Find the Lady

This is sort-of a sequel to IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME. This one has cops Broom (Lawrence Dane) and about a 25 year old John Candy playing Kopek. They played smaller parts in the previous movie, but here they get their own movie now.

Through the years of film there have been some great bumbling cops like Peter Sellers as Detective Closeau in the PINK PANTHER movies or Lt. Frank Drebin by Leslie Nielsen in the NAKED GUN films. But, this ain't a film of that calibre. This is a real mixed bag, jokes that don't work, a little over-use of physical comedy and sadly only a few laugh-out-loud moments are had.

Broom and Kopek are on the trail of two members of the crime syndicate in Leo (Dick Emery) and Trigger (Mickey Rooney) who are looking to kidnap Victoria (Alexandra Bastedo) the niece of J.K.Lewenhak (Peter Cook) a local businessman. Both Emery and Rooney are actually quite good in their roles, but I did find that Cook had very little to work with really. I wanted to like it, but really may be of interest to only die-hard Candy fans. Filmed in Toronto.

This isn't the worst comedy of all-time, but that is about the best thing that I can say about this pathetic film. I didn't laugh once, or even smile once during this bomb. There was usually something going on on-screen, so I didn't get TOO bored, but most of the jokes here were simply awful. The final sequence is nothing more than a long series of people falling through doors and stumbling all over the place. Needless to say, it was a fitting way to end a movie that was impossible for me to like.

It's generally the case that putting together a great international cast does not a great movie make. This is borne out by this dire 'comedy' that, on paper, looks like a winner but on screen is tired, dull and yields zero laughs. The comedy element relies on lots of people falling over, especially John Candy, and a script that contains no jokes whatsoever. It's embarrassing to see the likes of Peter Cook walking through the film almost comatose. One would think the producers were trying to cash in on the 'Pink Panther' movies, with many similarities in the style and story, heavy reliance on slapstick humour, and the two bungling detectives. They don't even come close. Perhaps the only interest is to see the bizarre pairing of Mickey Rooney and Dick Emery as the films' gangster villains.

I found this online recently. I'm a John Candy fan and had never heard of this one before. He looks to be in his early to mid 20's. If you're a fan of the zany Naked Gun/Airplane movies, you'll probably like this one. If you're not, you probably won't. It's a slapstick humor kind of movie. I enjoyed it for what it was.

Seeing John Candy on the video cover might give you a sense this movie would be a hilarious comedy, but it isn't the case for this one. This is an early acting appearance for Candy, who plays a bumbling detective named Kopek who, along with partner Broom (Lawrence Dane) tries to solve a complicated kidnapping case involving a businessman's daughter. These two characters reprise their roles from It Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time, released the previous year, though their screen time was somewhat limited.

The casting is appropriate, though, confusing: Peter Cook, Mickey Rooney, and Dick Emery as the bad guys and plenty of product placement for the Canadian pizza chain Pizza Pizza. There's not too many laugh-out-loud moments in this film, aside from a few instances of physical slapstick, especially the first ten minutes of the film, but it's, at least, watchable.