Just You and Me, Kid

This hidden gem makes a lot of modern "comedies" look like the wastes of time they are. This is social commentary farce at its best. A "street smart" teen girl who is in trouble with a criminal "boyfriend" getting her fanny pulled out of the fryer by a more than able but branded "senile" (even by his own daughter) older man. This film is a perfect look at where we are now and how younger generations need to sometimes stop and be silent before they cause more trouble. At 42, I can say that because I can see precisely where Kate went wrong and where Bill did everything right. LOL

Now in all seriousness, this is a brilliant work, with an icon of the previous generation working with someone who would later become an icon of the next, in a light and breezy but very likable and coherent plot of a comedy. Two people with absurd individuals around them finding common ground, but his was supposed to be a bomb?? This film was made for an audience that had not matured yet, and now it is being seen by many as the classic it is.

Less than a half hour in, and I already love this!

Some favorite parts: George Burns singing, the score of the film, the way his kitchen looks, a young and beautiful Brooke Shields, and just the light tone of the whole thing! Gosh, I just love it! Because of this movie, I will now have to check out other George Burns films, because I am now hooked! Though this is not the first movie I've seen him star in, it's the first time I've been present enough to really pick up on what I charming screen presence he has!

Update: Finished it, and what a top notch cast! I wasn't expecting so many memorable people, such as Christopher Knight from The Brady Bunch, Burl ives, and others. This is so worth seeing!

Side note: I have quite a little crush on George Burns, I've just realized. I'm quite smitten with his voice and demeanor.

No matter how innocent the movie makes itself out to be this has an uncomfortable creepy quality to it. Brooke Shields at just 12 plays a girl on the run from a Pimp and neglected but all this is played for comedy in a light hearted tone and PG rating which just doesn't fit with the subject matter. It has the look and feel of a made for TV movie, it mostly takes place in 1 house, and it's just the same basic thing for over an hour. I also thought the father daughter relationship wasn't handled at all well, On Golden Pond is a much better film about an Eccentric father, a resentful daughter and a teenager. Here characters have no real development, some if the acting and dubbing is off, the music is painfully dated, Brooke Shiekds at 12 is introduced half naked, it's meant to be funny.

I'd much rather recommend About a Boy infrastructure, a far better more intelligent movie.

There's a few funny lines here, and I don't really blame the cast who are doing their best, it just doesn't work as a movie.

Bill Grant (George Burns) is a retired lovable vaudeville star. He discovers a young naked Kate (Brooke Shields) hiding in his car truck. She's a runaway foster kid hiding from drug dealer John Demesta. His daughter Shirl wants him to sign over his finances before he gives it all away to his old vaudeville down-on-their-luck friends including his catatonic best friend Max. He's got nosy neighbors Stan and Sue. Kate tries to take off and twists her ankle. Shirl calls the cops but his poker buddies pull an old trick.

I love George Burns doing his lovable old performer character. Brooke Shields was a good child star who develops great chemistry with the old-timer. I don't know why she has to be naked or pretend to be naked in almost movie. The biggest problem is the weirdly dangerous clunky drug story in between the funny bits. The tone is all over the place. The movie is definitely trying to be funny but the drug story is so cheesy dark that it screws the movie up.

This movie comes from a time when movies were still movies. No quick cuts, only one popular music track, but a good old fashioned story of a grandfatherly former Vaudevillian befriending a troubled teen.

You've got to love George Burns. You just have to. There's no reason not to. To me his quips, even though I understood the humor when this movie hit the theatre, is more endearing and funnier now with more punch than when I first saw the film.

That, and the humor is clean without being childish. It's smart without having to be high-minded. The script is witty and Burns' performance is on the money for a man of his caliber or character.

And there's Brooke, who, unlike her later roles, actually does a pretty decent job of portraying the wayward teen. Brooke knows this girl's character and is given fairly decent direction as to how to portray her.

If I had one complaint it's that dialogue, at times, seems a little too mature for Booke's character, but that's more of a fault of the old guard Hollywood screenwriters who channel themselves through the characters they pen.

Veteran stars come in to play support roles making for a very likable hour and a half light comedy. The plot driving the story forward is a little hard, but socially responsible films function to show the pitfalls of possible criminal behavior, and how innocents (and not so innocent) get caught up in nefarious doings. As such we have a light tone for what could have been a hard look at teenage delinquency.

George Burns and Brooke Shields actually have a pretty good chemistry here, almost that one wishes they had done a few more films together.

Either way, the film is now out on DVD thanks to SONY and Columbia Pictures archives. Grab a copy and watch it on a lazy weekend afternoon.

Enjoy.