Christy falls in love with Dorothy Stratten's boyfriend, a hirsute guy that, I think, people call "the gaucho" -- we have seen "the gaucho" courting Dorothy Stratten's character at the Algonquin Hotel. There is a wedding at the end of the film; the romantic roundelay has produced two, more or less, committed couples at least for the moment: Stratten with Ritter and Christy with the Gaucho. The hippie doper has a group of, more or less, persistent and aggressive girlfriends -- every woman that he meets seems to fall into bed with him but, then, suffers pangs of homicidal jealousy. John Russo (Ben Gazzara) has to let Audrey Hepburn depart on a Sikorsky helicopter with her oligarch husband -- the helicopter leaves from the Battery heliport. He solaces himself with a gorgeous cab driver with whom he has earlier had casual relations. They depart Manhattan for New Jersey with a plan to get drunk in the suburbs. (Patti Hansen who plays the sexy lady cab driver married Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones in 1983 and gave up modeling and acting.)
The film is well-made with atmospheric shots of New York City in 1980. The World Trade Center towers over downtown Manhattan. The film must have been made during a craze for roller skating. The characters skate along the sidewalks and spin in circles on huge roller-skating rink that looks like a discotheque. (cf. Boogie Nights). The women are all fantastically beautiful and sexy. The dialogue is clever and there is a fabulous sound track comprised of country-western tunes (Bogdanovich had learned to love the music while shooting The Last Picture Show), Frank Sinatra singing Gershwin tunes, and little bit of classical music. It's all graceful, balletic, and utterly shallow. In principle I should like this movie, but I don't for some reason. I suppose this is a defect in my sensibility.
