steveo122 Screwball. Deft. Not an unpleasant bone in its body, even when it dips into human frailties. One of those comedies that feels as if everybody got everything right, as in just what they were looking for. Wonderful character actors at work. Without them, it would have been insipidly corny. O'Toole as an Errol Flynn type is just about perfect. Excellent music choices.

mardermj Here's a bit of worthless trivia--the movie was shot to be displayed at 1:85, a little wider than the inexplicable decision to create a widescreen TV image of 1:77.But the first laserdiscs early 1980's, those 33 1/3 sized 12 inch platinum platters? released the movie in 1:33 ratio. You'd say so what, that is what pan and scan were able to sidestep, movement of the camera to cover the truncated side areas to fit into a 1:33 frame.NOT pan and scan. Not. This is one time the studio could ADD visual material top and bottom, and create a pan and scan sized image but where there is actually MORE visual information than in the widescreen versions.Actually, the safe areas where on top and bottom of the frame, you're supposed to place equipment,mikes and lights and such, and never fear them showing up in the movie,were missing sufficiently so that in order to produce 1:33, they merely ADDED material bottom and top, rather than have to truncate material on the sides. Yup, this is one of those movies (Black Rain 1989) wherewhat looks to be pan and scan is actually full frame in the truest sense.Some may remember movies in the 1950's were shot to be shown on widescreen 1:85 as well as academy 1:33 ratio, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956 on purpose, because not many screens has converted to widescreen yet. Both My Favorite Year and Black Rain seem to be throwbacks to that earlier practice, only this time the target audience may have been folks with normal TV sets of the times, at 1:33. For by the 1980's, 1:33 aspect ratio movie screens had all been replaced.Like mint marks on a coin, the two versions of one film make for startlingly different viewing experiences.How different? That, as they say, is another story.

halley-devestern I've heard people gushing about this movie for years and have always been interested in seeing it. I finally had the chance to see it for the first time today on TCM. I'm sad to say I was quite disappointed overall, but I did enjoy Peter O'Toole's performance immensely. This movie could have been truly amazing if the direction and editing were better. The cast is wonderful (I like Mark Linn-Baker, but a better director would have reined in his youthful over-acting here), the script is good and the story is charming. But the pace is tediously slow. As they say in the industry, you could have driven a truck through the pauses between the lines. Yikes. The movie could still have been tightened up in post-production editing, but no soap. And I'm not a youngster whose attention span has been irrevocably destroyed by the Internet. It's a sad day for me, I had been really looking forward to this movie. But, as always, Bravo O'Toole. What a treasure.

mlktrout I was in Germany when the film came out so didn't see it for the first time until 1984 or so, but I have seen it probably almost every year since then. I should have it memorized by now, but somehow each viewing I find something new and special. I've loved it since the first time I saw it.There is little I can add to the basic story--a washed-up Errol Flynn type of action movie star goes on a live television comedy program in the 1950s. O'Toole is just masterful in the part and according to director Benjamin, he even insisted on doing all his own stunts (some of which were dangerous!). I could believe him as a movie hero and as a real-life washout.Joseph Balogna is just hysterical as the Sid Caesar TV star, rough, bombastic, occasionally mean, but kind under the crust, and utterly fearless. I grinned at every sight of him.Mark Linn-Baker is superb as the kid from Brooklyn who finds himself rubbing shoulders with his childhood hero and discovering the statue has feet of clay. His embarrassment over his background and his weird family rings true and yet are hilarious; I forget the name of the actress who plays his mother, but she is screamingly funny.I just can't say how much I love this movie, how inspiring I find it, how it touches my heart. But it's my favorite movie, and in a house where we own something like 5,000 movies and most of our conversations contain at least one movie quote, this film is quoted almost daily, so that's saying something.