How to Beat the High Cost of Living

This movie is swimming in 1970's economy humor, there's never enough money for everything. Bills can't get paid, and a radio announcer says with relief in his voice that the cost of living went up ONLY 2%.

The humor may date it for some and make it fly over people's heads that were too young to remember the economic malaise of the late 70's (I barely remember it, my being a kid back then).

But if you get past that, what you have here is a smart and entertaining caper film where the people pulling the caper are all female. June Curtain, Jessica Lange and Susan Saint James make up the team that conspires to make a heist.

Dabney Coleman proves he can actually play a sweet guy with his turn as a Police man which falls for Jane Curtain's character. Richard Benjimin has some great one-liners playing Jessica Lange's animal doctor husband. Garrett Morris has a great cameo.

I saw this at the movies when it first came out and found it to be very funny and enjoyable. Years later I sought it out and found that it has been out of print on video for a number of years. Finally, I found a copy to rent. You should try to find a copy too. It's a fun film

I had a memory of loving this as a kid, so finally obtained it to watch here in 2019 almost 40 years later. Gulp.

It's fun - a tale of a three women, their lives, and the interconnected hi-jinx that occur. My mind remembered the heist, which is clearly what excited me as a kid - when actually, it's a small part of the movie.

What I love is how relevant it is today. Lots of economists spinning cost of living increases being only so many percentage points blah blah blah so disconnected from every day lives. 40 years later, nothing has changed on that one.

What's particularly amazing is this is a female tour de force. Just recently we've had female-led casts such as Ocean's 8 or the ill-fated Ghostbusters and it feels forced. It's a statement. It's a fight to be fought.

But here the women are utterly centre stage - the stories revolve around them, they plot the heist, they run it... there's no men here underpinning it. Men are the supporting cast, and it's brilliant as it's just so natural and stems so effortlessly from the script.

It does it without fanfare - it just is. With confidence and style. Just like the actresses and story they inhabit.

Jane Curtin is paranoid, Susan St. James is harried, and Jessica Lange is beautiful and married to dork Richard Benjamin. This light-hearted yup flick is fairly ridiculous, but the charms of these wonderful actresses makes it worthwhile. I give it a 6 out of 10 with the best performance by Jane Curtin.

It's nice to see Jessica Lange in an early role when her youth and attractiveness hide the fact that she will become one of our best actresses while Ms. Curtin and Ms. St. James (who I also love since THE NAME OF THE GAME on TV) had careers that faltered (beside the TV show they did together - Kate and Allie). The men in this movie are mostly idiots, but this plays like a decent sit-com; fairly lame, but harmless fun.

After about 25 years, I managed to once again watch this movie on the THIS channel. Unfortunately, some of the lines that I thought were funny were removed like a shoe employee asking "Did you see his sister's boobs?" in answer to his fellow co-worker mentioning someone's foot being smaller than the other. Good thing they didn't remove Elaine's "Suck" punchline when she figured out how to take the money out of that big ball at the mall. As that character, Jane Curtin has the best lines and also plays on her SNL persona well whether stripping in reference to inflation of upcoming years ("Wanna see 1985 or should we skip to 1990?") or talking to her TV show co-star Garrett Morris as an electrician on the phone in trying to convince him to get her power back on. Jessica Lange and Susan Saint James don't have as many moments as Ms. Curtin but they both have some moments. What's interesting here is knowing that not only will Ms. Curtin and Ms. Saint James reteam for "Kate and Allie" in a few years but also Ms. Lange with reunite with Dabney Coleman on Tootsie even sooner before that. Coleman himself is in a role very unlike his more famous role as the chauvinistic boss on Nine to Five later in the year though even here he provides some funny moments. The same can be said for Richard Benjamin as Lange's horny husband, Eddie Albert as Ms. Saint James' father, and Morris but Fred Willard, perhaps best known for his offbeat roles in many Christopher Guest/Eugene Levy films, seems wasted here as Ms. Saint James' fiancée. Overall, How to Beat the High Co$t of Living was quite funny if not completely hilarious. P.S. Garrett Morris is a native of New Orleans which is a two-hour drive from my current hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

This was the film that brought together Susan Saint James and Jane Curtin, who went on to have several successful seasons as "Kate and Allie". Jessica Lange is charming in an early comedy role. Key to the plot is a shopping center built on a river - at the time only found in Eugene, Oregon. If you like the stars, you will enjoy the performances, and the light-hearted story. While Susan Saint James was filming in Eugene, she did public service promos for the local Special Olympics organization. Another anecdote - the shopping center had a "Money Ball" which threw real bills all over the mall - after the shot, when the money was collected, they wound up with more than they started with. "Only in Eugene, Oregon!" chortled the director