I keep thinking I hate Chevy Chase, and then I keep liking him in the films I see him in.  Such was the case with 1978’s Foul Play, but then it isn’t really his film.  It’s a showcase for Goldie Hawn.

My feelings about Hawn are neutral—I never think about whether I like or dislike her and I never actively seek out the films she’s in.  And yet I like everything I have seen her in and it has been her performances that made those pictures work.

I like how one can see the intelligence behind the acting.  Even when she played a series of airheads in the early days of her career, you could tell Hawn is smart and carefully shaping a character who is a dingbat.  Watch her eyes and her body language.  Listen to her pattern of speech.  These are actually carefully crafted performances.

Here, she truly shines as a librarian swept into a dangerous spy plot when she gives a hitchhiker a ride.  He asks her to take his cigarettes, as he’s been trying to cut down.  She arranges a date with him at a screening of a noir film.  When he arrives, he drops dead, but not before telling her to beware of the dwarf.

Soon, she is being pursued by that dwarf and his albino henchman.  Yeah, I know this may cause offense to people with those traits, but you have to admit it makes it is really difficult for Hawn to go to the authorities without sounding like she’s crazy.  Then again, this movie takes place in a world where Hawn has trouble meeting guys to date.

Chevy Chase is a police detective who believes she is in danger.  To his advantage, Chase isn’t in the movie much, so his usual shtick of detached sarcasm doesn’t wear thin. 

There’s even a bit of palpable chemistry between he and Hawn.  I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise as she would one day serenade him an inch from his face on his short-lived talk show in the early 90’s.  Fortunately, that doesn’t happen here.

I also usually find Dudley Moore annoying, but he is great here in what is essentially a recurring cameo as a lothario.  The first time we see him, he’s approached by Hawn in a bar as she is fleeing the bad guys.  When she asks him to take her home, he almost drinks the candle on the table.  Back at his apartment, she keeps a lookout at the window, oblivious to Moore opening a hideaway bed that has its own mirrored ceiling.  What happens next left me gasping from laughing so hard.

Lastly, if there’s one thing I found odd, it was the theme song by Barry Manilow, as well as the use of “Copacabana” in a club scene.  It’s hard to believe there was a time when Manilow was cool (in the general opinion, at least), but it’s true. I was just old enough at the time that I can confirm he was. 

Foul Play is thoroughly enjoyable.  It is successful as a comedy and as a Hitchcockian thriller.  It is a bit less successful as a romance, but I don’t think that’s what anybody watches this for.  Recommended.

Dir: Colin Higgins

Starring Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, Burgess Meredith, Billy Barty

Watched on blu-ray