Manhattan solo

The reasonable sprinkling of chuckles in this light comedy about loneliness in New York is ably augmented by Charles Grodin, displaying a hitherto undisclosed talent for geekery. As with all Steve Martin efforts, this one veers towards sentimentality and sports an unearned happy ending. And that's about it.

Recently dumped by his girlfriend, struggling novelist and greeting card writer Steve Martin becomes one of New York City's Lonely Guys: unattached fellows who dine alone, sleep alone, take care of their ferns and occasionally jump off the Manhattan Bridge. Neil Simon's adaptation of Bruce Jay Friedman's book "The Lonely Guy's Book of Life", scripted by Stan Daniels and Ed. Weinberger, isn't full of great jokes, but does have enough of them to sustain enjoyment for about an hour. Once Martin becomes a success--writing a handbook for the Lonely Guys of the world--the picture has no place left to go and dies. Director Arthur Hiller probably didn't understand episodic comedy--his linking device between skits, conversations between Martin and lonesome cohort Charles Grodin, is occasionally more amusing and potentially more interesting than the main narrative--but Steve Martin is working at the peak of his charms and some of the gags have a low-key spark of genius. ** from ****

The Lonely Guy is often quite funny but unfortunately sometimes dreadfully dull. Like Jim Abrahams and later Mel Brooks movies, this is classic Neil Simon where he throws rapid-fire jokes at you. Some hit and some miss, but you don't have to wait long for the next one. The scene where he dines alone in a fancy restaurant was one of the funniest. Somebody else seemed to think so, too, as it was copied almost verbatim for an Australian TV commercial two years later. Imitation must be the sincerest form of flattery.

As a New Yorker, I liked seeing the city in this movie. It's a somewhat dirtier but more variegated New York than in movies like "Ghost" or "When Harry Met Sally," which spent too much time in tony neighborhoods like Tribeca, the Village and Midtown.

Unfortunately, the definitive home video version does not exist and probably never will. The laserdisc is marred by a bad transfer and excessive, very objectionable video and audio noise. This may be the dreaded laser rot in action or just bad production. The DVD is beautiful, with a crisp transfer and no noticeable noise. But its 1.85:1 widescreen presentation is in the form of matting/masking the 1.33:1 Academy Frame, so instead of showing more picture, it actually shows less than the cassette and the laserdisc. The matting makes the "widescreen" frame feel distractingly cramped, with characters' heads continually butting up against the top. One joke in particular suffers badly: When Larry is laying on a bed talking to a woman, he's bare-chested in his fantasy to imply they're in bed together. But the widescreen version shows only his head, so the joke is weakened. Too bad a full-frame DVD will probably never be made as this is one of the few times when a full-frame presentation would have been preferable.

This movie started out with a bang when I first saw it as a child. I was really disappointed when I could not watch it in its entirety. So when I had a chance to rent it, I jumped at the chance and I am rather sad I did. The first half was still funny, but all the stuff I missed was sadly worth missing. Not that it was all bad mind you, there was a chuckle or two in this part of the movie, but nothing compared to the laughs found in the first half of the film from when Steve finds out his girlfriend has been cheating on him, to the restaurant, to the strange jogging using fake sweat. Then a bit before he writes his book on how to be a lonely guy the movie really slows down its pace and it becomes a bit to sentimental at times, while still showing a bit of the zaniness that made the first half of the film really good. The story is about a lonely guy who starts off with a girlfriend, but ends up alone in rather funny fashion. He makes friends with another lonely guy played very well by Charles Grodin and they proceed to try and help each other out. Like I said you get some great scenes during this time and Steve meets up with a girl he for some reason cannot hook up with due to one problem after another. So in the end an okay movie, that just needed some of that energy from the first half of the film to carry over to the second.

You need to see this underrated Steve Martin comedy from the 80s called The Lonely Guy about a guy who lives by himself and wrote a bestseller about lonlieness and became a success. It's really funny.