Not short on murder, mayhem, or any other screwball '70s conventions,
Foul Play is a wonderful vehicle for Goldie Hawn. She plays Gloria, a librarian "ready to take a chance again," who ends up the target of an assassination ring. Chevy Chase, fresh off of
Saturday Night Live, does the closest thing to real acting he would ever achieve (okay, maybe
Fletch) as Tony, the cop assigned to protect Gloria. Dudley Moore made an indelible impression on American audiences as Stanley Tibbets, a surprisingly kinky symphony conductor. But it's the quirky things that make this film: the grandmothers playing Scrabble with expletives, Burgess Meredith's snake Esme, the old Japanese couple in the back of the careening limo. From the opening credits with Barry Manilow crooning the title song, this is a fond trip down memory lane.
--Keith Simanton
Reader Reviews
After his meteoric rise in popularity from starring in the inaugural season of the ongoing, late-night TV comedy variety show "Saturday Night Live" (1975-), now veteran film actor Chevy Chase effectively began his big-screen career along side veteran big-screen comedic actress Goldie Hawn in the hilarious 1978 film "Foul Play". Taking place in the beautiful city of San Francisco, the single librarian Gloria Mundy (Goldie Hawn) becomes unwittingly entangled in a mysterious terrorist plot to kill Pope Pius XIII (Cyril Magnin, 1899-1988) when (while visiting San Francisco) he attends a performance of the 1885 opera "The Mikado" by William S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900). After Gloria witnesses a brutal killing and escapes an attempt on her own life, she is interviewed by bumbling San Francisco police detective Lt. Tony Carlson (Chevy Chase). Not totally convinced about her seemingly outlandish story of being attacked by an albino (William Frankfather, 1944-1998, in his big-screen debut) or the warnings she received about a dwarf, Tony nonetheless keeps a watchful eye upon Gloria whom he is attracted to. As Gloria continues to evade the killers, she meets the satyrical musical conductor Stanley Tibbets (the hilarious Dudley Moore, 1935-2002) and mistakenly confuses a short & innocent bible-salesman, J.J. MacKuen (Billy Barty, 1924-2000), to be the infamous dwarf. With a myriad of chase scenes, wistful dialog, unusual characters, Hitchcockian mystery and 1970's nostalgia, "Foul Play" is sure to bring a smile to most viewer's faces.
