Das Geld liegt auf der Straße

Consistently funny spoof of America's caste system from bottom to top. The Harpers (Fonda &Segal) are yuppies trying to hang on to middle-class status after Dick is fired from well-paying aerospace job. Increasingly desperate as creditors close in, they eventually turn to robbery, a clumsy Bonny and Clyde with country club credentials. Their early lame stickup efforts are particularly humorous.

There's no mistaking the subtext that takes a shot at about every rung on our economic ladder, from minority welfare cheaters to middle-class status seekers to upper-class hypocrisy. And throw in a shot at televangelist hucksters guarding their own loot. A couple points are easily overlooked. Note how Jane's wealthy dad refuses to help, lecturing them on the virtues of rugged individualism. Tellingly, this is the one scene without a humorous overlay. Note also that Dick's thanks for helping get a man on the moon is to get fired. Thus, it's declining profits, the logic of capitalist efficiency, that prevails over all else. Essentially, what storybook Dick and Jane find out is what it's like to survive on the margins, and since their tastes are elevated, it's an inflated margin.

Don't get me wrong. Thanks to both an excellent script and ace performances,the movie manages its many serious points in consistently humorous fashion. After all, we never expect Dick to actually use his stickup gun. He's too humorously inept, though he does get more skilled as time goes on. And catch how the now destitute Dick and Jane live in a rambling home with a bombed-out lawn and a pit for a pool. Now what will the neighbors say.

Big kudos to Segal who handles his difficult role in expert fashion, and also to Fonda who makes a perfect bickering soul mate and for being maybe the first woman to take a discreet leak on screen. McMahon too shines as the slick company president who smiles even while stabbing a guy's back. As an actor, he certainly proves he's more than Johnny's affable TV sidekick.

Anyway, in my little book, the 90-minutes succeeds on a number of levels, making it both really watchable and still relevant.

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. Dick unsuccessfully tries to find a new position, while Jane looks for a job and cuts their costs to the minimum. While using the insufficient unemployment paycheck of the social security to survive, they contract a loan in a bank. 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. The politically incorrect story is delightful and very funny, and is a sharp critic to the American Dream, satirizing the hypocrite need of maintaining a status and also to the corruption related to the big business of the corporations. Jane Fonda is very beautiful and shows a great chemistry with George Segal. This is the first time that I watch this movie, which is an excellent entertainment. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Adivinhe Quem Vem Para Roubar?" ("Guess Who Is Coming to Robber?")

I love this movie! I saw it with my mom in '77 and even though I couldn't have possibly gotten all the jokes and double entendres, I loved it. Seeing it now (I own it on VHS; they don't put movies like this out on DVD all that often), I love it even more.

Everything about it positively SCREAMS mid-1970s, from Dick's Thunderbird with the 600-feet-long hood to Jane's clunky Mercury Montego wagon to JANE FONDA WEARING HER JEANS ROLLED UP TO JUST BELOW THE KNEE TO SHOW OFF HER BOOTS! If you're a 70s afficianado, you can't help but love the time capsule that this movie represents. Another big bonus is the guy who played Schneider on One Day at a Time, who here plays a loud contractor with a big bullhorn.

As others have noted, the movie is also a time capsule to an era when it was not only OK, but funny to slam African Americans, Hispanics and especially gays. 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. IT IS NOT! It's a fun romp, nothing more or less.

PS: Remember when they sold those things called record albums, the sleeves of which could conceal a gun during an attempted hold-up?!

In these trying times, when American's financial world is going down the drain, and the dreams, aspirations and livelihood of millions of Americans are evaporating, a film like this one is just what a despairing audience needs. 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. His position is one which promised security, but has fallen on hard times. Thus he soon learns he is unemployed. The fun begins when Harper and his wife try to adjust to the downward spiral of economic descent. They like so many Americans take what they can get and object poverty is not attractive at all. Thus, when the bottom is ready to engulf them, they turn to a life of crime. Can they do any worse? Not being prepared, they soon realize, they are not cut out to be white collar criminals and decide to quit. That's when opportunity beckons once again. A great movie and one fitted to our time. ****

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. Owing a lot because they're keeping up appearances in their neighborhood it all comes crashing down. 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. Working in the Towers for various wealthy companies when the male breadwinner was taken away, these families in most serious way were in the same kind of trouble this family was. That lifestyle can be expensive. John Dehner who was Fonda's father may be a self righteous creep, but there is a grain of truth in what he preaches at them about spending on luxury items.

McMahon who America knew for decades as the announcer and boon companion of Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show turns in a really good performance. He's a guy you learn to hate more and more as the film progresses. 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 even got a remake in this new century. I'll have to check it out to see if it is as good as this one.