Truly one of the great losses in comedy film history is that of Colin Higgins, who after his major success with his screenplay for Harold and Maude, went on to write and direct three of the great comedies of the late 70’s early 80’s, each one with a slightly bigger scope than the last and each with a brilliant reflection of their creators talents. Higgins was an incredible film-maker whose life was cut short in the AIDS crisis, which in no uncertain terms in its path of death, eradicated and took from us an entire generation of gay creative talent (amongst of course so many others). Higgins was one such creative. We celebrate his three great films today.

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Foul Play (1978)

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Higgins first film as both a writer and director was his huge hit Foul Play, a film so wonderfully lampooning and taking to new comedic heights of absurdity the Hitchcock ‘wrong man’ formula with Goldie Hawn in the leading role of Gloria – an everywoman who by complete chance and her own good nature ends up being embroiled in a plot to kill the pope during a performance of The Mikado of all things. Higgins touch as a director begins to show more and more as the film goes on, with the film concluding with a genuinely excellent car chase sequence that rivals comedically and action set piece wise the best of the best of its ilk. Higgins as a writer is still the same funny and irreverent author that penned Harold and Maude, however with this film gone is the darkness and human melancholy that underpins and informs that film, instead Foul Play is nothing short of pure farce, all wickedly informed by the mis-spreading of information, false identities, McGuffins and all the other things that make those classic Hitchcock thrillers the gems they are, here used for pure comedy. The film is also an early fine example of Higgin’s work as gay film-maker with Burgess Meredith’s humorous character not directly but telegraphing being an older gay companion to our lead Hawn character of Gloria. The film just repeatedly has so many great small and large running gags that make it just incredibly funny. Higgins has an awful lot of fun playing around with the form, however also has a lot of fun with a plethora of quick sight and witty remark gags. Hawn is just so wonderfully perfect as our lead figure, just the right amounts of knowing and in too deep, with also the perfect amount of eventually taking control of the situation. Hawn is funny, charming and yes, just plain beautiful here and make no mistakes that she is the out and out lead of the film, despite certain marketing leading one to believe that this is an out and out Hawn and Chevy Chase rom-com, that is one part of it but Chase is very firmly in supporting actor territory here. Chase (a God to me, yes, one of the funniest to ever do it) is decidedly un-Chase like in this film. It may be down to it being one of his first films, but here Chase is uncharacteristically happy to stand to the side and bring his schtick down a few levels. It is also seems that Chase is completely following Higgins script, its a really solid performance from Chase and Higgins perfectly utilises his greatest talents. Then pair him with Hawn and when the film does click into that rom-com territory, it’s perfect there too! The plotting at times can get a little intentionally convoluted, but there is always a hilarious sequence or brief moment to split it all up, including a truly brilliant sequence with a little person, as well as a series of interactions with a brilliantly depraved Dudley Moore, who is similarly playing everything at the exact right tone that Higgins requires. The film is all underscored by a fun score by Charles Fox, who also wrote a song for the film, the great Ready to Take a Chance Again performed by Barry Manilow. A great song as is, but fits weirdly perfectly for this pseudo rom-com adventure comedy. Higgins is on top form and perfected a formula here that he could have returned to a couple of times over, however despite his career being regrettably cut short by his untimely death, he decided to never rest on his laurels and instead made two wholly different films following this late 70’s romp.

9 to 5 (1980)

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The most famous of Higgins three films is of course one of the more iconic comedies of its era, that of the Patricia Resnick and Higgins penned workplace comedy 9 to 5, from a story by Resnick. Now of course the film in its own right is iconic, however this has only through the years had its fame bolstered by the immense iconic nature of its title song and the later very successful and enjoyable musical adaptation of the film which I enjoy a lot in its own right. Now 9 to 5 ends up as ‘messy’ as Foul Play but not by design, whereas Foul Play is an intentionally ridiculous and over the top collection of many absurd characters and plotlines, 9 to 5 kind of stumbles into being an over the top farce despite its fairly rooted opening and characters. As a matter of fact I think if one thing is lost when the film is referred to as the rightful comedic cult classic that it is, it’s just how odd everything plot-wise comes to turn out. The middle dream sequences for instance are all funny in their own right and wonderfully made with great performances and comedic craft by Higgins, but do stop the film dead for fifteen minutes and are entertaining but serve no plot progressive point. Most people I think forget wholly about the morgue and hospital central dilemma and mentally jump straight to the bulk of the film which consists of our chief three heroines kidnapping their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical boss”, forgetting the truly convoluted and messy way we end up there narratively. Now it is of course the immense strengths of those involved that make the rather glaring plotting issues simply an after-result and another circumstance for our trio of incredibly deft and heartfelt comedic performances to overcome. Afterall I don’t think one can say that 9 to 5 is a perfect film by any means, but it is just so intensely enjoyable from a Higgins and an overall performance point of view that it feels like an out and out comedy masterclass, even if in many ways it’s Higgins most flawed film. The trio of lead performances in-fact are just to this day some of the finest work a group of actors working together has ever done, it’s just for me an all-timer chemistry combination of pure talents brought together to clash in styles and combine in quality to great effect. Now of course with her world-class titular song, one cannot help but immediately think of Dolly Parton when it comes to this film, and although I prefer both her and Higgins work in their next collaboration, here as Doralee defies and in turn celebrates the tropes of her persona (even with a hilarious knowing final titled card) whilst also offering perhaps the most heartfelt of the films chief trio of turns. Jane Fonda on the other hand is similarly stellar and the first character were truly introduced too. Here Fonda is in a word more subdued than some of her other turns, but is no way less filled with moments of great truth and touching realistic comedy in her presentation of a newly divorced housewife heading into the workplace for the first time in a long time. For me ultimately however the film is Lily Tomlins, she’s the driest, the funniest and the most cunning of the three chief female turns and is also the vehicle for multiple of the films biting more dramatic moments. Dabney Coleman is the hysterical and horrid central boss villain and once again continues his series of truly repugnant 80’s chauvinistic assholes, as seen with no too much delineation, but with no less quality in his great turn in Tootsie. The whole film is brought to its level of intense quality by these four performances and Higgins work, it’s such a film where the minute that pulsating rhythmic transcendent beat kicks in, you’re simply tied up for the next couple of hours without a wish of wanting to be free, with the film too more importantly being in the great vein of using comedy as a vessel for major political and social commentary and presentation – perhaps the films most underrated aspect.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)

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Not that he knew it, or anybody did, but Colin Higgins final film as a director was the 1982 masterpiece musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, written by Colin Higgins, from the book for the musical by Larry L. King and Peter Masterson. One of the most underrated and beloved movie musicals of the 80’s, certainly one of my favourites. Higgins adaptation restructures the musical to make it more directly about the love story between the two chief characters of Miss Mona, the proprietor of a local beloved Texan whorehouse by the name of The Chicken-Ranch, and the local Sherriff she’s been sneaking around with for a very long time (despite them being exclusive for three years now). The lead reason for the film’s choice to follow these two was largely down to the fact that in the roles, Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds were cast and hence the film very quickly became a project for the two of them, utilising both of their greatest strengths (with each of them even adopting each others, with Parton taking and delivering some great dramatic scenes and Reynolds even singing a duet with Parton). In fact the tagline for the film was “with Dolly and Burt, this much fun, just couldn’t be legal”. The musical itself by Carol Hall had many of its songs cut for various reasons, however the brilliance of her original musical completely shines through this new adaptation of it, with each of her great numbers that were chosen brought to the screen with incredibly vitality and craft by Higgins as a movie-maker of high energy comedies and an incredibly proficient capturer of movement and music. This is helped a lot of course by the sensational editing by David Bretherton and Pembroke J. Herring. The whole film moves at a great clip and although all of the songs from the original musical that were cut are also great, and although I can as a matter of fact see a possibility for a whole new film version with the complete original score used, the changes made for this film aren’t exactly for the better, but do in this case all work extremely well to make this film the great joy it is. Also the film boasts two new songs, both penned and performed by Parton and both truly great additions. Sneaking Around, a duet with Reynolds is the perfect introduction to the dynamic of Mona and Ed Earl’s relationship and the film even concludes with Parton’s other addition, a song you may have heard of, by the name of I Will Always Love You. Although the film does pull its punches when it comes to a fully emotional blow ending, the ‘having cake and eating it’ treatment of having both the emotional powerhouse song and then they get together anyway works in this case. Both songs are great additions for what this film is built to be in the case of the elements of it now being centrally a love story, Reynolds and Parton really are both sublime in their romantic scenes (and the rest for that matter), but they really do have great chemistry and Higgins new dialogue scenes are a treat for the ear. But as a musical the film is an absolute filmic joy! Higgins really does have a perfect grasp on the cinematic musical and utilises all manner of craft to bring this stage show to the screen with skill and talent, whilst never also over-cutting the film like so many movie musicals do rendering so much of the performances and choreography indiscernible. No, here many times Higgins takes the camera back and let’s the truly perfect choreography by Tony Stephens be the real star of the scene that it most certainly is. The film’s ensemble of both men and women dancers and actors bring the film up to a whole new level beyond its quaint comedy and its folksy small one room scenes and with Higgins direction, Hall’s music and Stephen’s choreography, we get some really great film musical sequences for all time. Beyond Parton and Reynolds the film goes on to boast many other great roles, including ones for a folksy Jim Nabors, a delightful Theresa Merritt. Aswell Dom Deluise as Melvin P. Thorpe, an outrageous television scare monger sensationalist, with a few great numbers and even more great scenes of showmanship. However the real film-stealer is Charles Durning, in an Oscar nominated supporting performance as The Governor – who has one great song, one great scene after that then sidesteps his merry way out of the movie. It’s the perfect fun and deserving Oscar nomination that I love whenever they are selected. All over Whorehouse is a delight. It’s a perfect movie musical and ever so re-watchable, and if only, if only, tragedy did not strike and it was not to be the final film of this incredible film figure.

-        -Thomas Carruthers