My Chauffeur

I love this movie....I've loved it since I first saw it at age 10...If you pride yourself on your love for off-beat movies, and have never seen this..please do..I can't promise you'll have the same love for it as I do...but I truly believe I would love it just as much if I saw it today for the first time....Deborah Foreman is perfect in this role..open enough to be such a great character. All roles are distinct, no one gets lost in the chaos. I hope you have fun..now get up go rent it..I'd loan you my copy, but I don't know you stranger!!

Quite possibly the best film ever made! Okay, maybe i'm exaggerating but it's a really fun film filled with wacky characters and that distinct LA 80's feel.

What sets this film apart is the dynamic lead performance by Deborah Foreman (where have you gone, Debbie?) In terms of comic timing and just being so damn adorable she rivals Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (a film which My Chauffeur most resembles)

David Baierd's direction keeps things brisk and light yet there are demented touches here and there which give the film a unique off-balanced vibe.

Check this film out if you can and expect a pleasant surprise. I'll re-watch it again and again and have a blast each and every time.

A woman is hired as a chauffeur for a limousine company. Her appointment causes all manner of perturbation and despair in the chauvinistic environs of this male-only club. Much to her male colleagues annoyance, she pretty much immediately makes a good impression with their clients though and gets involved with a relationship with a hard-nosed businessman who hires her as a driver. As is the way of these films, they start out getting on very badly but as time progresses a love affair emerges and the businessman learns from the error of his ways.

This 80's effort is overall pretty good fun. It's hardly going to blow your mind with its originality or anything though, as it is in essence a formulaic romantic comedy. But it has a very likable performance from Deborah Foreman underpinning it. She elevates the material up a notch or two. Appearing alongside her is Sam J. Jones, surely best known for his starring role in the earlier movie Flash Gordon (1980). There is also the first cinematic appearance of Penn and Teller, as a couple of oddballs who Foreman picks up latterly in the story. And we also have some very 80's music performed by the never popular new wave band, The Wigs. All-in-all, this is not bad for a low budget 80's comedy, it's corny but gets by on a reasonable amount of charm.

Free-spirit, fast-talking Casey Meadows (Deborah Foreman) works as a lowly dishwasher. She receives a letter from wealthy benefactor Witherspoon (E.G. Marshall) hiring her as a new driver for Brentwood Limousine. Supervisor McBride (Howard Hesseman) is horrified by the change in the stuffy all-male operation. Ruthless business Battle (Sam J. Jones) is one of her clients and he gets dumped by his girlfriend.

This is a fun 80's flick. Deborah Foreman was an 80's IT girl. She is adorable doing this wide-eyed, open-hearted character. Penn and Teller do a memorable hustler and Arab sheikh combo. The drawback is mainly Sam Jones. He's not a good enough actor to dig deeper into his character but he's mostly fine. He needs to be a romantic lead but he's more of a linebacker or a villain henchman. The writing is passable for an 80's comedy. The material is elevated whenever Foreman gets to deliver a fun line.

OK, so it's no epic piece of cinematic history, and sure it's a formulaic and derivative romantic comedy, but I still rank it as one of my all-time favorite films because it possesses a wonderful plot structure, engaging vignettes ("A blue lady with a blue dog! That's 20,000 points!"), well-drawn characters, witty dialog, a lot of heart and a lot of laughs - not to mention a finger-snapping, so-80s soundtrack from a seemingly never-to-be-heard-from-again band called The Wigs "My Chauffeur" is all-around well written and well realized. Watching this film, you can tell the people involved both in front of and behind the camera really put their imaginations and talents into crafting something special. Deborah Foreman is quirky-cute-cool as Casey Meadows, an aspiring limo driver who shakes up the stuffy status quo of Brentwood Limousine Company when she's hush-hush hired by its reclusive owner (E.G. Marshall). She faces the cold shoulders of all of the older male drivers, save for a paternal Irish gent (played marvelously by Sean McClory) who takes her under his wing. Sam Jones is marvelous as Battle Witherspoon, the dictatorial corporate suit who's all business and no pleasure - until he meets Foreman's Casey and slowly melts for her. The romance that ensues between them is surrounded by a wonderful cast of characters who populate the movie's tangental scenes, such as the one that features the film debut of Penn & Teller (as a con man and a Middle Eastern prince, respectively). Myself, I get a little choked up every time I see the scenes where Casey comes to the transportation rescue of a young man being berated by his girlfriend for not having a car, and where Battle finally realizes what a jerk he's been and commands his long-suffering, single-mom secretary to march down to human resources the following Monday and name her own raise. Touching, heartfelt, sincere stuff. Yeah, it's a fairy tale film filled with other little fairy tales, but that's what makes it so much fun. Even more fun: "My Chauffeur" has one of the most fall-down laughing drunk scenes I've ever seen. After Jones' character gets dumped by his girlfriend, he gets rip-roaring blotto in the back of Casey's limo. Chugging scotch, primal screaming and spewing venom he declares his freedom and commences to streak stark naked through a neighborhood park. In terms of sheer hilarity it rivals the scene in "The Money Pit" where Tom Hanks laughs himself into hysterics after the bathtub plunges through the bathroom and shatters on the first floor. It's just movie magic. As you can tell, I've seen this film a few times, and will undoubtedly see it a few more in my lifetime. But everytime I see it, there is some bittersweetness that manifests itself as the credits roll at the end as I ask myself "where are they now?"