Une baraque à tout casser

Tom Hanks and Shelley Long star in this hilarious film about a couple who buy a million dollar home for $200,000 - only to find out it's going to cost close to a million to repair it! Wood rot, raccoons in the dumbwaiter, a bad roof, bad plumbing, bad electricity - you name it, this house has it. Hard to choose the funniest scene - the staircase collapse or Hanks getting dumped in cement.

The entire cast is excellent, from Maureen Stapleton, the former homeowner whose boyfriend is being deported, Hanks' clients (he's an entertainment attorney), the many workers who populate the house, or Douglass Watson, Hanks' embezzler father who now lives in Rio.

It would also be hard to choose the funniest line, but for anyone who has owned a home, probably the Shirks Brothers line when their team comes to repair the house - "Your name came up in a drawing - we work today!"

Tom Hanks and his girlfriend are desperatedly in need of money and a new house. They find a beautiful house at a very low price, which seems too good be true. And it is. Hilarious disasters will follow, when they disover how disastrous their new home really is.

I love Tom Hanks ( and also Shelley Long from Cheers) in their younger days. Hanks was an unguided comedy projectile back then, with wild antics that are just to die for so funny.

Just a lovely comedy about all the disasters that can go wrong and therefore WILL GO WRONG when starting a renovation! The jokes still stand strong after many decades. Must see for Tom Hanks fans. Suited for young and old.

I loved this movie. Granted, I was a teen when I first saw it, but even so, I laughed often and that is my standard of judgment. Shelley Long is as good as she was in Cheers (which is gooood). Tom Hanks shows off the early "Bosom Buddies" hopes of physical comedy genius here in a way that he never did again. The bee-attack scene to the flight of the Bumblebee violin solo is fabulous. the whole "We're Sitting on a Dream" sequence with the stairs and doorbell and raccoon and the bathtub is hilarious but PEOPLE. Come on. The entire collapsing stairs bit is the best, capped off by Hanks sweet little blown kiss at the end ... slayed me. My brother and I still reference it whenever everything is more crap than bearable, and we always will. I think this is an overlooked gem and will always have it in my video catalogue. Finally, a quote: Paint. Don't tickle. Alexander Gudonow will be missed.

One of the things that makes this movie so enjoyable is that millions of Americans can easily empathize and draw upon their own experiences with the travails of fixing up a dilapidated house.

The plot is a familiar one and follows in the footsteps (which usually collapse) of such classic films as "George Washington Slept Here," "The Egg and I" and "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House."

Shelley Long and Tom Hanks seem evenly matched as the tormented couple who suffer almost every wacky indignity and calamity imaginable. Tom Hanks has a flair for physical comedy, which he rarely got the chance to exploit in his later films. Unfortunately, except for Philip Bosco and Maureen Stapleton, the supporting players in "The Money Pit" are not in the same league as the actors who added so much flavor to films in the old studio days.

Indeed, as a classic movie buff, I find today's crop of character actors pallid in comparison with their counterparts of more than 50 years ago.

Who can forget Percy Kilbride and Hattie McDaniel as Mr. Kimber and Hester the maid in "George Washington," and Harry Shannon As Mr. Tesander, the well digger, in "Blandings"? Don't forget Donald MacBride and the coupling of Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride as Ma and Pa Kettle in "The Egg." We'll never see the likes of them again.

Still, "The Money Pit" is all good fun and very entertaining.

It really surprised me to see this movie get such a critical beating when it was released. I was even *more* surprised at how good it is.

Even before I popped this badboy in, I knew pretty much what to expect from it, and I left satisfied. Tom Hanks and Shelley Long are delightful; so is Alexander Godunov, he plays the vapid eurotrash so well in this.

It's a lighthearted '80s comedy, and when disaster isn't striking, it makes with the witty banter between spouses. It's just likable.

To that end, Hanks is in his comedic prime here, and man, he is on fire. He makes slapstick look easy but it's also a lot of fun watching him unravel in his harried state. That barking seal laugh he does after the bathtub plummets had me dying. His best is still "A League of Their Own", but this is a close second.

It's nice that there's a happy ending to this, what with the relationship drama. But we all came here to see the house try to kill itself from within, and I say mission accomplished.