It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Rather rubbish.

1975's 'It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time' is supposed to be a comedy but I can't say I laughed, or even really chuckled, once, it's a bit of a slog to sit through; despite a short run time of 90 minutes.

A flick seemingly most known for being the second film role of John Candy, who I'm surprised to see got a spin-off from this with co-star Lawrence Dane - neither of them stood out to me to be honest, especially (the eventually great) Candy. Of the other cast members, Stefanie Powers is alright but Anthony Newley's character kinda irritated more than anything else unfortunately.

I shall still check out spin-off 'Find the Lady', in hope more than expectation that it'll be better than this - presumably with Candy as lead, it stands more of a chance than it otherwise would to be fair.

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time is not supposed to be a classic. it's just goofy fun. 80-90% of the movies made annually are just candy.

when a movie is this "bad"...it's interesting to just look at other aspects of it. the direction...writing...what possibly passed as humor at that time. i think its amusing to just "watch" people act. see the wheels turning in their eyes as their minds bring out the next line of dialog.

don't be hard on movies like "Good Idea". they are not supposed to stand the test of time. it's just candy.

I must say that the blatantly false advertising used to sell this movie today is a disgrace. On the cover was a giant picture of John Candy with his name over the title, and the reverse said that he headed up the cast. However, when you watch the movie, you find an old '70s movie in which a much younger-looking John Candy plays a very small part.

Despite the false pretense under which I purchased the movie, I do believe it was still worth the watch. It is campily-humorous per the time period in which it was made, and includes the bonus of the appearance of Isaac Hayes as the lead's best friend. Though not one of my favorites by a long shot, its low-brow humor is entertaining enough for the price I paid. While some of those bargain bin movies have been bad enough to never merit a second glance, this one remains in my collection as worthy of an occasional viewing.

In other words, it seemed like a good idea to check this out at the library, but it was a waste of time. The cover is very misleading. I don't know if all the copies are like this, but the one I got has this big picture of John Candy, (looking about the way he looked in Only the Lonely) and a small picture of Stephanie Powers looking older (and with much darker hair than in the actual movie). I kept waiting for John Candy to appear, and barely tolerating the lowbrow humor and ridiculous plot, and low and behold, he finally appears in about the last half hour of the movie, looking young and baby-faced and much thinner than I've ever seen him before (more chubby than fat, to put it bluntly) and he barely has much of a part, and you don't learn much about his character at all. He's seen from the back and profile in much of his scenes. The cover of the movie leads you to believe there is more to his character, proclaiming, "A heart as big as all outdoors, and a body to match". This is probably a comment on the actor personally, not the character he portrayed in this movie. It sounds like the perfect description for his character in "The Great Outdoors", "Uncle Buck" and just about any other movie he actually "starred" in. What a joke. And not a funny one, at that. If you're a John Candy fan, see any of his other movies, and mercifully pass this one up. You'll wonder, why did he bother? And more to the point, why did you? I'm glad I didn't fork out any money to view this stinker.

This is one of the UNFUNNIEST comedies I've ever seen. Not only is the humor extremely lame and unenergetic, there aren't that many attempts at humor! The only thing to be said in its favor is that it isn't one of those bad, sex-perverted Canadian films that Canada now makes.

The sequel, "Find The Lady", is just as unfunny, though done with somewhat more energy.