Fatso

This may not be an amusing look at the dark side of eating to someone with a disorder but I roared with glee at Don's antics as the frustrated food addict. It was done from a comedy angle of course, but Don's big Chinese binge was a sobering glimpse at how ugly this passion for food can be. Well worth seeing.

There are some real classic moments in this film. The hot dog scene where Dom looks at a beautiful girl, then back at the hot dog... in a mental fight that he can't win, he finally bites the hot dog. There are several classic moments and some are quite subtle, such as the scene where Lydia says the wrapping paper is "too gay" only to be glanced at by a man at the cash register. For people with an eating disorder, it will make you cry and laugh at the same time. For people who don't understand the addiction of food, it's an introduction into the dark world and troubles of being overweight. This is a real sleeper. Anne Bancroft does a splendid job of direction, and her character in the film is vivid, and colorful. This is a great film. I liked it a lot, and I have seen it about 5 times.

I saw this film on a pay channel a long, long time ago. It seems to have vanished in the decades since. Something about it stuck in my mind - the humor, the sensitive anguish of broken self-esteem, the endless struggle with conflicting desires. I still tell stories from the movie - the support group intervention is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Curiously, I have never met anyone else who has even heard of it. I have to admit that I didn't even remember that the lead was played by Dom Deloise, as it is a very different role than the Burt Reynolds films I know him for. I would love to see it again, so I hope they have the wisdom to release the DVD and allow me to refresh my all-too-aging memory.

Wow! Fatso's are people too! What a concept!!! This isn't the best movie I've ever seen. In fact, finding an audience for it is difficult in a largely overweight society. Since most are in denial, who would want to be seen waiting to get into the theater? It is, however, presented as sympathetic and is good for alot of laughs along the way.

Particularly funny is the scene where Dom's "chubby checker" is talking him down from starting an over-eating binge. Lines like, "did you ever suck the jelly out of a jelly doughnut, fill it with reese cups and melt it in the oven?", as they weaken, are priceless. Especially, when a panicky Ron Carey (who has chained the refrigerator shut), is told repeatedly and threateningly to "bring the honey, junior" (for their tea). The resulting chaos is hilarious.

It's safe to rent this one. No one will see you. And it is a cute little movie......

Directed by the late Anne Bancroft, Fatso is as funny and humane as anything her very funny husband, Mel Brooks, directed. Bancroft evidently tapped into her Bronx background for this story of an Italian American, played sympathetically by Dom DeLuise, who runs a greeting card shop and is struggling with weight and shyness in courting a young women who opens an antique shop in the neighborhood. Bancroft plays his sister who is always nagging him about his weight (but does an hilarious dance with him in his shop) and there are many wonderful family scenes, especially the funeral near the beginning of the film of the hero's morbidly obese cousin who "always had something good to eat on him". A scene where DeLuise and his diet-support group ("Chubby Checkers") break out and go on an orgy of eating is alone worth the price of the movie. I watch this movie at least once a year and it never fails to give me great pleasure.