Search - My Favorite Year on DVD

MPAA Rating: PG Content Advisory: Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Adult Language, Adult Humor, Profanity Movie Release: 1982 DVD Release: 07/09/2002 Format: DVD - Soft-Matted WSE for 16x9 TV - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 32 mins Studio: Warner Home Video Members Wishing: 13 Genres: Comedy, Showbiz Comedy, Odd Couple Film

Richard Benjamin's directorial debut is an engaging slice of nostalgia, purportedly based on an incident in life of Mel Brooks. 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 in the Bronx, 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. Though it fluctuates between wistful realism and the manic exaggeration of a TV comedy sketch, My Favorite Year holds together quite well, delivering a plentitude of solid laughs. Jessica Harper, usually the star of bizarro films like Inserts and Suspiria, is quite appealing as Benjy Stone's girlfriend; that lady dancing with O'Toole at the Stork Club is 1930s film star Gloria Stuart, later an Oscar nominee for Titanic; the King Kaiser Show wardrobe mistress is played by Selma Diamond, a real-life comedy writer for Sid Caesar. My Favorite Year was converted into an unsuccessful Broadway musical in the early 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Peter O'Toole - Alan Swann
Mark Linn-Baker - Benjy Stone
Jessica Harper - K.C. Downing
Joseph Bologna - King Kaiser
Bill Macy - Sy Benson

A funny and surprisingly warm film that features a sly, Oscar-nominated performance by Peter O'Toole, My Favorite Year receives a solid DVD release from Warner Bros. The disc restores the movie to its original theatrical aspect ratio in a clean widescreen anamorphic transfer and features a fair monophonic audio soundtrack that showcases legendary jazz arranger Ralph Burns' fine score. The only real DVD bonus, besides the now obligatory theatrical trailer, is director Richard Benjamin's audio commentary on the making of the movie. While ex-leading man Benjamin offers an engaging guide through making his directorial debut and working with actors as gifted as O'Toole, the story behind the movie is so rich that a great feature-length documentary could be made on its back story. My Favorite Year is based on executive producer Mel Brooks' real-life experiences as a writer on Sid Caesar's brilliant TV series Your Show of Shows. Star Peter O'Toole had just gotten his own roustabout life under control when he delivered this delightful performance as a veteran alcoholic actor based on Errol Flynn. This comedy is a great window onto the world of Sid Caesar's famed -- and still very funny -- series as well as a nostalgic love letter to 1950s New York City. Sid Caesar's writing stable also included Neil Simon, who went on to write Laughter on the 23rd Floor, based on his own experiences as a fledgling comedy writer. My Favorite Year is Richard Benjamin's best bow as a director and it was a nice surprise to find that he was also put in charge of bringing Laughter on the 23rd Floor to the small screen in 2001. ~ Nick Dedina, All Movie Guide