Just Tell Me What You Want

Saw this years ago when it came out. Now seeing it again through older eyes makes it even better. While the relationships depicted are predatory--eat or be eaten--they still have a certain sweetness to them. It's a uniquely well-done commentary on the rich. Fitzgerald was right: they're different.

Can't understand why there's no "memorable quotes" part of this entry.

I have seen this movie several times, and the interplay between Alan King and Ali McGraw never fails to make me smile. There is no confusion as to which genre this movie was meant to be or in how it turned out. It's clearly a romantic comedy, and a funny one. Some younger viewers may have a hard time understanding the humor, because none of it involves body fluids, toilet humor, eating disgusting things or other gross-outs. We know that love and war are sometimes the same thing. This time, it's business, too!

King shines as a hard-nosed business tycoon who is romantically involved with his executive assistant, Bones (McGraw). He likes the informal arrangement just fine, but Bones is to the point where she either wants marriage or to move on. When she seems to fall for a young writer and moves in with him, it's not clear if she is truly in love with him, or if she is using him as leverage to make King jealous enough to propose. King, of course, retaliates. The war between the two, using under-handed business tactics is very funny, with each trying to top the other. The winner can either move on in triumph or dictate the terms of their reconciliation. King is probably best known for his stand-up comedy, but this movie shows him to be a fine comedic actor as well.

King is a really great comedian, virtually unknown to audiences in Europe. In this „late screwball" comedy he plays a tycoon, and for this kind of movie part he sets a mark nobody has surpassed. He brings the right mix of competence and freakishness to the role. He is a ladies man, a hypochondriac (goes well together), is cunning and can be utterly ruthless and cruel. Of course, the character has a great egotistical mind - and yet he is oddly likable. There's more: The movie also includes great performances by Keenan Wynn as competing tycoon and also by Myrna Loy, famous screen beauty of the Golden Age of Hollywood. She plays King's loyal secretary and surrogate mom. Ali McGraw is kind of beautiful but seems to be made of granite (the set design of her ritzy apartment is beautiful and interesting, though), Peter Weller's talents are wasted here.

This movie really boasts many, many memorable lines. The character played by Wynn tries to convince the tycoon that he should donate for a wing for special diseases of a hospital. This makes King quip „I can't wait to see those poor guys die of special diseases in my wing!" Also great are the final sequences in which the main character stays in hospital because of an imaginary heart attack. His little, stumpy body lies in a white shroud on an examining bed while he berates the high priced specialists standing around him, telling them in a choked voice that he knows exactly what's wrong with him and they should better read the „f***ing literature"! People are like that! Life is like that! It's great to be able to laugh about it sometimes.

Alan King's world falls apart when long time mistress Ali Macgrue breaks up with him and marries much younger Peter Weller. Snobby comedy isn't for all taste, but is expertly performed and is very, very funny, especially the scene in the department store. Alan King is displayed at his absolute as is Loy in a quite performance. Terrific entertainment. 9 out 10.

Before reading some of the IMDb reviewers here, I thought that "Just Tell Me What You Want" had been mis-labeled a comedy. There is nothing in this film that tickled my funny bone. Indeed, watching a bombastic, temperamental, manipulative, egotistical, nasty, wealthy tyrant in his domineering corporate empire and adulterous personal life just isn't very entertaining. I like clean comedies that make me laugh or smile a lot. Still, I stayed with it - more like struggled to pay attention to get through it, so that I didn't miss anything. Well, there was no comedy to miss, that I could find.

But then I read the reviews, including a couple of frequent reviewers I look for, who often have informative comments. And they like this film - although I don't see any remarks specifically about the comedy or anything funny. It seems to appeal to some as a sophisticated take off or resemblance of one or more moguls of the movie or big entertainment industry.

So, why do I even bother to give this three stars? Because there's no doubt that a couple of the actors played their parts very well. Alan King, for one, and Myrna Loy for the other. It's just that King's Max Herschel is such an unlikeable character, that he quickly becomes boringly irritating. And, it's too bad there wasn't a better movie than this for Myrna Loy to end her career with.

A baker's dozen of reviewers preceded my comments here, and all seemed to like this film. Some even made glowing remarks about it. But only 672 viewers rated this movie before me, and It's overall rating of 5.5 doesn't speak very well for its popularity. Indeed, it didn't do at all well when it came out in 1980. The critics panned the film and it was a box office flop, probably not even covering its budget with gross ticket sales of just $2 million.