New releases mostly comic

Press, 30 September 1986, Page 11

New releases mostly comic

DAVID WILSON

Comedy is the overpowering ingredient in Warner Home Video’s potpourri of new releases for October, with stars such as Chevy Chase, Peter Sellers, Bill Cosby and Gene Wilder adding extra spice. These releases, due on the library shelves on October 13, are:— “National Lampoon’s European Vacation.” It is a case of watch out Europe, the Clark Griswalds are on holiday again. The first time they ventured forth in ‘‘National Lampoon’s Vacation,” they hit the collective funny bone of the moviegoing public. That was just a domestic outing — now the Griswalds are off to the Continent as their prize in a TV quiz show. Fired up with joie-de-vacation, Clark (Chevy Chase) is determined to videotape the entire trip for the family archives. Three glorious minutes at the Louvre, a car accident at Stonehenge that changes that historic structure for the first time in 5000 years, a nude nightclub in gay Paris, and a brush with a lady of the night, give him plenty of hilarious material to remind the family of their frenzied fortnight. “National Lampoon’s Movie Madness” comprises three voyages into the realm of mad farce. The first, “Growing Yourself,” stars Peter Riegert who sends his wife (Candy Clark) away so that they can both “find” themselves. In “The Success Wanters,” Ann Dusenberry plays a young woman who schemes to become a margarine magnate, putting the butter tycoons out of business. In “The Municipalians,” Robby Benson is a goody-

goody young Los Angeles policeman teamed with a cynical veteran cop, Richard Widmark, and together they make the most of this enjoyable parody of the familiar, hard-hitting police stories.

“National Lampoon’s Vacation” gives us the Griswalds again, but this time on their original holiday fiasco. Mum and the children would rather fly to California. Dad, on the other hand, wants to make the trip by car to really see the country and, at the same time, to bring the family closer together. Besides, he has this trip wired through the family’s personal home computer. Everything has been programmed from tyre wear to best routes, from choice sites to the finest recommended lodgings. He has even computed the time lapse between cold drink consumption and the next rest stop. With such planning nothing can go wrong, right? Wrong.

“A Shot in the Dark” was the first sequel to “The Pink Panther” and sees Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau of the Paris Police Department. Sellers has a mystery on his hands, as well as the lovely Elke Sommer. In the dead of night and the heat of passion a servant is shot dead in the room of Maria, a maid at the home of the Ballon family. Adopting a series of ridiculous disguises, the accident-prone Clouseau tries to follow Maria unnoticed, convinced that she knows the whereabouts of the murderer. The never-say-die sleuth finds himself arrested several times for causing a public distur-

bance, but finally he tracks Maria to a nudist colony and adopting the necessary disguise he plunges in. “A Piece of the Action” stars Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, as Manny and Dave, who have both mastered ingenious ways to rip off the rip-off artists who prey on the poor. Police are baffled when one hits the debt lumpers and interest hogs for $250,000 and the other hits an underworld boss for $500,000. Only the street-wise retiring Detective Burke smells a rat. Anonymous phone calls advise the pair that someone is on to their games and their services have been volunteered to the local community centre, or else. Both men want to learn the identity of their tormentor. At long last the former Detective Burke is confronted, admits his complicity, and it seems Manny and Dave’s problems are over, until they receive some surprise gifts.

“Start the Revolution Without Me.” This is a tongue-in-cheek farce that tells the story of a mix-up at birth of two sets of twins and their appearance 30 years later in the Court of King Louis XVI. One twin from each set has been raised by aristocracy, and one from each set has been brought up by peasants. Confusing? Well, it gets even more perplexing as the two sets of non-look-alikes lead opposing forces intent on toppling the monarchy, and finally meet face-to-face in absolute amazement. Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland star in this uprising of inspired spoofery.