Luar sobre Parador

Hilarious comedy with Dreyfuss playing an actor who is asked by tough guy Julia to impersonate a dictator who has turned cold and very dead. Lots of laughs to be credited to director Mazursky, who makes an appearance in drag as the dictator's mother.

As a community theater actor who works hard at it but doesn't take acting too seriously, I'm always amused by those who treat it as Great Art. This movie skewers the "Actor's Craft" mercilessly while dishing up a lot of good laughs.

A ham actor on location for a movie bears a resemblance to the dictator. When the dictator dies of a heart attack from too much drink and food, the actor is kidnapped and forced to play "the part of a lifetime" by the neo-Nazi head of the secret service. He plays it to the hilt, gets the dictator's girlfriend to fall in love with him and vice versa, and turns the tables on his captors beautifully.

Lots of great shtick by the leads, lots of good work by some unknown supporting actors, particularly the household staff and two members of the palace guard, and fun little cameos abound. Sammy Davis Jr. makes light of himself, Jonathan Winters plays a semi-retired American businessman with something else going on, and Raul Julia, Sonia Braga, and above all Richard Dreyfuss are exceptional.

This is a dumb movie, but it has lots of beautiful locations (in Brazil), a humorous script, and good actors doing their thing and looking like they're actually having fun and not going through the usual existential angst about what is only play-acting!

This is strictly speaking great. It's difficult to conceive of this movie working with any replacements in the cast - not only because the cast are so good, but also because they work so well together and because the production and direction are so excellent as well.

The cast are absolutely fabulous; the screenplay is better than the best; the directing leads to so many incidental perks the screenplay itself could not have indicated; this is a very funny and even touching film.

It's a small film in a way but it's a masterpiece. You might have to have a connection with or knowledge of the world of the theatre to get it (to appreciate it) but it's all there and everyone working on this movie had a ball, that much is certain.

We first saw this years ago on late night telly; we bought a video copy immediately; now it's back on late night telly again and it's great, it's wonderful.

It's such a refreshing change to see something intelligent that's well done. This isn't exactly the Hollywood norm. Movies like this one really entertain: you can judge this by calculating how long after the closing credits you're still feeling good.

This one can last for days.

I enjoyed this film. It was funny, cute, silly, and entertaining. Had a fine cast and really got hammered by some critics for reasons that I truly don't understand. No, it wasn't "The Grapes of Wrath" or "Casablanca" or even "Moonstruck", but it was an enjoyable film.

Julia was excellent playing the psychotic 'man behind the man'. The story is a little silly to be sure, but it this isn't high drama, folks. I happened to see a review of the film, probably the only good one it got and then ran into it one night when looking for a movie. I never heard it was supposed to stink until after I saw it, and I'm glad I saw it. Eventually bought the VHS tape on the bargain pile, and I watch it a couple times a year.

While "The Kiss of the Spider Woman" cast Raul Julia as a political prisoner in an unidentified Latin American country, this time he works for a dictator in a fictional Latin American country. Specifically, the dictator suddenly drops dead, so Julia replaces el presidente with a Broadway actor (Richard Dreyfuss) shooting a movie in the country. From there, Dreyfuss has to figure out how to be a dictator, all the while balancing it with his own life.

Is it appropriate to turn the tense situation in Latin America into comedy? Well, "Moon Over Parador" does a good job with it. No matter what they do in this movie, they pull it off. It just goes to show why Richard Dreyfuss is one of the greatest actors of our era, and what we lost when Raul Julia died. Definitely worth seeing. Also starring Sonia Braga (who co-starred with Raul Julia in "TKOTSW"), Jonathan Winters and Sammy Davis Jr.

I agree: the first lady is hot.