My Favorite Year

Overview

In Richard Benjamin's directorial debut, Mark Linn-Baker stars as Benjy Stone, junior writer on the popular 1950s TV comedy/variety series The King Kaiser Show. Kaiser (Joseph Bologna)'s guest star this week is Hollywood matinee idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole), a swashbuckling Errol Flynn type, right down to his indiscriminate womanizing and fondness for mass quantities of booze. Stone is assigned to keep the actor out of trouble during rehearsals and deliver him sober to the performance. Becoming fast friends, Stone and Swann alternate baby-sitting responsibilities: Swann takes the young writer to the Stork Club and on an early-morning jaunt through Central Park with a "borrowed" police horse, while Stone takes Swann to his home, where the star is fawned over by Benji's mom (Lainie Kazan) and asked embarrassing questions about his love life by Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi). Despite a few anxious moments, all goes well until Swann, panicking at the discovery that King Kaiser's show will be telecast live and not on film, walks out just before airtime. Shamed by Benjy into honoring his committment, Swann makes a spectacular, timber-smashing entrance, saving the show and rescuing Kaiser from being rubbed out by a gangster (Cameron Mitchell) whom the comedian has offended. The film co-stars Jessica Harper, Gloria Stuart and Selma Diamond, a real-life comedy writer for Sid Caesar. My Favorite Year was converted into an unsuccessful Broadway musical in the early 1990s.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/03/2016
UPC:	0888574404765
Original Release:	1982
Rating:	PG
Source:	Warner Archives
Language:	English
Time:	1:32:00
Sales rank:	5,862

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Peter O'Toole	Alan Swann
Mark Linn-Baker	Benjy Stone
Jessica Harper	K.C. Downing
Joseph Bologna	King Kaiser
Bill Macy	Sy Benson
Lainie Kazan	Belle Carroca
Anne DeSalvo	Alice Miller
Basil Hoffman	Herb Lee
Lou Jacobi	Uncle Morty
Adolph Green	Leo Silver
Tony DiBenedetto	Alfie Bumbacelli
George Wyner	Myron Fein
Selma Diamond	Lil
Cameron Mitchell	Karl Rojeck
Jenny Neumann	Connie
Corinne Bohrer	Bonnie
George Marshall Ruge	Lord Drummond
Barbra Horan	Lady Eleanor
John Welsh	Cubby Brown
Philip Bruns	Fed. Marshal Holt,Federal Marshal Holt
Richard Brestoff	Stage Manager
Jed Mills	1st Member
Ted Grossman	Harris
Teresa Ganzel	Dumpling
Archie Hahn	Delivery Boy
Karen Haber	Vivian
Priscilla Kovary	Priscilla
Eleanor Heutschy	Gossip Columnist
Archie Hahn III	Delivery Boy
Peter Eastman	Maitre d'
Fox Harris	Curt
Rieneke	Andrea
Howard George	Artie
Bob Windsor	Alvin Horn
Gloria Stuart	Mrs. Horn
Clyde McLeod	Club Dancer
Harry Bill Roberts	Orchestra Leader
Ramon Sison	Rookie Carroca
Annette Robyns	Sadie
Pearl Shear	Mrs. Kessler
Stanley Brock	Mr. Berkowitz
Martin Garner	Mr. Cantor
John Medici	Scalfoni
Robert G. Denison	1st Stockbroker
John Christy Ewing	2nd Stockbroker
Vincent Sardi	Policeman
Katie McClain	Tess
Norman Steinberg	Sandy
Richard Warwick	Technical Director
Rex Benson	Make-up Man
Denver Mattson	1st Thug
George Fisher	2nd Thug
Bob Terhune	3rd Thug
Nick Dimitri	4th Thug
Phil Adams	1st Stagehand
Richard Butler	2nd Stagehand

Technical Credits

Dennis Palumbo

Richard Benjamin	Director
Dennis Palumbo	Screenwriter
Michael Gruskoff	Producer
Jerry Jost	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

A hilarious homage to the Golden Age of television, My Favorite Year pokes fun at the behind-the-scenes zaniness that typified TV production in New York during that halcyon era. The year is 1954; Senate hearings vie with old B-westerns for ratings, and young Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) is writing for Comedy Cavalcade, the hottest variety show on the air. He's on top of the world, and chaperoning that week's guest star -- fading matinee idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) -- should be a pleasurable assignment. But Swann is a dissolute rake whose outrageous antics keep Benjy in constant damage-control mode; it's a toss-up as to whether or not the old boy will make it to the broadcast sober and in one piece. Director Richard Benjamin (Mermaids) lovingly re-creates this colorful era in showbiz history, using for his supporting cast many of the actors and celebrities who were actually working in the New York studios during those years. O'Toole, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his scene-stealing performance, was enough of an off-screen carouser himself to lend verisimilitude to his characterization of Swann, who was obviously patterned after swashbuckling movie star Errol Flynn. O'Toole's flamboyant manner and rich comic timing make him an absolute delight, and he's ably supported by Joseph Bologna (playing TV host King Kaiser), Bill Macy, Lainie Kazan, Lou Jacobi, Selma Diamond, and Adolph Green. Wryly satirical in some spots and openly slapstick in others, My Favorite Year is a real rib-tickler from first frame to last -- as fresh and satisfying today as it was in 1982. Benjamin and O'Toole reminisce about the film's making in their commentary for the DVD, which also includes highlights of O'Toole's career and Year's original theatrical trailer.

Barnes & Noble

An excellent film from top to bottom, My Favorite Year captures a long-lost time and place to perfection through the use of very clever dialogue, humorous situations, and casting that is nearly as perfect as can be. The story, loosely based on the late career of Errol Flynn, involves a dissolute matinee idol named Alan Swann, played by Peter O'Toole, and his scheduled appearance on a live television variety show à la Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows. Told through the eyes of junior writer Mark Linn-Baker, who idolizes Swann, the film is a tour de force for O'Toole that allows him to show off and stretch his comedic skills. Mostly associated with the great epics of his career, it's a delight watching O'Toole play this swashbuckling souse with such aplomb. Joseph Bologna, in the Caesar role, is truly wonderful, as he doesn't resort to stereotyping and has a definite edge to him that would not ordinarily be expected in someone who is more or less a clown. Linn-Baker has the put-upon look of exasperation down to a science, and gets to use it very well in the scenes with his overbearing mother, played by Lainie Kazan. Fans of Kazan from My Big Fat Greek Wedding will be interested in seeing her playing more or less the same role with a different ethnicity. Director Richard Benjamin shows a nice comedic touch in letting the more subtle humor shine through and many of the jokes are almost lost in the surrounding mayhem, but they are all very funny. The rest of the cast is a who's who of comedy character actors, including Bill Macy, Lou Jacobi, and the late great Adolph Green as Bologna's main foil. There are many little subplots that feed into the big climax, which is the live broadcast. The scene where O'Toole realizes that he is going to appear on live television and his subsequent reaction to that information is a classic.

All Movie Guide - Dan Friedman