My Favorite Year: A Review

 

MY FAVORITE YEAR

Television's early days were never so wild and outlandish as My Favorite Year, a wonderful and brilliant comedy with a bravura no-holds-barred performance from Peter O'Toole. My Favorite Year is a delightful romp, full of heart and joy but able to move you in its softer moments. 

My Favorite Year is 1954 according to our protagonist, Benji Stone (Mark-Lynn Baker). Stone is the newest and youngest writer on television sketch comedy show Comedy Cavalcade, starring Stan "King" Kaiser (Joseph Bologna). Kaiser is abrasive, temperamental and prone to delusions of grandeur and insecurity. He also is not afraid of spoofing mob boss Karl "Boss" Rojek (Cameron Mitchell) with a series of comedy sketches about "Boss Hijack". Rojek does not like being openly mocked, but despite the danger that is the least of Kaiser's concerns.

That belongs to this week's Comedy Cavalcade guest star, matinee idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole). Swann is a drunk whose best years seem behind him. He delights in being scandalous, but he is also suave, charming and even insecure behind the bravado and swashbuckling derring-do. Benji, who is a massive Swann fanboy, dares to stand up to not just Kaiser but the equally loud and abrasive Comedy Cavalcade head writer Sy Benson (Bill Macy), insisting that Swann should not be replaced as the guest star. Kaiser, impressed by Stone's act of defiance, agrees to keep Swann in the show, provided that Stone keep his eyes on Swann. Stone won't be alone in trying to keep Swann out of trouble, for Swann's longtime New York chauffeur Alfie Bumbacelli (Tony DiBennedetto) is an old pro at keeping Mr. Swann from his most extreme behavior.

With that, Benji Stone and Alan Swann begin their weeklong adventures. Swann offers guidance in Stone's wooing of Comedy Cavalcade production assistant K.C. Dowling (Jessica Harper). Swann takes Stone to dinner at the Stork Club, where he helps Swann squire a pretty young thing. Stone also takes Swann to have dinner with his mother Belle Steinberg Carroca (Laine Kazan) and his stepfather, Filipino bantamweight boxer Rookie (Ramon Sison). 

As the week comes close to ending, Swann and Stone learn more about each other. Despite his image, Swann is really at heart Clarence Duffy, a Scotsman who went AWOL from the British Navy with dreams of becoming an actor and managed to become a movie star. Stone reveals that he is really a Benjamin Steinberg, who does not hide his Jewish identity but is embarrassed by his family's behavior. On the day of the broadcast, Swann has swanned off to Connecticut in a failed effort to see his daughter Tess, whom he loves but is afraid to reconnect with. Will Alan Swann pull himself together enough to perform live in front of a studio audience, a prospect that terrifies him? Will Boss Rojek get back at King Kaiser literally on the air?  

My Favorite Year is really about Stone's favorite week, as the story takes place in that short time period. Screenwriters Norman Steinberg and Dennis Palumbo (from a story by Palumbo) crafted a story that was in terms outlandish and heartwarming, where the characters can be crazed one moment, touching the next. 

A good moment that shows how My Favorite Year balances absurdity with sincerity is when Benji takes Alan to the foreign land of Brooklyn for a Steinberg family dinner. We get a lot of Borscht Belt comedy when Aunt Sadie (Annette Robyns) pops in wearing her wedding dress, apparently oblivious as to how bonkers it looks. Even Belle looked shocked, and Belle is no shrinking violet, insisting on calling her guest both "Al" and "Swannee". As a bemused Swann looks on, Aunt Sadie comments that she's worn that dress only once before.

This scene has some funny moments, like when Benji scolds his mother for calling Swann "Al". "If I bring Jolson or Capone, you can call him Al", he says. Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi) replies, "Jolson's coming?". However, we see what makes My Favorite Year so special: Peter O'Toole's performance. O'Toole as Swann here is unflappable and surprisingly respectful and respectable given the odd goings-on. He is gracious towards Benji's family, which is no small feat. When Uncle Morty brings up past sex scandals involving Swann, everyone else is appalled. 

Swann, however, reveals the gentleman behind the rogue. Calmly answering Morty's question about his schtupping past, he says that the answer is no. Swann points out that people like him are targets, often accused of things that they did not do. However, he adds that because of who he is, he sometimes is allowed to get away with murder on other things, so in his mind, it balances out. 

These types of scenes, where O'Toole reveals the gentleman and gentle man behind the swashbuckling persona, are a real acting treat. O'Toole certainly can do the broad farce and drunken pratfalls with great enthusiasm. He even has one of the film's best lines when he realizes, to his horror, that Comedy Cavalcade will not only be live but in front of a studio audience. As his panic grows into a frenzy, he ends his meltdown by shouting out, "I'M NOT AN ACTOR! I'M A MOVIE STAR!".

However, shortly afterwards, Benji finds Swann in the studio hallway. O'Toole shows Swann not as the plastered buffoon he's taken for, but as a frightened man, terrified of being a failure and not living up to the image that even he is not sure is real or fake. O'Toole showcases a range that is simply remarkable in My Favorite Year. One moment he can have you laughing at how outlandish he can be, like when he looks at a fire hose that he can use to try and shimmy down to a lower floor like a man who has discovered fire.

The next moment, you see him silently watching Tess come out of her mother's house. Staying in the car, we see the joy in seeing her fade into fear, him crouching back into the seat. It is a beautiful performance: funny, touching and knowing of this man, a charming, smooth and intelligent but roguish and undisciplined one. It is one of Peter O'Toole's greatest screen performances and an underrated one.

Everyone else in My Favorite Year is not up to O'Toole's level but they are pretty serviceable. Out of the rest of the cast, I would put DiBenedetto as the best, his Alfie very understanding of "Mr. Swann" and his pretty bonkers behavior. Mark-Lynn Baker is "introduced" in My Favorite Year, and I think he did well as Benji Stone/Benjamin Steinberg. He and O'Toole work well together, especially whenever Swann gets Benji's name wrong as either "Stoneberg" or "Stoneburger", which brings no reaction. He did not do so well when he was attempting to tone done his family's behavior, a bit too forced in my view.

Same with some of the other performances. They worked up to a point, but I feel conflicted in that I think that they were meant to be broad but somehow still did not fully work. Bologna was a strange figure: sometimes not funny but exaggerated, other times fine. As a side note, the two comedy sketches shown as part of Comedy Cavalcade (the Boss Hijack sketch and the musketeer sketch meant to spoof Swann's persona) were not funny at all.  

Still, it is a credit to director Richard Benjamin that My Favorite Year rolled pretty smoothly. I hope that people will watch and remember My Favorite Year for being more than Peter O'Toole's seventh Best Actor nomination. It is a fun, nostalgic homage to early television and how our cinematic heroes may be more real than we think.   

DECISION: B+